By Prof. Ben-Ami Scharfstein

From a short story,Fragments on Method By Graeme R. Newman:“Once a meat carver was about to eat an orange, when an outrageous question beset him: What is an orange? Hisinstant inclination was to cut the orange up, which he did, dividing it into three parts. It so happened that one of the parts was much bigger than the other two. The meat carver was delighted, and proceeded to slice the large piece into 6 pieces, whereas the other two parts could be sliced into only two pieces each.

An apprentice had watched this enterprise from the beginning, and was fascinated by the meat carver's obvious satisfaction. "What pleases you so?" asked the apprentice."I now know not only why this is an orange, but also, this larger piece tells me much more about the orange than the other two pieces combined."

609 pages