Propositions Quotes - Page 4

• But in the prevalent discussion of classes, there are illegitimate transitions to the notions of a 'nexus' and of a 'proposition'. The appeal to a class to perform the services of a proper entity is exactly analogous to an appeal to an imaginary terrier to kill a real rat.
  Process and Reality

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Real, Class, Rats

  Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.228, Simon and Schuster

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• Proofs of the Euclidean [parallel] postulate can be developed to such an extent that apparently a mere trifle remains. But a careful analysis shows that in this seeming trifle lies the crux of the matter; usually it contains either the proposition that is being proved or a postulate equivalent to it.

  Johann Heinrich Lambert

  Lying, Analysis, Matter

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• The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, "the whole is greater than its part;" "reaction is equal to action;" "the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;" and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Law, Differences

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.153

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• As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In the progress ofthe character, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a decreasing faith in propositions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Men, Progress

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.436

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• What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,--and that is not only true, but identical,--that men always act from self-interest.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Men, Self, Humanity

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• Finally, the illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot.

  Daniel Kahneman

  Powerful, Believe, Skills

  Daniel Kahneman (2011). “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, p.247, Macmillan

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• There is no other proposition in economics that has more solid empirical evidence supporting it than the Efficient Market Hypothesis... In the literature of finance, accounting, and the economics of uncertainty, the EMH is accepted as a fact of life.

  Michael Jensen

  Investing, Literature, Facts

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• To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.

  A.J. Ayer

  Numbers, Finite Number, May

  "Language, Truth, and Logic" by A.J. Ayer, (p. 20), 1936.

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• Truth exists. The sole purpose of this proposition is to assert the existence of truth against imbeciles and sceptics.

  Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury

  Truth, Purpose, Imbeciles

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• If an opinion can eventually go to the determination of a practical belief, it, in so far, becomes itself a practical belief; and every proposition that is not pure metaphysical jargon and chatter must have some possible bearing upon practice.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Determination, Practice, Jargon

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1974). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce”, p.377, Harvard University Press

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• Whenever a man acts purposively, he acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently, the sum of the experimental phenomena that a proposition implies makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Men, Belief, Humans

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1974). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce”, p.285, Harvard University Press

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• It follows at once from the last proposition that the centre of gravity of any triangle is at the intersection of the lines drawn from any two angles to the middle points of the opposite
  sides respectively.

  Archimedes

  Opposites, Two, Triangles

  Archimedes (2007). “The Works of Archimedes”, p.201, Cosimo, Inc.

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• It's a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care. If you call that a 'redistribution of income' -- well, so be it. I don't call it that. I call it just being fair -- giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.

  Joe Biden

  Simple, Class, Giving

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• The French are a tremendously verbal race: they kill you with their assurances, their repetitions, their reasons, their platitudes, their formulae, their propositions, their solutions.

  Christina Stead

  Race, Reason, Repetition

  Christina Stead (1992). “A Web of Friendship: Selected Letters, 1928-1973”, Angus & Robertson Publishers

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• It is the direct man who strikes sledgehammer blows, who penetrates the very marrow of a subject at every stroke and gets the meat out of a proposition, who does things.

  Orison S. Marden

  Blow, Men, Meat

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• A propositional sign, applied and thought out, is a thought. A thought is a proposition with a sense.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Thoughtful, Thinking, Language

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness (2001). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”, p.22, Psychology Press

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• When philosophers use a word--"knowledge," "being," "object," "I," "proposition," "name"--and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?--What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Home, Essence, Games

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1973). “Philosophical investigations”

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• All propositions are of equal value.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Logic, Language, Equal

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (2012). “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”, p.105, Courier Corporation

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• All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophy, Real, Philosophical

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness (2001). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”, p.23, Psychology Press

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• My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps--to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the whole world aright.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophical, Ladders, World

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness (2001). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”, p.89, Psychology Press

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• It is possible--indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic--to give in advance a description of all 'true' logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophical, Giving, Logic

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Francis Pears, Brian McGuinness (2001). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus”, p.76, Psychology Press

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• The so-called law of induction cannot possibly be a law of logic, since it is obviously a proposition with a sense.--Nor, therefore, can it be an a priori law.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Law, Logic

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1961). “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus: The German Text of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung”, p.116, Linkgua digital

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• The whole of natural theologyresolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous proposition, That the cause or causesof order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.

  David Hume

  Simple, Order, Religion

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• In the old physics, three times two equals six and two times three equals 6 are reversible propositions. Not in quantum physics. Three times two and two times three are two different matters, distinct and separate propositions.

  Paul Auster

  Science, Two, Different

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• In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Science, Objectivity, Example

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