Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Unconscious Cerebral Initiative', 'Tractatus de corpore Christi' and 'The Nature of Mathematics'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
Self-contradiction doesn't reveal impossibility; it is inductive impossibility which reveals self-contradiction [Peirce]
     Full Idea: It is an anacoluthon to say that a proposition is impossible because it is self-contradictory. It rather is thought so to appear self-contradictory because the ideal induction has shown it to be impossible.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], III)
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
Why use more things when fewer will do? [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: It is pointless to do through more things something that can be done through fewer.
     From: William of Ockham (Tractatus de corpore Christi [1323], Ch. 29), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.3
     A reaction: The more famous formulation isn't found in his works, so I'm delighted to find an authentic quotation from the man.