“Thanks to the scientific method, most people in "developed" countries have an outlook of mild deism. We assume things like weather and disease operate according to fixed natural laws. Every so often, though, problems impinge on us so directly that we stretch beyond that mildly deistic stance and ask God to intervene. When a drought drags on too long, we pray for rain. When a young mother gets a diagnosis of cervical cancer, we solicit prayers for her healing. We beseech God as if trying to talk God into something God otherwise might not want to do.” PeopleIfsWantTryingLongCountryProblemMightLawYoungMotherAsksNaturalPrayerHealingPrayingDiseaseRainMethodAssumingCancerWeatherThanksFixedDragOutlookDiagnosisNatural LawStanceScientific MethodDroughtDeismDeveloped CountryYoung MotherCervical Cancer Author:Philip Yancey
“The scientific-religious conflict ultimately is a conflict between allegiance to this method and allegiance to even an irreducible minimum of belief so fixed in advance that it can never be modified.” BeliefReligiousAtheismConflictMethodFixedMinimumAllegianceReligious Conflict Book:James and Dewey on Belief and Experience Source: James and Dewey on Belief and Experience
“Geometry is of much assistance in architecture, and in particular it teaches us the use of the rule and compasses, by which especially we acquire readiness in making plans for buildings in their grounds, and rightly apply the square, the level, and the plummet. By means of optics the light in buildings can be drawn from fixed quarters of the sky. Difficult questions involving symmetry are solved by means of geometrical theories and methods.” MeanUseLightDifficultLevelsTeachPlansSkyBuildingParticularTheoryMethodArchitectureFixedAcquireSquaresQuartersAssistanceCompassGeometryInvolvingReadinessSymmetryOpticsDifficult Questions Author:Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
“Where woman has taken her place in business she has found her method ready-shaped for her, and following that, she does her work,if with a certain amount of monotony, yet without undue fatigue. Her hours are fixed, and as a rule she gets needful change of scene as she goes to her business and returns to her home or the place where she lives. But the "home- maker" has not, nor can she have, any such change, and her hours are always from the rising of the sun beyond the going down of the same.” IfsDoeHomeCertainFoundHoursSunTakenReadyReturnAmountSceneMethodFollowingFixedRisingMakersFatigueMonotonyWorking Women Author:Anna Brackett
“How can there be methods and systems to arrive at something that is living? To that which is static, fixed, dead, there can be a way, a definite path, but not to that which is living. Do not reduce reality to a static thing and then invent methods to reach it. ...Truth has no path. Truth is living and, therefore, changing. It has no resting place, no form, no organized institution, no philosophy. When you see that, you will understand that this living thing is also what you are. You cannot express and be alive through static, put-together form, through stylized movement.” WayPhilosophyRealityTogetherFormPathAliveMovementTruth IsMethodInstitutionsFixedOrganizedDefiniteLiving ThingsStatic Author:Bruce Lee
“It's not possible to search for God using the methods of a detective... There is no way. You can only wait till God's axe severs your roots: then you will understand that you are here only through a miracle, and you will remain fixed forever in wonderment and equilibrium.” WayWaitingForeverRootsMiracleMethodFixedDetectivesEquilibrium Author:Karel Capek
“It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, "objectivity," "truth," it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes.” MenHumansLooksIdeasTruthFormScienceOrderSocialViewsPrinciplesRichClearStageSecurityMaterialsTheoryDevelopmentCircumstancesPleaseIntellectualMethodInstinctClarityFixedRationalityHypothesisNaiveSurroundingsCravingObjectivityPrecisionHuman DevelopmentAnything Goes Author:Paul Feyerabend
“When the difficulty of a problem lies only in finding out what follows from certain fixed premises, mathematical methods furnish invaluable wings for flying over intermediate obstructions.” ProblemScienceLyingCertainFindingsDifficultyMathematicsMethodWingsFlyingMathematicalFixedPremisesInvaluableObstruction Author:Arthur M. Wellington
“Celeborn is more fixed in his beliefs and methods than Galadriel, which is his failing, perhaps. As a team, they work well, although apparently they only have sex once every 2,000 years or so.” YearsWellsBeliefSexFailingTeamMethodFixedGaladriel Author:Marton Csokas
“The oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given--something to which people, as mere spectators, must adapt.” PeopleWorldProblemGivenMethodSeriesMereFixedEntitySpectatorsPresentationOppressors Book:Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition
“A few modern philosopher's assert that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism.... With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.” IndividualMemoriesAttentionPracticeModernJudgmentTrainingIncreaseIntelligentMethodPhilosopherManageFixedProtestPessimismQuantityBrutalOur Memories Author:Alfred Binet