John Stuart Mill Quotes About Certainty

Quotes about: Certainty

• To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

  John Stuart Mill

  Hearing, Opinion, Assuming

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.163, Hackett Publishing

• Whether moral and social phenomena are really exceptions to the general certainty and uniformity of the course of nature; and how far the methods, by which so many of the laws of the physical world have been numbered among truths irrevocably acquired and universally assented to, can be made instrumental to the gradual formation of a similar body of received doctrine in moral and political science.

  John Stuart Mill

  Nature, Science, Law

  John Stuart Mill (2017). “The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women, On Liberty, Principles of Political Economy, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, Memoirs…”, p.1092, e-artnow

• Men and governments must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.

  John Stuart Mill

  Destiny, Men, Purpose

  John Stuart Mill (1865). “On Liberty”, p.11

• The doctrine called Philosophical Necessity is simply this: that, given the motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act might be unerringly inferred: that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event.

  John Stuart Mill

  Philosophical, Character, Science

  John Stuart Mill (2016). “A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive: Mill's Works”, p.852, VM eBooks

• The beliefs which we have most warrant for have no safeguard to rest on but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching us.

  John Stuart Mill

  Giving, Challenges, Done

  Source: www.usconstitution.net

• Since reasoning , or inference, the principal subject of logic, is an operation which usually takes place by means of words , and in complicated cases can take place in no other way: those who have not a thorough insight into both the signification and purpose of words, will be under chances, amounting almost to certainty, of reasoning or inferring incorrectly.

  John Stuart Mill

  Mean, Way, Purpose

  John Stuart Mill (2016). “A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive: Mill's Works”, p.20, VM eBooks

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