|
18284
|
Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
|
|
Full Idea:
Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
|
|
From:
Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
|
|
A reaction:
This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.
|
|
24043
|
Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle]
|
|
Full Idea:
Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven.
|
|
From:
report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30
|
|
A reaction:
Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic.
|