Utter dissociation of thought and action is normal; for its opposite we reserve special terms, like saint, or fanatic, or fool.
Jan 232020
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
Jan 142020
Occam’s Razor accounts not for the world’s simplicity, but for our own.
Dec 272019
We have become too cool for deontology, yet remain too stupid for consequentialism.
Dec 182019
Reasoning to broad, correct conclusions is like beating the market: it happens, but not to you.
Nov 202019
The cure for being in thrall to one bad idea, the reasonable moderate constantly assures us, is to be in thrall to several.
Nov 012019
Ideas spread when the people who hold them move, and perish when the people who hold them die.
Oct 102019
To read minds, don’t tell people their thoughts, supply them with better ones.
Oct 082019
We play with words when we run out of thoughts.
Aug 012019
All criticism is destructive, differing only in tact and degree.
Jul 192019
Principle of Philosophic Parsimony: What would cause a lot of rethinking if it were true must be false.