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Theory Quotes

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Theory Quotes

“A rare book at once of great importance and wonderful to read.... Gould presents a fascinating historical study of scientific racism, tracing it through monogeny and polygeny, phrenology , recapitulation, and hereditarian IQ theory. He stops at each point to illustrate both the logical inconsistencies of the theories and the prejudicially motivated, albeit unintentional, misuse of data in each case.... A major addition to the scientific literature.”

Book Literature Cases Study Wonderful Theory Majors Racism Importance Historical Data Fascinating Logical Motivated Misuse Inconsistency Tracing Phrenology Recapitulation

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point.”

People Men Problem Force Practice Failing Theory Men And Women Historical Starting Acknowledge Banking Starting Point Posing Theory And Practice

Book:Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition

Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition

“Economy and ideology. The claim (presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism) that every fluctuation of politics and ideology can be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of the structure, must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combated in practice with the authentic testimony of Marx, the author of concrete political and historical works.”

Political Practice Economy Expression Theory Essentials Claims Structure Historical Ideology Materialism Concrete Primitive Testimony Fluctuation

Author:Antonio Gramsci

“It is possible to express the laws of thermodynamics in the form of independent principles , deduced by induction from the facts of observation and experiment, without reference to any hypothesis as to the occult molecular operations with which the sensible phenomena may be conceived to be connected; and that course will be followed in the body of the present treatise. But, in giving a brief historical sketch of the progress of thermodynamics, the progress of the hypothesis of thermic molecular motions cannot be wholly separated from that of the purely inductive theory.”

Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers by William John Macquorn Rankine

“Though [Charles Guignebert] could not accept either the Christ myth theory, which held that no historical Jesus existed, or the Dutch Radical denial that Paul authored any of the epistles, Guignebert took both quite seriously.”

Jesus Christ Accepting Theory Historical Myth Radical Denial Dutch Historical Jesus

Author:Robert M. Price

“It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.”

Way Firsts Believe Facts Form I Believe Process Cases Atheism Theory Evidence Historical Positive Atheism Narrative Wiser Accord Emerging Generalization Arranging

Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays

Source: Practicing History: Selected Essays

“Christian scholars often say that Sufi theories are close to those of Christianity. Many Moslems maintain that they are essentially derived from Islam. The resemblance of many Sufi ideas to those of several religious and esoteric systems are sometimes taken as evidence of derivation. The Islamic interpretation is that religion is of one origin, differences being due to local or historical causes.”

Ideas Sometimes Christian Causes Differences Religious Christianity Taken Theory Evidence Historical Islam Dues Locals Islamic Interpretation Scholar Sufi Resemblance Esoteric

Book:The Elephant in the Dark

Source: The Elephant in the Dark

“Monotheistic religions in the West have tended to conflate having a general orientation in life, having a specific theory of the world, having a sense of the positive meaningfulness of one's existence, and having a fixed set of rules for behavior, but these elements are in principle separable. ... The "metaphysical need," ... both Marx and Nietzsche held, is a historical phenomenon that arises under determinate circumstances, and could be expected to disappear under other circumstances that we could relatively easily envisage.”

World Needs Existence Principles Theory Circumstances Behavior Elements Historical West Disappear Expected Arise Fixed Phenomenon Metaphysical Orientation Meaningfulness

Author:Raymond Geuss

“The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx's concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud's.”

Men Two Moving Social Process Theory Conflict Concepts Historical Bounds Critical Liberation Reaching Phases Comprehensive Inner Conflict Uncovering Critical Theory

Book:The art of being

Source: The art of being

“The material which a scientist actually has at his disposal, his laws, his experimental results, his mathematical techniques, his epistemological prejudices, his attitude towards the absurd consequences of the theories which he accepts, is indeterminate in many ways, ambiguous, and never fully separated from the historical background . This material is always contaminated by principles which he does not know and which, if known, would be extremely hard to test.”

Source: Against Method

“Because of their historical theory of the "alienation of labor" (that the worker must become less and less in control of the work of his hands) the Marxist parties never fought for the man-worthy job itself.”

Men Hands Jobs Party Theory Labor Historical Workers Worthy Alienation Marxist

Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

Source: Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society

“This is not a matter of subjective theory, but of plain, historical fact. If there had never been a nation of Israel, there would have been no patriarchs, no prophets, no apostles, no Bible and no Saviour. In John 4:22, Jesus Himself summed all this up in one simple statement: "Salvation is from the Jews." Christians from all other racial backgrounds owe to the Jewish people a spiritual debt which can never be calculated.”

“Maybe one way to think about it would be in the context of the historical development of germ theory. The problem of childbed fever was not significant until the development of a male-dominated medical establishment made possible the situation in which a professional might move from touching a corpse (for the purposes of study) to putting his unwashed hands up against, or into, a woman in labor.”

“I'm less influenced by any of [Karl] Marx's ideas today than I've ever been in my life, and most significantly Marx's theory of historical materialism, which I think is virtually a debris of despotism.”

Thinking Ideas Today Theory Historical Materialism Despotism Debris

Author:Murray Bookchin

“After reading The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi, I realized that capitalism did not naturally grow as [Karl] Marx would imply by his theory of historical materialism. People were dragged into capitalism screaming, shouting, and fighting all along the way, trying to resist this industrial and commercial world.”

People World Way Trying Fighting Reading Grows Theory Capitalism Transformation Historical I Realized Materialism Shouting

Author:Murray Bookchin