“One has to stress once again, that the mechanical world view and psychophysical interpretation accompanying it are based not on the instructions of the philosophizing mind, but on the clear and accurate facts discovered by experiment and observation; and in the cases of non-correspondence (very rare, fortunately) between the requirements of the mind and the facts, reason must adjust to the facts, and not vice versa.”

as quoted [Viktor Yakovlevich Frenkel, Yakov Ilich Frenkel: his work, life, and letters, Birkhäuser, 1996, 3764327413, 25-26]

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 "One has to stress once again, that the mechanical world view and psychophysical interpretation accompanying it are base…" by Yakov Frenkel?
Yakov Frenkel photo
Yakov Frenkel 2
Russian physicist 1894–1952

Related quotes

Douglas Adams photo
Ryan C. Gordon photo

“The simple fact is that code quality tends to improve as you move between platforms… non-obvious bugs on Windows become VERY obvious in the Linux port and vice versa, and thus get fixed. So even the Windows gamers will win in all of this.”

Ryan C. Gordon (1978) Computer programmer

Quoted in, "Chat with Ryan Gordon" http://web.archive.org/web/20010502182109/http://www.descent-3.com/pad/news/16.html Chrono's Pad (2001-02-11)

Alan Turing photo

“The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject. This is the assumption that as soon as a fact is presented to a mind all consequences of that fact spring into the mind simultaneously with it. It is a very useful assumption under many circumstances, but one too easily forgets that it is false.”

Source: Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), p. 451.
Context: The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject. This is the assumption that as soon as a fact is presented to a mind all consequences of that fact spring into the mind simultaneously with it. It is a very useful assumption under many circumstances, but one too easily forgets that it is false. A natural consequence of doing so is that one then assumes that there is no virtue in the mere working out of consequences from data and general principles.

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“Experience rarely teaches its lessons directly but instead requires interpretation through the filter of preconceived theories, prejudices, and desires. Where these are invincible, facts are weak things.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Less Liberté Means Less Egalité http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_1_sndgs05.html (Winter 2006).
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Adolphe Quetelet photo
Henri Barbusse photo

“Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; and the world's chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult
Context: My spirit is no longer what it was. Vaguely I seek, everywhere. I must see things with all their consequences, and right to their source. Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; and the world's chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible.

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“One must always have in mind one simple fact — there is no literate population in the world that is poor, and there is no illiterate population that is anything but poor.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Interview with John Newark (1990) from Interviews with John Kenneth Galbraith (2004), ed. James Ronald Stanfield and Jacqueline Bloom Stanfield

Alfred Horsley Hinton photo

“Justification must be sought in the fact that "no very great incongruity is observable."”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Part II : Practical Pictorial Photography, Clouds in their relation to the landscape, p. 27

Albert Schweitzer photo

“World-view is a product of life-view, not vice versa.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics

Related topics