Larry Laudan quotes

“The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is - second only to American political campaigns - the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.”
-- Larry Laudan

Source : Larry Laudan (2012). “Science and Relativism: Some Key Controversies in the Philosophy of Science”, p.10, University of Chicago Press

#Ideas Quotes #Perspective Quotes #Political Quotes

“The rationale for accepting or rejecting any theory is thus fundamentally based on the idea of problem-solving progress. If one research tradition has solved more important problems than its rivals, then accepting that tradition is rational precisely to the degree that we are aiming to "progress," i.e., to maximize the scope f solved problems. In other words, the choice of one tradition over its rivals is a progressive (and thus a rational) choice precisely to the extent that the chosen tradition is a better problem solver than its rivals.”
-- Larry Laudan

Source : Larry Laudan (1978). “Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth”, p.109, Univ of California Press

#Science Quotes #Choices Quotes #Progress Quotes

“The truth and the facts aren't necessarily the same thing. Telling the truth is the object of all art; facts are what the unimaginative have instead of ideas.”

Source : A. A. Gill (2008). “Paper view: the best of the Sunday Times television reviews”, Orion Pub Co

“Once I went to bed in Orlando and I woke up in Atlanta. I have no idea how that happened.”

“I said, ‘There’s one idea I’ve been carrying in my hip pocket for 35 years. It’s Woodrow Wilson.’”

“Future generations may or may not judge Wittgenstein to be one of the great philosophers. Even if they do not, however, he is sure always to count as one of the great personalities of philosophy. From our perspective it is easy to mistake one for the other; which he is time will tell.”

“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”

Source : "Life In the Open Sea". Book by William M. Stephens (p. 21), 1972.

“Adultism leads to a phenomenon of little adults, who are young people who are treated as adults-in-the-making. A non-discriminatory perspective would be to treat children and youth as whole and complete people right now.”

“Something gets lost when you translate. It's hard to keep straight. Perspective is every thing.”

“Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.”

Source : Creative Think talk, www.folklore.org. July 20, 1982.

“One reason I can be more tolerant than most is that as a therapist I have the advantage of information about my patients that most people are not privy to. And I discover that we rarely if ever see the totality of another in ordinary social intercourse. When an individual appears mean and lazy, we are only seeing one part of the person, elicited by a particular set of circumstances on a particular day, and we do well to wait a while before concluding that what we see is the whole person.”

“The Civic Culture (and The Civic Culture Revisited) remains the best study of comparative political culture in our time.”