Fennie pray a cost in the news

and there's to all of physical

and bless you all of physical.

He bless you, Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at Kings College

London and the LMU in Munich, online at www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode A Light That Never Goes Out.

Robert Grose test.

Metaphores exercise a stronger influence in philosophy than most philosophers would probably like to admit.

Whole political theories have been grounded in the comparison of the state to a human body, as we

saw with the Polycraticus of John of Salisbury. Philosophy itself has often been described metaphorically,

as when the Stoics drew an analogy between its three parts of ethics, physics, and logic, and the yoke,

white, and shell of an egg, or the fruit trees and surrounding

wall of an orchard.

In our own day, misguided parents who discouraged their children from studying philosophy modify this stoic image, suggesting that philosophy may be more like a natural fertilizer sometimes used in orchards.

But no metaphor has been a more constant or influential feature in the history of philosophy

than the comparison of knowledge to eyesight.

It plays a role not just in major philosophical works like Plato's Republic, but even in our very language.

To realize something is to see it, and you can perceive that something is true.

To make a nice point in an argument is to offer an observation, while accurate anticipation of future events can be called foresight.

The same was true of ancient Greek. Our word theory comes from the Greek Theoria, which means viewing or beholding, but was used by Aristotle to refer to philosophical contemplation.

Even the Greek word for intellect, noose, comes from a verb of seeing, no ein.

The medievals were enthusiastic users of this metaphor, not least because it went so nicely

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