Metaphors in an open-class test

Avishai Margalit

Naomi Goldblum

pp. 219-241

in: Jaakko Hintikka (ed), Aspects of metaphor, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

There are phenomena whose existence is secure but for which we lack an explanation as to how they are brought about. Hypnosis is one example of such a phenomenon. There are other phenomena whose existence is in doubt even though there are people who offer putative explanations for them. Telepathy is an example of the latter. A distinction should be made between securing a phenomenon and saving a phenomenon — that is, between guaranteeing its existence and explaining how it has come about. Sometimes doubt is cast on the saving of a phenomenon, that is, on a particular explanation being offered for the phenomenon, while at other times it is the very existence of the phenomenon that is doubted. The story is told that Dr. Rhine once had dinner at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton with Einstein and Von Neumann. He told them about the wonders of telepathic communication between someone in New York and someone in San Francisco. Von Neumann became very excited. He started offering hypotheses about the possibility of various sorts of waves that might explain the phenomenon. Einstein, according to the story, asked where the two people had been. "New York and San Francisco? That's too far." In our terms, Von Neumann assumed that the phenomenon is secure and that the problem is to explain it.