3 Quotes by Stephen Toulmin

A man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures, and concepts.

There is no way of cutting ourselves free of our conceptual inheritance: all we are required to do is use our experience critically and discriminatingly, refining and improving our inherited ideas, and determining more exactly the limits to their scope.

No doubt, a scientist isn’t necessarily penalized for being a complex, versatile, eccentric individual with lots of extra-scientific interests. But it certainly doesn’t help him a bit.