Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be... no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be ...organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The doctrine of those who have denied that certainty could be attained at all, has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the... first setting out; but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known; I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise helps for the same.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Since the French Revolution Englishmen are all intermeasurable one by another, certainly a happy state of agreement to which I for... one do not agree.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The acceptance of a theory as true does involve a personal choice in a way that a law does not. Different people do differ about t...heories; they can choose whether or no they will believe them; but people do not differ about laws; there is no personal choice; universal agreement can be forced. Again, if we look at the history of science, we shall find that the great advances in theory are more closely connected with the names of the great men than are the advances in law. Every important theory is associated with some man whose scientific work was notable apart from that theory; either he invented other important theories or in some way he did scientific work greatly above the average. On the other hand there are a good many well-known laws which are associated with the names of men who, apart from those particular laws, are practically unknown; they discovered one important law, but they have no claim to rank among the geniuses of science. That fact seems to indicate that a greater degree of genius is needed to invent true theories than to discover true laws.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[The health plan was] constructed to be deconstructed. [Instead,] it was described as an ultimatum by our opponents and therefore ...used to undermine the process of reaching agreement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assump...tion about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have... a right to be persuaded.... However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A convention is a social pattern we have chosen to prefer over whatever the raw world simply proffers. It is a sign of the operati...on of the mind, drawing the assent of a sufficient number of other minds so that the agreement will be widely operative. A convention is not a custom; a custom is a habit in which a sufficient number acquiesce. A custom can appear as a convention, but it is really a lesser act, the result of passive acceptance rather than of the imposition of design. It is the difference between learning to live by the annual flooding of the river or by a calendar.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Rules and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into agreement with each other. A rule is amended if it yield...s an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend. The process of justification is the delicate one of making mutual adjustments between rules and accepted inferences; and in the agreement achieved lies the only justification needed for either.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »