Edgar A. Singer, Jr.: Experience

Edgar A. Singer, Jr. was American philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on experience.
Edgar A. Singer, Jr.: 20   quotes 0   likes

“We may not feel as confident as once we did that the way to truth lies all open before us the moment we have brought our vague questionings to a form that "leaves the rest to experiment."”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr.

Source: Mind As Behavior And Studies In Empirical Idealism, (1924), p. v: Preface

Truth , Way , Feeling , Confidence

“"All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare." These words which bring to a close Spinoza's masterpiece Ethics, after the manner of Geometry, sum up the experience of a life as rare as it was difficult.”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr.

Source: Modern thinkers and present problems, (1923), p. 37: Chapter 2. Benedict de Spinoza, 1632-1677

Life

“"The serious meaning of a concept," writes James, following Peirce, "lies in the concrete difference to some one which its being true will make. Strive to bring all debated conceptions to that "pragmatic" test, and you will escape vain wrangling. … If it can make no practical difference whether a given statement be true or false, then the statement has no real meaning."
If the method defined in this passage be accepted, and I can not see how any one can fail to accept it even if one prove unfaithful to it afterwards, then could anything more fully illustrate the meaning of the 'meaningless' than that hypothesis of other minds in which the analogy argument culminates? Whatever may be said for the reasoning, is its conclusion at least right? Alas, I can not know. If right, my experience cannot inform me if wrong, my experience cannot disillusion me. It makes no practical difference to me whether I am right or wrong. Pragmatic conclusion: I cannot have made a meaningful hypothesis.”

Edgar A. Singer, Jr.

Source: Mind As Behavior And Studies In Empirical Idealism, (1924), p. 5

Unfaithfulness , Falseness