By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and ...in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the... world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Such in outline is the official theory. I shall often speak of it, with deliberate abusiveness, as "the dogma of the Ghost in the ...Machine." I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle. It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category mistake. It represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another. The dogma is therefore a philosopher's myth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not enough for theory to describe and analyse, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this ...theory must partake of and become the acceleration of this logic. It must tear itself from all referents and take pride only in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There could be no fairer destiny for any physical theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which... it lives on as a limiting case.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the op...inion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The rationale for accepting or rejecting any theory is thus fundamentally based on the idea of problem-solving progress. If one re...search 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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »