We Do Not Learn First What To

An Indirect Quotation We Can Usually Expect To Rate Only As Better Or Worse, More Or Less Faithful, And We Cannot Even Hope For Astrict Standard Of More And Less; What Is Involved Is Evaluation, Relative To Special Purposes, Of An Essentially Dramatic Act.

At Root What Is Needed For Scientific Inquiry Is Just Receptivity To Data, Skill In Reasoning, And Yearning For Truth. Admittedly, Ingenuity Can Help Too.

My Position Is A Naturalistic One; I See Philosophy Not As An A Priori Propaedeutic Or Groundwork For Science, But As Continuous With Science. I See Philosophy And Science As In The Same Boat--a Boat Which, To Revert To Neurath's Figure As I So Often Do, We Can Rebuild Only At Sea While Staying Afloat In It. There Is No External Vantage Point, No First Philosophy.

Language Is Conceived In Sin And Science Is Its Redemption.

The Strategy Of Semantic Ascent Is That It Carries The Discussion Into A Domain Where Both Parties Are Better Agreed On The Objects (viz., Words) And On The Main Terms Connecting Them. Words, Or Their Inscriptions, Unlike Points, Miles, Classes And The Rest, Are Tangible Objects Of The Size So Popular In The Marketplace, Where Men Of Unlike Conceptual Schemes Communicate At Their Best. The Strategy Is One Of Ascending To A Common Part Of Two Fundamentally Disparate Conceptual Schemes, The Better To Discuss The Disparate Foundations. No Wonder It Helps In Philosophy.