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Full Idea
One should choose the more intelligible hypothesis, and the truth is nothing but its intelligibility.
Gist of Idea
Choose the true hypothesis, which is the most intelligible one
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (On Copernicanism and Relativity of Motion [1689], p.91)
Book Ref
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Philosophical Essays', ed/tr. Arlew,R /Garber,D [Hackett 1989], p.91
A Reaction
This apparently simple observation strikes me as being rather profound. Our picture of the world is shaped entirely by what is intelligible to us. An odd notion of truth, though. The age of reason. See Idea 13158.
Related Idea
Idea 13158 The Copernican theory is right because it is the only one offering a good explanation [Leibniz]
| 14040 | Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus] |
| 3610 | Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes] |
| 2266 | My general rule is that everything that I perceive clearly and distinctly is true [Descartes] |
| 4301 | Someone may think a thing is 'clear and distinct', but be wrong [Leibniz on Descartes] |
| 5641 | For Spinoza, 'adequacy' is the intrinsic mark of truth [Spinoza, by Scruton] |
| 13157 | Choose the true hypothesis, which is the most intelligible one [Leibniz] |
| 5022 | We hold a proposition true if we are ready to follow it, and can't see any objections [Leibniz] |
| 5651 | Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| 22094 | Subjective truth can only be sustained by repetition [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| 16005 | I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters [Kierkegaard] |
| 20313 | The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard] |
| 24104 | We don't create logic, time and space! The mind obeys laws because they are true [Nietzsche] |
| 5652 | True beliefs are those which augment one's power [Nietzsche, by Scruton] |
| 19144 | 'Epistemic' truth depends what rational creatures can verify [Davidson] |
| 8705 | Anti-realists see truth as our servant, and epistemically contrained [Friend] |