Theoretical Quotes - Page 7

• First and foremost, note that Plato always wrote dialogues, and never attempted to produce a theoretical or scientific treatise. This is a big clue for me. From beginning to end, Plato was aware of the limits of theoretical and technical reasoning, and his dialogues are a massive exploration.

  David Roochnik

  Plato, Clue, Exploration

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Even if we ignore the 'non-theoretical' knowledge which we acquire through experience (such as the knowledge of what something tastes like) and concentrate on theoretical knowledge, there is no good reason to think that physics can literally give the theory of everything. Here I want to be really pedantic. Although everything may be subject to physical law, not everything can be explained or described in physical terms. Physics has literally nothing to say about society, morality and the mind, for example - but of course these are parts of 'everything'.

  Tim Crane

  Thinking, Giving, Mind

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• Not only our moral life, but even our use of theoretical reason - on which we rely in rationally inquiring into nature - presupposes that we are free.

  Allen W. Wood

  Use, Inquiring, Moral

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• The Cabal is of two kinds, theoretical and practical, with the practical Cabala, which is engaged in the construction of talismans and amulets, we have nothing to do. The theoretical is divided into the lineal and dogmatic. The dogmatic is nothing more than the summary of the metaphysical doctrine taught by the Cabalist doctors. It is, in other words, the system of the Jewish philosophy.

  Albert Mackey

  Philosophy, Doctors, Two

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• The first thing to realize about physics ... is its extraordinary indirectness.... For physics is not about the real world, it is about "abstractions" from the real world, and this is what makes it so scientific.... Theoretical physics runs merrily along with these unreal abstractions, but its conclusions are checked, at every possible point, by experiments.

  Anthony Standen

  Running, Real, Science

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• I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics.

  Vandana Shiva

  Theoretical Physics, Environmental, India

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• We can think of solutions in various theoretical ways, but it's not so on the ground. If they don't have a reference that helps them to belong, then they will end up excluding, and through that they get to feel that they belong on the basis of some narrow identity, language or color.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Thinking, Color, Identity

  Source: dinmerican.wordpress.com

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• Working in theoretical systems can take away the juice. It can also be very beautiful, but when you're trying to satisfy a theoretical principle rather than a sonic reality, then it can become dry.

  Pauline Oliveros

  Beautiful, Reality, Trying

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Knowledge has the form of a tree, and since metaphysics is the most fundamental one of the theoretical disciplines, it represents the roots of the tree.

  Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

  Roots, Discipline, Tree

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• The role of metaphysics in relation to other disciplines, whether philosophical or not and including the natural sciences, is thus a foundational role. Lack of clarity in the concepts of metaphysics implies lack of clarity in other disciplines - both theoretical and practical disciplines - employing those concepts or employing concepts that depend on those of metaphysics.

  Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

  Philosophical, Discipline, Roles

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• My relationship to the desecration of the earth was very theoretical and intellectual until I got sick. I could never watch anything about polar bears dying or the death of bees. There were certain things I knew I couldn't go near because they were too devastating. But I don't think until I got cancer did I get it in my body, what was happening to the earth. I finally went: "Oh! Earth! Organism!"

  Eve Ensler

  Cancer, Thinking, Sick

  "The Big Idea: Eve Ensler". Interview with Suzanne Koven, therumpus.net. June 12, 2013.

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• Clearly, one does not have to give up being an academic, retreat from rigorous research, or renounce the importance of specialization in order to address major social issues. I don't think you give up theoretical rigor by writing in a way that addresses major social concerns and is at the same time accessible to wider informed general audiences.

  Henry Giroux

  Giving Up, Writing, Thinking

  "Higher Education Under Attack". Interview with C. Cryn Johannsen, www.truth-out.org. April 22, 2011.

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• I am certainly influenced by certain post-structuralist traditions but also a number of other theoretical archives as well - including the brilliant work of Paulo Freire, Zygmunt Bauman, Loic Wacquant, Nancy Fraser, Tony Judt, and others.

  Henry Giroux

  Numbers, Archives, Brilliant

  "Higher Education Under Attack: An Interview With Henry A. Giroux". Interview with C. Cryn Johannsen, www.truth-out.org. April 22, 2011.

