the moderate Aristotelian city Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry... And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience, And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A law explains a set of observations; a theory explains a set of laws. The quintessential illustration of this jump in level is th...e way in which Newton's theory of mechanics explained Kepler's law of planetary motion. Basically, a law applies to observed phenomena in one domain (e.g., planetary bodies and their movements), while a theory is intended to unify phenomena in many domains. Thus, Newton's theory of mechanics explained not only Kepler's laws, but also Galileo's findings about the motion of balls rolling down an inclined plane, as well as the pattern of oceanic tides. Unlike laws, theories often postulate unobservable objects as part of their explanatory mechanism. So, for instance, Freud's theory of mind relies upon the unobservable ego, superego, and id, and in modern physics we have theories of elementary particles that postulate various types of quarks, all of which have yet to be observed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Psychoanalysis is unlike traditional medicine in that nature does not so readily supply us with a working definition of the psychi...cally "normal." Our definition of physical normality ("health") is not something we have strenuously to imagine or blindly to postulate, and there are obvious and sharp limits to possible disagreement; it is simply given to us because we are what we are. But psychoanalysis is in a more ambiguous position. Its definition of mental health has to be in good measure "thought up," and it must be done by men whose ideas are influenced by their lives and times. Psychoanalysis is always open to the accusation that its criteria of "neurosis" and "mental health" and "adjustment" have a cultural bias, and are influenced by political ideologies, national prejudices, and personal whims.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The two basic maxims of the so-called historical criticism are the postulate of the common and the axiom of the ordinary. Postulat...e of the common: everything really great, good, and beautiful, is improbable, since it is extraordinary and therefore at least suspect. Axiom of the ordinary: our conditions and environment must have existed everywhere, for they are really so natural.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some speak of the public as if it were someone with whom they have had dinner at the Leipzig Fair in the Hotel de Saxe. Who is thi...s public? The public is not a thing, but rather an idea, a postulate, like the Church.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Gentlemen, let's Forget the past, its related errors, coarseness... Of parents, laxities, unrealities of principle Think of tomorrow. Make a firm postulate Of simplicity in desire and act....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »