“Logic chases truth up the tree of grammar.”

Philosophy of Logic (1970)
1970s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Logic chases truth up the tree of grammar." by Willard van Orman Quine?
Willard van Orman Quine photo
Willard van Orman Quine 25
American philosopher and logician 1908–2000

Related quotes

Confucius photo

“A lion chased me up a tree, and I greatly enjoyed the view from the top.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Richard Whately photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“A proposition is completely logically analyzed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in…”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Philosophical Remarks (1930), Part I (1)
1930s-1951

Czeslaw Milosz photo

“Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself,
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Child of Europe" (1946), trans. Jan Darowski
Daylight (1953)

Novalis photo

“Common Logic is the Grammar of the higher Speech, that is, of Thought; it examines merely the relations of ideas to one another, the Mechanics of Thought, the pure Physiology of ideas. Now logical ideas stand related to one another, like words without thoughts. Logic occupies itself with the mere dead Body of the Science of Thinking.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Metaphysics, again, is the Dynamics of Thought; treats of the primary Powers of Thought; occupies itself with the mere Soul of the Science of Thinking. Metaphysical ideas stand related to one another, like thoughts without words. Men often wondered at the stubborn Incompletibility of these two Sciences; each followed its own business by itself; there was a want everywhere, nothing would suit rightly with either. From the very first, attempts were made to unite them, as everything about them indicated relationship; but every attempt failed; the one or the other Science still suffered in these attempts, and lost its essential character. We had to abide by metaphysical Logic, and logical Metaphysic, but neither of them was as it should be.
Pupils at Sais (1799)

David Foster Wallace photo

“… logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.”

Source: Infinite Jest

Will Durant photo
Joyce Carol Oates photo
Stephen King photo

“Grammar is… the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Related topics