172 Quotes About Epistemology
"Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest.We don’t lie back upon them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make natureagain over by their aid. Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories, limbers them upand sets each one at work."
"Observations always involve theory."
"knowledge depends on the mode of the knower; for what is known is in the knower according to the measure of his mode"
"Truth is, something exists, and everything exists for a reason. Regardless if the reason is known or unknown, knowable or unknowable, reason exists and can be named."
"Metagapism is the belief that love is the ultimate reality, literally god and the one shared soul, and the source, nature and destiny of all."
"True, the initial ideas are in general those of an individual, but the establishment of the reality and truth is in general the work of more than one person."
"Every novel says to the reader: “Things are not as simple as you think.” That is the novel’s eternal truth, but it grows steadily harder to hear amid the din of easy, quick answers that come faster than the question and block it off. In the spirit of our time, it’s either Anna or Karenin who is right, and the ancient wisdom of Cervantes, telling us about the difficulty of knowing and the elusiveness of truth, seems cumbersome and useless."
"Chisels and hammers may suffice to work a piece of wood, but for etching we require an etcher's needle. Thus common sense and speculative understanding are both useful, but each in its own way: the former in judgments which apply immediately to experience; the latter when we judge universally from mere concepts, as in metaphysics, where sound common sense, so called in spite of the inappropriateness of the word, has no right to judge at all."