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Empiricism Quotes

Browse 98 quotes about Empiricism.

Empiricism Quotes

“[W]here the rationalist sees contact with theoretical considerations as a source of contamination, we should instead view such influence as potentially beneficial. Theory-mediated judgment is not automatically “contaminated”; under the right circumstances, and under the guidance of appropriate theory, it is instead a source of correction and illumination. We should not search for a realm of reason somehow insulated from and uninformed by our best available theories. Instead we should welcome the prospect of a conception of rational inference which is itself fully vetted by all available evidence.”

EpistemologyRationalismEmpiricismA Priori Judgments
Author:Hilary Kornblith
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“Atoms, the building blocks of so-called matter, however much they might seem to be physically circumscribed, aren’t actually like tiny billiard balls. That’s kindergarten science. From a shamanic or alchemical perspective, atoms are more like sentient waves, their intelligently responsive existence a blur of potential until they magically appear to materialize.”

ScienceIllusionPhysicsMaterialismAtomsQuantumPhysicalityEmpiricismAtomSimulation Theory
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“empirical evidence is precisely that which is sacred in so-called scientific thought, and by these means—there’s no point in denying it—we can go far, but at the same time, by following this method, we greatly distance ourselves from the problem, because it’s so, but so manifest that empirical proof itself is something that no one has ever heretofore truly dealt with, namely, no one has ever wished genuinely to confront the deeply problematic nature of empirical verification as such, because whoever did this went mad, or appeared to be a pure dilettante,”

RealityTruthEvidenceProofInsanityFactEmpiricism
Book:Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming
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“...it would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that there exists an absolute reality of things which is the same for all living beings. Reality is not a unique and homogeneous thing; it is immensely diversified, having as many different schemes and patterns as there are different organisms. Every organism is, so to speak, a monadic being. It has a world of its own because it has an experience of its own. The phenomena that we find in the life of a certain biological species are not transferable to any other species. The experiences - and therefore the realities - of two different organisms are incommensurable with one another. In the world of a fly, says Uexkull, we find only "fly things"; in the world of a sea urchin we find only "sea urchin things.”

WorldRealityFormExperienceSpeciesPhenomenonDifferenceEmpiricismOrganismIncommensurabilityOntology Of ThingsPhenomenalism
Book:An essay on man: an introduction to a philosophy of human culture
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“At issue is not only knowledge of the world but our survival as individuals and as a species. All the basic technologies ever invented by humans to feed and protect themselves depend on a relentless commitment to hard-nosed empiricism: you cannot assume that your arrowheads will pierce the hide of a bison or that your raft will float just because the omens are propitious and you have been given supernatural reassurance that they will. You have to be sure.”

WorldHumansHas BeensHardIndividualGivenTechnologyIssuesDependsProtectSurvivalCommitmentAssumingSpeciesFloatsRelentlessPierceReassuranceOmenEmpiricismKnowledge Of The WorldBison
Book:Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
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“My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.”

DifferentFactsHandsInterestFactorsFascinatedMemories Dreams ReflectionsDifferent DirectionsComparative ReligionEmpiricism
Book:Memories, dreams, reflections
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“There's a tremendous popular fallacy which holds that significant research can be carried out by trying things. Actually it is easy to show that in general no significant problem can be solved empirically, except for accidents so rare as to be statistically unimportant. One of my jests is to say that we work empirically -- we use bull's eye empiricism. We try everything, but we try the right thing first!”

TryingFirstsUseShowsProblemEyeEasyResearchAccidentsSignificantRight ThingBullsUnimportantFallacyEmpiricism
Author:Edwin Land
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“It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.”

WellsMadeSaidViewsSupportAuthorityArgumentOppositesSeriesPoint Of ViewStatementsThinkerTopicsEloquentEmpiricism
Book:The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly ImprobableFragility
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“The significant contribution of empiricism was not the eradication of certainty, but the eradication of infallibility as a criterion of certainty. And this shift from infallibilism to fallibilism has profound consequences not only for toleration, but also for the subordination of faith to reason and theology to philosophy.”