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• Terrorism - radical jihadist terrorism is not theoretical to me. It's real. And for seven years, I spent my life protecting our country against another one of those attacks. You won't have to worry when I'm President of the Untied States whether that can be done because I've already done it. I want the chance to do it again to protect you, your children and your families.

  Chris Christie

  Country, Children, Real

  Transcript of the fifth Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, www.nytimes.com. December 15, 2015.

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• Can the vast technology beneath our gaze be anything but a representation? Any optical artifact... The city panorama is a theoretical (ie visual) simulacrum: in short, a picture, of which the preconditions for feasibility are forgetfulness and a misunderstanding of processes.

  Michel de Certeau

  Technology, Cities, Process

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• Interpretations of Muslim assimilation have gravitated between two arguments: that Muslims will remain as permanent outsiders or that Muslims will blend in with little difficulty at all. Mucahit Bilici demonstrates how wanting these arguments are. Finding Mecca in America takes us into the uncharted territory of what it is actually like to be Muslim immigrants in the United States. I am especially impressed by the study's theoretical depth and empirical insights.

  Robert Wuthnow

  Two, America, Depth

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• It has long been my personal view that the separation of practical and theoretical work is artificial and injurious. Much of the practical work done in computing, both in software and in hardware design, is unsound and clumsy because the people who do it have not any clear understanding of the fundamental design principles of their work. Most of the abstract mathematical and theoretical work is sterile because it has no point of contact with real computing.

  Christopher Strachey

  Real, Views, Long

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• A second possible approach to general systems theory is through the arrangement of theoretical systems and constructs in a hierarchy of complexity, roughly corresponding to the complexity of the "individuals" of the various empirical fields... leading towards a "system of systems." [...] I suggest below a possible arrangement of "levels" of theoretical discourse...(vi) [...] the "animal" level, characterized by increased mobility, teleological behavior and self-awareness...

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Animal, Self, Mobility

  "General systems theory - the skeleton of science". Kenneth E. Boulding, Management Science, Volume 2, No. 3 (pp. 200-201), April 1956.

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• One advantage of exhibiting a hierarchy of systems in this way is that it gives us some idea of the present gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Adequate theoretical models extend up to about the fourth level, and not much beyond. Empirical knowledge is deficient at practically all levels.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Ideas, Giving, Way

  "General systems theory - the skeleton of science". Kenneth E. Boulding, Management Science, Volume 2, No. 3 (p. 201), April 1956.

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• General Systems Theory is a name which has come into use to describe a level of theoretical model-building which lies somewhere between the highly generalized constructions of pure mathematics and the specific theories of the specialized disciplines. Mathematics attempts to organize highly general relationships into a coherent system, a system however which does not have any necessary connections with the "real" world around us. It studies all thinkable relationships abstracted from any concrete situation or body of empirical knowledge.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Real, Lying, Names

  "General Systems Theory - The Skeleton of Science". Management Science, Volume 2. No. 3, pp. 197-208, www.panarchy.org. April 1956.

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• We've been following many forms of democratized ownership, starting with co-ops, land banks at the neighborhood level, municipal ownership and state ownership of banks - there's a whole series of these that attempt to fill the small-scale infrastructure that can build up to a larger theoretical vision.

  Gar Alperovitz

  Land, Vision, Levels

  Source: www.salon.com

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• I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Religious, Men, Giving

  Anna Julia Cooper, Charles C. Lemert, Esme Bhan (1998). “The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters”, p.187, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Theoretical Computer Science is just as useless as everything we mathematicians do.

  Jennifer Tour Chayes

  Science, Useless, Computer

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• It is not paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  May, Paradox, Mood

  Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.71, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

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• Whenever the truth is uncovered, the artist will always cling with rapt gaze to what still remains covering even after such uncovering; but the theoretical man enjoys and finds satisfaction in the discarded covering and finds the highest object of his pleasure in the process of an ever happy uncovering that succeeds through his own efforts.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Artist, Men, Effort

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.94, Modern Library

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