“Each metaphysician has his own system, which to a large extent excludes that of his predecessors and colleagues. Hence... metaphysics are built either on air or on quicksands—either they start from no foundation in facts at all, or the superstructure has been raised before a basis has been found in the accurate classification facts.”

— Karl Pearson , book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

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 "Each metaphysician has his own system, which to a large extent excludes that of his predecessors and colleagues. Hence.…" by Karl Pearson?

Karl Pearson 65

English mathematician and biometrician 1857–1936

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

A Proper Gentleman, 1977

“It has been maintained, that Agriculture is, not only, the most productive, but the only productive species of industry. The reality of this suggestion in either aspect, has, however, not been verified by any accurate detail of facts and calculations; and the general arguments, which are adduced to prove it, are rather subtil and paradoxical, than solid or convincing.”

Alexander Hamilton Report on Manufactures

Report on Manufactures (1791)

“In every age of the world there has been an established system, which has been opposed from time to time by isolated and dissentient reformers. The established system has sometimes fallen, slowly and gradually: it has either been upset by the rising influence of some one man, or it has been sapped by gradual change of opinion in the many.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Introductory p.1
A Budget of Paradoxes (1872)

“The generally accepted idea that He will return as a triumphant warrior, omnipotent and irresistible, has surely no basis in fact. That He will ultimately lead His people, humanity, into Jerusalem is a fact, founded on a secure foundation, but it will not be into a Jewish city called Jerusalem but into "the place of peace" (as the word "Jerusalem" means).”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ (1948), Chapter III: The Reappearance of the Christ, World Expectancy

“In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before.”
Nullumst iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.

Terence Eunuchus

Nullum est iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.
Prologue, Line 41.
Variant translation: Nothing has yet been said that’s not been said before.
Eunuchus

“Yet the whole structure of the common law is an obvious denial of this theory; it stands as a monument slowly raised, like a coral reef, from the minute accretions of past individuals, of whom each built upon the relics which his predecessors left, and in his turn left a foundation upon which his successors might work.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

Book Review, 35 Harv. L. Rev. 479, 479 (1922) (reviewing Benjamin N. Cardozo's The Nature of the Judicial Process).
Extra-judicial writings

“The above interpretation has been introduced, not on account of its immediate value in the present system, but as an illustration of a significant fact in the philosophy of the intellectual powers, viz., that what has commonly been regarded as the fundamental axiom of metaphysics is but the consequence of a law of thought, mathematical in its form.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 50

“[…]the simple-minded positivism that believes it has found a firm ground of certainty if it only excludes all mental phenomena from consideration and holds fast to observable facts.”

Hannah Arendt book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1971/1978), p. 39.

“The will of man has no power whatever over his opinions; he must, and ever did, and ever will, believe what has been, is, or may be impressed on his mind by his predecessors, and the circumstances which surround him.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

A New View of Society (1813-1816)

“Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.”

Bernard Baruch (1870–1965) American businessman

Deming Headlight (New Mexico), 6 January 1950, as cited in the Yale Book of Modern Proverbs and at There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Facts; Freakonomics blog post by Fred R. Shapiro http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/18/there-are-opinions-and-then-there-are-facts/ (18 August 2011)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Karl Pearson 65

Related quotes

Related topics