Everyone has a favorite explanatory tool, which he will use, if it is all he has, to explain everything. One hopes at best to add an implement or two to the box, to spot, in the vast sea of nails, an occasional rivet or screw.
Nov 022023
Thinking
Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
—Whitehead
Oct 202023
Avert your eyes enough and you go blind.
Oct 022023
We imagine that we have absorbed Einstein when we have yet to come to grips with Maxwell.
Sep 282023
A name can confirm understanding, or confound it, but never confer it.
Sep 132023
Positivism, n. A philosophy that makes one less and less positive.
Sep 062023
Complexity, randomness, inspiration, unconscious process — we bestow names as if they conferred understanding.
Sep 012023
The only way to escape the thrall of a philosopher is to read him.
Aug 242023
A surprisingly common tactic of philosophers is to solve their problem by denying that it exists: thus Parmenides on change, Berkeley on the external world, Dennett on qualia, or Rand on conflicts of interest. It works, if what you want is less correctness than renown.
Aug 212023
If you want to argue better, get better arguments.
Aug 032023
A new idea is almost always false, and persecuted with special zeal when it happens to be true.