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Quote by Willard Van Orman Quine

“Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and control the triggerings of our sensory receptors in the light of previous triggering of our sensory receptors.”

Quote by Willard Van Orman Quine

Author

Willard Van Orman Quine

Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher known for his work in logic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language. He is considered one of the leading analytic philosophers of the 20th century. more

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“Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.”

Names Mathematics

Book:The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays

Source: The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays

“An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for astrict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.”

Purpose Special Involved Standards Rate Faithful Dramatic Relative Quotations Evaluation Indirect Intentionality

Book:Word and Object

Source: Word and Object

“The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences. In our hands it develops and changes, through more or less arbitrary and deliberate revisions and additions of our own, more or less directly occasioned by the continuing stimulation of our sense organs. It is a pale gray lore, black with fact and white with convention. But I have found no substantial reasons for concluding that there are any quite black threads in it, or any white ones.”

Source: The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays

“To call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built.”

Real Process Existence Building Theory Cost Built Description Artificial Standpoint

Book:Word and Object

Source: Word and Object

“Theory may be deliberate, as in a chapter on chemistry, or it may be second nature, as in the immemorial doctrine of ordinary enduring middle-sized physical objects.”

May Middle Objects Theory Ordinary Endure Doctrine Chemistry Chapters Deliberate

Author:Willard Van Orman Quine

“One man's antinomy is another man's falsidical paradox, give or take a couple of thousand years.”

Men Giving Years Couple Thousand Paradox One Man Thousand Years Another Man

Book:The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays

Source: The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays

“Some may find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal.”

May Comfort Distinction Reflecting Unreal

Author:Willard Van Orman Quine

“. . . a dirty exterior is a great enemy to beauty of all descriptions.”

Enemy Dirty Description Exterior

Book:The History of John Marten: A Sequel to The Life of Henry Milner

Source: The History of John Marten: A Sequel to The Life of Henry Milner

“Doctors should first understand the cause of disease, then treat it with diet. Medicine should only be used if diet fails”

Ifs Should Firsts Used Causes Failing Disease Doctors Treats Medicine Diets

Author:Sun Simiao

“Poverty makes people do reckless things, but [the rich] do worse to protect their [interests]”

People Interest Poverty Rich Protect Reckless

Author:Immortal Technique