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This post is a collection of quotes about reason. There are 14 quotes divided into 5 sections:
A. Reasons fit together to support or deny a proposition (2)
B. Sensory experience is the source of all evidence (2)
C. It's impossible to 100% prove or disprove a proposition (except for a few absolute facts) (2)
D. Controlled experiments are a good source of evidence (4)
E. Disagreements are impossible to resolve when people are not clear about the reasons and evidence they are using (4)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650, philosopher):
1. "Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems." (Discourse on Method, 1637)
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970, philosopher):
2. "Verification in science is not, however, of single statements but of the entire system or a sub-system of statements." (The Unity of Science, 1934)
David Hume (1711-1776, philosopher):
3. "I never can catch myself at anytime without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception." (A Treatise on Human Nature, 1739)
John Locke (1632-1704, philosopher)
4. "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650, philosopher):
5. "In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things." (Principles of Philosophy, 1644)
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794, chemist):
6. "The art of concluding from experience and observation consists in evaluating probabilities, in estimating if they are high or numerous enough to constitute proof." (Rapport des commissaires charges par le roi de l'exemen du magnetism animal, 1784)
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970, philosopher):
7. "One of the principal tasks of the logical analysis of a given proposition is to find out the method of verification for that proposition." (Philosophy and Logical Syntax, 1935)
Roger Bacon (1219-1292, philosopher):
8. "Experimental science is the queen of sciences, and the goal of all speculation." (Quoted in Science at the Medieval Universities by James Walsch)
Richard Feynman (1918-1988, physicist):
9. "...if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid." (Adapted from a 1974 Caltech commencement address)
Claude Bernard (1813-1878, physiologist):
10. "Indeed, proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be still established that when this condition is removed the phenomenon will no longer appear." (Introduction a l'Etude de la Medecine Experimental, 1865)
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, philosopher):
11. "Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion." (Novum Organum, 1620)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, philosopher):
12. "To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth." (Philosophical Occasions, 1993 posthumous)
I. A. Richards (1893-1979, literary critic):
13. "Rhetoric, I shall urge, should be a study of misunderstanding and its remedies." (Philosophy of Rhetoric, 1964)
Jane Goodall (1934-now, primatologist):
14. "Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries." (Quoted in Verge Magazine, 2010)
This post is a collection of quotes about reason. There are 14 quotes divided into 5 sections:
A. Reasons fit together to support or deny a proposition (2)
B. Sensory experience is the source of all evidence (2)
C. It's impossible to 100% prove or disprove a proposition (except for a few absolute facts) (2)
D. Controlled experiments are a good source of evidence (4)
E. Disagreements are impossible to resolve when people are not clear about the reasons and evidence they are using (4)
A. Reasons fit together to support or deny a proposition
Rene Descartes (1596-1650, philosopher):
1. "Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems." (Discourse on Method, 1637)
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970, philosopher):
2. "Verification in science is not, however, of single statements but of the entire system or a sub-system of statements." (The Unity of Science, 1934)
B. Sensory experience is the source of all evidence
David Hume (1711-1776, philosopher):
3. "I never can catch myself at anytime without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception." (A Treatise on Human Nature, 1739)
John Locke (1632-1704, philosopher)
4. "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689)
C. It's impossible to 100% prove or disprove a proposition (except for a few absolute facts)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650, philosopher):
5. "In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things." (Principles of Philosophy, 1644)
Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794, chemist):
6. "The art of concluding from experience and observation consists in evaluating probabilities, in estimating if they are high or numerous enough to constitute proof." (Rapport des commissaires charges par le roi de l'exemen du magnetism animal, 1784)
D. Controlled experiments are a good source of evidence
Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970, philosopher):
7. "One of the principal tasks of the logical analysis of a given proposition is to find out the method of verification for that proposition." (Philosophy and Logical Syntax, 1935)
Roger Bacon (1219-1292, philosopher):
8. "Experimental science is the queen of sciences, and the goal of all speculation." (Quoted in Science at the Medieval Universities by James Walsch)
Richard Feynman (1918-1988, physicist):
9. "...if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid." (Adapted from a 1974 Caltech commencement address)
Claude Bernard (1813-1878, physiologist):
10. "Indeed, proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be still established that when this condition is removed the phenomenon will no longer appear." (Introduction a l'Etude de la Medecine Experimental, 1865)
E. Disagreements are impossible to resolve when people are not clear about the reasons they are using
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, philosopher):
11. "Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion." (Novum Organum, 1620)
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, philosopher):
12. "To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth." (Philosophical Occasions, 1993 posthumous)
I. A. Richards (1893-1979, literary critic):
13. "Rhetoric, I shall urge, should be a study of misunderstanding and its remedies." (Philosophy of Rhetoric, 1964)
Jane Goodall (1934-now, primatologist):
14. "Especially now when views are becoming more polarized, we must work to understand each other across political, religious and national boundaries." (Quoted in Verge Magazine, 2010)
