Category Archives: Quotes
A philosophical apology from 1919 for not being pro-war
Leiter posted the PDF of this on his site. I can’t help but reproduce some of the choicer quotes: “DEAR FRIEND: Your letter gently but un-mistakably intimates that I am a slacker, a slacker in peace as well as in … Continue reading
Filed under History, Logic and philosophy, Philosophy, Politics, Quotes, Sermon, Social evolution, Truisms
Evolution quotes: Quetelet on populations
Populations arise imperceptibly; it is only when they have reached a certain degree of development that we begin to think of their existence. This increase is more or less rapid, and it proceeds either from an excess of births over … Continue reading
Mill on species and Kinds
… every Kind (and a species must be a Kind) is distinguished from other Kinds, not by any one attribute, but by an indefinite number. Man, for instance, is a species of the genus animal: Rational (or rationality, for it … Continue reading
Filed under Quotes, Species and systematics
Hume on induction (sort of)
Reading this from the Enquiry, in the section on Miracles (Chapter X), it hit me Hume is describing induction*… A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. In such conclusions as are founded on an infallible experience, he … Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, Philosophy, Quotes
More Feynman on philosophers
Take note: he’s writing this in the dark ages of philosophy of science (1965): Another most interesting change in the ideas and philosophy of science brought about by quantum mechanics is this: it is not possible to predict exactly what … Continue reading
Filed under Philosophy, Quotes, Science
On sources
Jeb McLeish sent me a link to this rather fascinating monograph, which translates Isidore of Seville’s medical section of the Etymologiae (c632), with an extensive foreword by the translator, William D. Sharpe. I recommend the introduction as a summary of the … Continue reading
Evolution quotes: Diderot
It seems that nature has taken pleasure in varying the same mechanism in a thousand different ways. She never abandons any class of her creations before she has multiplied the individuals of it in as many different forms as possible. … Continue reading
Quote: Eddington’s two tables
Arthur Stanley Eddington was an Englishman, a physicist, a pacifist and a clever writer: I have settled down to the task of writing these lectures and have drawn up my chairs to my two tables. Two tables! Yes; there are … Continue reading
Filed under General Science, History, Philosophy, Quotes