ReasonPhilosophyAtheismConsequenceProfoundPositive AtheismSignificantTheologyCertaintyContributionCriteriaTolerationEmpiricismSubordinationInfallibility
Book:Why Atheism?
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“Bohr’s standpoint, that a space-time description is impossible, I reject a limine. Physics does not consist only of atomic research, science does not consist only of physics, and life does not consist only of science. The aim of atomic research is to fit our empirical knowledge concerning it into our other thinking. All of this other thinking, so far as it concerns the outer world, is active in space and time. If it cannot be fitted into space and time, then it fails in its whole aim and one does not know what purpose it really serves.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWorldLifeDoeWholePurposeSpaceKnowledgeImpossibleFailingFailureFitResearchConcernAimActivePhysicsDescriptionRejectsTime And SpaceStandpointOuter WorldsEmpiricismSpace Time
Author:Erwin Schrodinger
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“To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, aboutwhat is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”

WorldMeanRealityScienceExplanationRejectionEnterpriseSearch For TruthEmpiricism
Author:Bas van Fraassen
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“Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and observations and fruitful of further experiments and observations.”

IfsProblemScienceProcessInvolvedDegreesConceptsExperimentsObservationSchemesProblem SolvingUndertakingsInterconnectedEmpiricism
Author:James Bryant Conant
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“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, 'cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”

IfsBelieveMeanHardHumorHandsSeemsFunnyScienceWatchesVirtuePureLuckyMethodMoodMetaphysicsArbitraryAstrologyHard To BelieveEmpiricism
Author:Steve Martin
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“Someday someone will write a pathology of experimental physics and bring to light all those swindles which subvert our reason, beguile our judgement and, what is worse, stand in the way of any practical progress. The phenomena must be freed once and for all from their grim torture chamber of empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism; they must be brought before the jury of man's common sense.”

MenWayWritingReasonLightScienceCommonProgressPhysicsPracticalsExperimentsCommon SenseJudgementTortureSomedayMechanismChamberJuryGrimDogmatismPathologyEmpiricism
Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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“In a very real sense, therefore, advocacy of the doctrine of continuity [i.e evolutionism] has always necessitated on retreat from pure empiricism [i.e., logic an observation], and contrary to what is widely assumed by evolutionary biologists today, it has always been the anti-evolutionists [i.e creationist], not the evolutionists, in the scientific community who have struck rigidly to the facts and adhered to a more strictly empirical approach... It was Darwin the evolutionist who was retreating from the facts.”

RealFactsTodayCommunityEvolutionPureApproachLogicContraryDoctrineObservationRetreatContinuityAdvocacyBiologistEmpiricismCreationist
Author:Michael Denton
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“"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition.”

MindSelfMatterReasonFactsKnownVirtueTheoryIndependenceSacredDefinitionsEvidentDeclarationRationalityDistinguishedNewtonAssertionMatter Of FactFranklinForksDeclaration Of IndependenceDeterminismAnalyticsIsaacSyntheticEmpiricismHume
Author:Benjamin Franklin
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“In philosophical terms, the opposite of rationalism is not irrationalism but empiricism, that is, a willingness to form beliefs on the basis of experience rather than from a priori deduction. Empirical evidence never yields the dogmatic certainty that accompanies logical deduction.”

FormBeliefTermEvidenceOppositesBasesPhilosophicalLibertarianCertaintyLogicalWillingnessYieldAccompanyRationalismDogmaticDeductionsEmpiricismEmpirical Evidence
Author:John Quiggin
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“Religions, of course, have their own demanding intellectual traditions, as Jesuits and Talmudic scholars might attest.... But, in its less rigorous, popular forms, religion is about as intellectually challenging as the average self-help book. (Like personal development literature, mass market books about spirituality and religion celebrate emotionalism and denigrate reason. They elevate the "truths" of myths and parables over empiricism.) In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity but a frequent cause of it.”

BookSelfReasonHelpingMightFormSpiritualityCoursesLiteratureCausesChallengesSelf HelpDevelopmentMassIntellectualTraditionFunctionRewardsAveragePositive AtheismStupidityMythPersonal DevelopmentPunishmentCelebrateScholarQuestioningParablesEmpiricismGullibilityJesuitSelf Help BooksHelp Book
Author:Wendy Kaminer
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