“I simply couldnt learn to swim in shallow water!”
Bernard Shaw On Swimming or Learning to Swim at the age of 90
Q: You spent a boyhood which was a singularly free and imaginative one. You taught yourself to swim in Killiney Bay?
A: Yes, I found that I simply couldnt learn to swim in shallow water, for my feet would insist upon touching the ground. So I went to what is called the White Rock, and jumped in where I could not reach the bottom–and thereby was forced to swim ashore.
An interview by James Whelan (1946), in Bernard Shaw, The Matter with Ireland, Rupert Hart-Davis, Soho Qure London, 1962, p.290
cf Hegel’s critic of Kant (who was trying to divide instrumental knowledge from reality as it is): “…to seek to know before we know is as absurd as the wise resolution of Scholasticus, not to venture into the water until he had learned to swim”. Let’s then plunge boldly into the stream!
Comment by Martin Dumas — April 19, 2006 @ 6:36 pm
Martin, many thanks for Hegel’s quote! I think some, if not all, philosophers do try to learn swimming without get their feet wet.So their understanding of swimming, I guest, basically comes from having baths and the like–they are metaphors. No wonders philosophers like and live with metaphors. That’s how they make a living:-)
Yes, the best way to probe into this world is to be engaged with it! (Chenwei)
Comment by viosym — April 19, 2006 @ 10:14 pm