All Quotes By Tag: Empiricism

“Det förflutna, som är mitt och Johannes Lupigis och andras, börjar lagra upp sig framför mig såsom en framtid, vilken jag skall genomtränga. Det förflutna lagrar på det sättet upp sig framför oss alla. Vi står och trampar i detta och måste genomtränga det för att få kunskap. Vi har genomlevt – eller uppslukat – en del av det och nu måste vi genomtränga och svälja det igen för att bli fria genom kunskapen om hur det var. Så är antagligen kunskapslagen, vägen till erfarenhetens förvärv, har diakonen Anselmus sagt.”

“How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world.”

“Beliefs are personal, but universal truths are above that. For example, the surface temperature of the sun is around 5,505 degrees Celsius – the speed of light is around 300,000 kilometers per second – the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old – modern day chimps are the closest cousins of us humans. These are irrefutable universal truth, regardless of what anyone believes.”

“Being articulate is not the same as being wise. Truth devoid of conscience, is worthless in human existence.”

“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”

“Only assertions that we can verify make sense. A sentence such as “God is here” cannot be verified because we cannot prove God’s existence by empirical means. Hence this sentence is senseless.”

“…let us point out precisely the difficulties of empiricism as a theory of knowledge. First, it begins with two fixed, unchangeable ultimates–mind and matter. Second, it asserts that knowledge is the agreement of ideas with each other, in which case we are not dealing with nature or things at all, and consequently, have left out one of our ultimates. Third, it then asserts (for it is essential that knowledge should somehow or other be connected with things) that knowledge consists in the agreement between an idea and a thing; and in this case we can never tell when the agreement takes place; and furthermore, it is impossible for ideas and things to disagree, for, according to the theory, ideas are copies of things. This means that empiricism can not account for the fact of error. Every theory of knowledge must make a place for error, for, as is evident, error seems to be as industrious as truth.Consequently, if knowledge actually does take place, if there is such an activity, thing, or relation as knowledge, empiricism fails to give an account of it which is free from contradictions. The moral is, as the stories in our school readers say, don’t begin with fixed things, for they beguileth one into inconsistencies.”

“Empiricism teaches that there is a real world of fixed things on the outside and that ideas of these outside things are stamped on the mind which is at the beginning of life a blank.”

“Foreknowledge cannot be gotten from ghosts and spirits, cannot be had by analogy, cannot be found out by calculation. It must be obtained from people, people who know the conditions of the enemy.”

“Stercus accidit.”