3 ideas
| 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. |
| 5880 | Xenocrates held that the soul had no form or substance, but was number [Xenocrates, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Xenocrates denied that the soul had form or any substance, but said that it was number, and the power of number, as had been held by Pythagoras long before, was the highest in nature. | |
| From: report of Xenocrates (fragments/reports [c.327 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.x.20 | |
| A reaction: This shows how strong the Pythagorean influence was in the Academy. This is not totally stupid. Dawkins holds that the essence of DNA is information, which can be expressed mathematically. Xenocrates was a functionalist. |
| 19745 | The nature of people is decided by the government and politics of their society [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Everything is rooted in politics, and whatever might be attempted, no people would ever be other than the nature of their government made them. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Confessions [1770], 9-1756) | |
| A reaction: A striking anticipation of one of Marx's most important ideas - that society is not created by individual minds, because the nature of consciousness is created by society. The central idea in the subject of sociology, I think. |