When we say that analytical reﬂection anticipates all possible knowledge over and above what we at present know, that it includes reﬂection in its results and abolishes the phenomenon of finitude, perhaps we are caricaturing intellectualism, and offering in its name a worldcentred reﬂection, a truth as seen by the prisoner in the cave who prefers the shadows to which he is accustomed and who does not understand that they owe their existence to the light.