“On the stage . . . masks are assumed with some regard to procedure; in everyday life, the participants act their parts without consideration either for suitability of scene or for the words spoken by the rest of the cast: the result is a general tendency for things to be brought to the level of farce even when the theme is serious enough.” LifeEnoughLevelsResultsStageSeriousSceneRegardEverydayCastsTendenciesAssumptionThemeConsiderationMaskEveryday LifeProceduresParticipantsFarce Book:A Question of Upbringing: Book 1 of A Dance to the Music of Time Source: A Question of Upbringing: Book 1 of A Dance to the Music of Time
“There is no ground whatever for the claim, so often made by religious apologists, that these ideals are specifically Christian and originated with Jesus. What were specifically Christian were some of the less enlightened teachings, which have done untold harm. Christians claim that organised Christianity has been a great force for good, but this view can be maintained on one assumption only: that everything good in the Christian era is a result of Christianity and everything bad happened in spite of it.” Has BeensMadeDoneChristianJesusForceReligiousResultsViewsChristianityHappenedAtheismTeachingIdealsClaimsPositive AtheismHarmErasAssumptionSpiteEnlightenedOrganised Author:Margaret E. Knight
“It is an assumption that there is always one single dimension for assessing persons and their actions that has canonical priority. This is the dimension of moral evaluation; "good/evil" is supposed always to trump any other form of evaluation, but that is an assumption, probably the result of the long history of the Christianisation and then gradual de-Christianisation of Europe, which one need not make. Evaluation need not mean moral evaluation, but might include assessments of efficiency, ... simplicity, perspicuousness, aesthetic appeal, and so on.” NeedsMeanPersonsLongMightActionFormEvilResultsMoralTrumpEuropeSimplicityPrioritiesAppealsAssumptionDimensionsAestheticEfficiencyAssessmentEvaluationGood EvilAssessing Author:Raymond Geuss
“The page of my notebook was filled with many messy integrals, but all of a sudden I saw emerge a formula for counting. I had begun to calculate a quantity on the assumption that the result was a real number, but found instead that, in certain units, all the possible answers would be integers. This meant that areas and volumes cannot take any value, but come in multiples of fixed units.” RealWould BeCertainValuesFoundAnswersResultsNumbersSawsPagesAreasMathematicsFilledFixedAssumptionFormulasQuantityVolumeUnitsCountingMessyNotebookIntegers Book:Three Roads To Quantum Gravity Source: Three Roads To Quantum Gravity
“Logic, too, also rests on assumptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world, e.g., on the assumption that there areequal things, that the same thing is identical at different points in time: but this science arose as a result of the opposite belief (that such things actually exist in the real world). And it is the same with mathematics, which would certainly never have arisen if it had been understood from the beginning that there is no such thing in nature as a perfectly straight line, a true circle, and absolute measure.” IfsWorldDifferentRealBeliefLinesResultsUnderstoodLogicOppositesAbsolutesMathematicsEqualityCirclesAssumptionReal WorldIdenticalStraight Lines Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
“Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends therefore in mysticism. To relate oneself in the spirit of reverence for life to the multiform manifestations of the will-to-live which together constitute the world is ethical mysticism. All profound world-view is mysticism, the essence of which is just this: that out of my unsophisticated and naïve existence in the world there comes, as a result of thought about self and the world, spiritual self-devotion to the mysterious infinite Will which is continuously manifested in the universe.” ThinkingWorldEndsSelfTogetherSpiritualSpiritUniverseResultsViewsExistenceEssenceInfiniteProfoundOneselfDevotionRationalMysteriousRelateManifestationAssumptionMysticismEthicalReverenceRational ThinkingWorld ViewReverence For LifeWill To Live Author:Albert Schweitzer
“Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science.” YearsPurposeResultsTakenSpecialEvolutionPeriodsBuiltYears AgoAccountsAssumptionAdsFabricHypothesisConvenientGrotesqueFantasiaTearing Apart Author:James Bryant Conant