Ecce Colores

Abstract

…the Realist (the evil Seducer) promises common sense (the Innocent Maiden) that he will rescue her from her enemies…who (the Realist says) want to deprive her of her good old ice cubes and chairs. Faced with this dreadful prospect, the fair Maiden naturally opts for the company of the commonsensical Realist. But when they have travelled together for a little while the ‘Scientific Realist’, breaks the news that what the Maiden is going to get isn’,t her ice cubes and tables and chairs. In fact, all there really is — the Scientific Realist tells her over breakfast — is what ‘finished science’, will say there is — whatever that may be. She is left with a promissory note for She Knows Not What, and the assurance that even if there aren’,t tables and chairs, still there are some Dinge an sich that her ‘manifest image’,…‘,picture’,. Some will say that the lady has been had.