“Progress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking out errors, doctrines have a long life.”

Source: Economic Philosophy (1962), p. 79
Context: Progress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking out errors, doctrines have a long life. A professor teaches what he was taught, and his pupils, with a proper respect and reverence for teachers, set up a resistance against his critics for no other reason than that it was he whose pupils they were.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 8, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Progress is slow partly from mere intellectual inertia. In a subject where there is no agreed procedure for knocking ou…" by Joan Robinson?
Joan Robinson photo
Joan Robinson 46
English economist 1903–1983

Related quotes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Not to keep from error, is the duty of the educator of men, but to guide the erring one, even to let him swill his error out of full cups — that is the wisdom of teachers. Whoever merely tastes of his error, will keep house with it for a long time, … but whoever drains it completely will have to get to know it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Nicht vor Irrthum zu bewahren, ist die Pflicht des Menschen erziehers; sondern den Irrenden zu leiten, ja ihn seinen Irrthum aus vollen Bechern ausschlürfen zu lassen, das ist Weisheit der Lehrer. Wer seinen Irrthum nur kostet, hält lange damit Haus; er freuet sich dessen als eines seltenen Glücks; aber wer ihn ganz erschöpft, der muß ihn kennenlernen.
Bk. VII, Ch. 9
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

“Life is a slow suicide, and it is happening to every intellectual.”

Shiv Kumar Batalvi (1936–1973) Indian poet

Interview video hosted on Youtube. http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=EgpSHpATAIM,

Henry David Thoreau photo

“You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Chinmayananda Saraswati photo
Lawrence Lessig photo
Jonas Salk photo

“That's how we continue on, and will improve our lot in life, solve the problems that arise. Partly out of necessity, partly out of this drive to improve.”

Jonas Salk (1914–1995) Inventor of polio vaccine

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Context: I have come to associate a kind of success that we are referring to, to individuals who have a combination of attributes that are often associated with creativity. In a way they are mutants, they are different from others. And they follow their own drummer. We know what that means. And are we all like that? We are not like that. If you are, then it would be well to recognize that there were others before you. And, people like that are not very happy or content, until they are allowed to express, or they can express what's in them to express. It's that driving force that I think is like the process of evolution working on us, and in us, and with us, and through us. That's how we continue on, and will improve our lot in life, solve the problems that arise. Partly out of necessity, partly out of this drive to improve.

Jacob Bronowski photo
Martin Luther photo

“This error of free will is a special doctrine of the Antichrist.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Dieser yrthum von freyen willen ist eyn eygen Artickel des Endchrist.
This error about the free will is a peculiar teaching of Antichrist.
Grund und Ursach aller Artikel D. Martin Luthers so durch römische Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind (Defense and Explanation of all the Articles of Dr. Martin Luther which were Unjustly Condemned by the Roman Bull; An Argument in Defense of All the Articles of Dr. Martin Luther Wrongly Condemned in the Roman Bull), Article 36, March 1521. Weimar, 7:451 http://books.google.com/books?id=UQFCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA451&dq=%22Artickel+des+Endchrist%22&hl=en&ei=4hDMToLiGuepsAK0mOjFDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Artickel%20des%20Endchrist%22&f=false http://www.godrules.net/library/luther/NEW1luther_c4.htm http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/LUT_WRK3.PDF http://www.lstc.edu/gruber/luthers_works/1521b.php

Charles Lyell photo

Related topics