Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers. . . is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws … - Willard Van Orman Quine

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I made all their videos, apart from the last two, so if you ever see an Abba video on TV then it’s my stuff.

Willard Van Orman Quine

Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers. . . is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic. . . so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence. . . The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.

Convenient, Law, Math, Numbers, Objects, Scheme

Same Author Quotes

The mastery of one's phonemes may be compared to the violinist's mastery of fingering. The violin string lends itself to a continuous gradation of tones, but the musician learns the discrete intervals at which to stop the string in order to play the conventional notes. We sound our phonemes like poor violinists, approximating each time to a fancied norm, and we receive our neighbor's renderings indulgently, mentally rectifying the more glaring inaccuracies.

Music, Norm, Order, Play, Poor, String

Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.

Equally, Science, Truth, Unique, Way

Students of the heavens are separable into astronomers and astrologers as readily as the minor domestic ruminants into sheep and goats, but the separation of philosophers into sages and cranks seems to be more sensitive to frames of reference.

Cranks, Heaven, Sages, Science, Sheep

To call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built.

Artificial, Building, Concede, Cost, Real, Theory

If pressed to supplement Tweedledee's ostensive definition of logic with a discursive definition of the same subject, I would say that logic is the systematic study of the logical truths. Pressed further, I would say that a sentence is logically true if all sentences with its grammatical structure are true. Pressed further still, I would say to read this book.

Book, Definitions, Pressed, Read, Systematic