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Full Idea
The man who mistakes a tetrad for a pentad is not as erroneous as he who takes it for a chiliad. But then, if they are not equally erroneous, this can only mean that one has less, and so one more, of the truth.
Clarification
'Tetrad', 'petrad', and 'chiliad' are various combinations of numbers
Gist of Idea
If one error is worse than another, it must be because it is further from the truth
Source
Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1008b32)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Metaphysics', ed/tr. Lawson-Tancred,Hugh [Penguin 1998], p.97
Related Idea
Idea 22317 Truth does not admit of more and less [Frege]
| 575 | If one error is worse than another, it must be because it is further from the truth [Aristotle] |
| 19247 | The one unpardonable offence in reasoning is to block the route to further truth [Peirce] |
| 22317 | Truth does not admit of more and less [Frege] |
| 3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
| 3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 9651 | Verisimilitude might be explained as being close to the possible world where the truth is exact [Lewis] |
| 17602 | Verisimilitude comes from including more phenomena, and revealing what underlies [Thagard] |