Galen Strawson on the topography of philosophy

I find philosophy a profoundly concrete, sensual activity. The world of ideas is as solid as the world of seas and mountains, or more so. One can no more change its topography than one can move Oxford closer to London, although one can discover new views or discover that one has got the topography wrong, or that many people have for many years. Ideas seem as embodied, in the world of ideas, with its views and obstructions and vastness, as we do in our material world. They seem tangible, with specific savours, aesthetic properties, emotional tones, curves, surfaces, insides, hidden places, structure, geometry, dark passages, shining corners, auras, force fields and combinatorial chemistry.

From Real Materialism and other essays, Oxford University Press, 2008.