“Rules necessary for demonstrations. To prove all propositions, and to employ nothing for their proof but axioms fully evident of themselves, or propositions already demonstrated or admitted; Never to take advantage of the ambiguity of terms by failing mentally to substitute definitions that restrict or explain them.”

— Blaise Pascal

The Art of Persuasion

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Blaise Pascal 144

French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Chri… 1623–1662

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“Rules for Demonstrations. I. Not to undertake to demonstrate any thing that is so evident of itself that nothing can be given that is clearer to prove it. II. To prove all propositions at all obscure, and to employ in their proof only very evident maxims or propositions already admitted or demonstrated. III. To always mentally substitute definitions in the place of things defined, in order not to be misled by the ambiguity of terms which have been restricted by definitions.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

“Rules necessary for definitions. Not to leave any terms at all obscure or ambiguous without definition; Not to employ in definitions any but terms perfectly known or already explained.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

“Rules for Definitions. I. Not to undertake to define any of the things so well known of themselves that the clearer terms cannot be had to explain them. II. Not to leave any terms that are at all obscure or ambiguous without definition. III. Not to employ in the definition of terms any words but such as are perfectly known or already explained.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

“A married philosopher belongs in comedy, that is my proposition-and as for that exception, Socrates-the malicious Socrates, it would seem, married ironically, just to demonstrate this proposition.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 3, Aphorism 7
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

“Rules necessary for axioms. Not to demand in axioms any but things perfectly evident.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

“Rules for Axioms. I. Not to omit any necessary principle without asking whether it is admittied, however clear and evident it may be. II. Not to demand, in axioms, any but things that are perfectly evident in themselves.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

“Even if the absence of evidence for a given god were not evidence of its absence, it would still be evidence that the belief in that god is unreasonable. That's the only proposition that any atheist of any kind has to demonstrate in order to win the argument. Because anything beyond that… is just having fun.”

Scott Clifton (1984) American television actor, musician, internet personality.

God, Atheism and Evidence, as Theoretical Bullshit, hosted on YouTube. (11 January 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9stJ8h2ilZU

“[Relativist] Rel. There is a well-known proposition of Euclid which states that "Any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side." Can either of you tell me whether nowadays there is good reason to believe that this proposition is true?
[Pure Mathematician] Math. For my part, I am quite unable to say whether the proposition is true or not. I can deduce it by trustworthy reasoning from certain other propositions or axioms, which are supposed to be still more elementary. If these axioms are true, the proposition is true; if the axioms are not true, the proposition is not true universally. Whether the axioms are true or not I cannot say, and it is outside my province to consider.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

“A theorem is a proposition which is a strict logical consequence of certain definitions and other propositions”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Anatol Rapoport. " Various meanings of “theory”." http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~fczagare/PSC%20504/Rapoport%20(1958).pdf American Political Science Review 52.04 (1958): 972-988.
1950s

“Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.”

Aristotle book Metaphysics

Book XIII, 1078a.33
Metaphysics

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