ABSTRACT
“Pooling” is a handy metaphor, but like all metaphors, it has its limitations and, when applied to the construction of a map and more of a world of knowledge, may be even misleading. In fact mankind’s biological success in surviving and multiplying affords empirical evidence that useful knowledge of the external world—of man’s environment—is attainable. Admitting that the external world has a pattern or structure, then the ideal reconstruction, termed knowledge, must exhibit a corresponding pattern. If the pattern of the external world be at every moment incomplete and since the pattern of ideas “in heads” is incomparably less complete, it might be objected that knowledge is unattainable or at least unusable in practice. A world of ideas must therefore have a symbolic basis, and knowledge, being communicable, must be expressible. An ideal pattern must then also be a pattern of symbols.
