..it would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that there exists an absolute reality of things which is the same for all living beings. Reality is not a unique and homogeneous thing; it is immensely diversified, having as many different schemes and patterns as there are different organisms. Every organism is, so to speak, a monadic being. It has a world of its own because it has an experience of its own. The phenomena that we find in the life of a certain biological species are not transferable to any other species. The experiences - and therefore the realities - of two different organisms are incommensurable with one another. In the world of a fly, says Uexkull, we find only "fly things"; in the world of a sea urchin we find only "sea urchin things. . Ernst Cassirer
About This Quote

Uexkull always said that reality is not a monolithic thing. Reality is a very diverse concept, but it's also a very dynamic one. As long as there is a living organism there will be a reality specific to its experience.   When we talk about an "absolute truth" we are talking about the framework of the world, the framework behind the feeling of a particular thing existing.

The truth of an absolute truth is what you can see in a laboratory experiment. There, you can see how a certain chemical reacts with another chemical and produce a physical reaction. It's how you can measure things, and it's how you can predict what will happen next.

But this doesn't mean that other things don't have their own absolute truths. In fact, they do because organisms have their own realities and experiences to them. And these realities are incommensurable with one another.

  The only reason why we call them absolute truths is because they can be measured in a laboratory experiment and that's how we use them for our understanding of the world around us.

Source: An Essay On Man: An Introduction To A Philosophy Of Human Culture

Some Similar Quotes
  1. You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. - Dr. Seuss

  2. When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable. - Jess C. Scott

  3. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. <span style="margin:15px;... - Neil Gaiman

  4. We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that... - C. Joybell C.

  5. Nothing in this world was more difficult than love. - Unknown

More Quotes By Ernst Cassirer
  1. The form of observation , which underlines all speech and language development, always expresses a peculiar spiritual character , a special way of conceiving and apprehending. The difference between the several languages, therefore, is not a matter of different sounds and marks, but of different...

  2. ..it would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that there exists an absolute reality of things which is the same for all living beings. Reality is not a unique and homogeneous thing; it is immensely diversified, having as many different schemes and...

  3. Absolute trust in the reality of things begins to be shaken as the problem of truth enters upon the scene. The moment man ceases merely to live in and with reality and demands a knowledge of this reality, he moves into a new and fundamentally...

  4. Such is the strange situation in which modern philosophy finds itself. No former age was ever in such a favourable position with regard to the sources of our knowledge of human nature. Psychology, ethnology, anthropology, and history have amassed an astoundingly rich and constantly increasing...

  5. There is no remedy against this reversal of the natural order. Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Language, myth,...

Related Topics