
“That sounds like post hoc realpolitik rationalizing bullshit.”
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 28 (p. 298)
Source: Books, Maps of Meaning (1999), p. 78
“That sounds like post hoc realpolitik rationalizing bullshit.”
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 28 (p. 298)
“Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe.”
" Quote of the week: William James on theology http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/quote-of-the-week-william-james-on-theology/" June 4, 2012
Source: "Foundations of the Theory of Organization," 1948, p. 25
"Rational expectations and the dynamics of hyperinflation." 1973
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a "rational" being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions.
Original: (la) Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa, Deus, et humiliter colitur, et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde, veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam.
De Divina Praedestinatione, ch. 1; translation from Kenelm Henry Digby Mores Catholici, vol. 8 (London: Booker & Dolman, 1837) p. 198.
As quoted in Profile of Sir Alfred Ayer (June 1971) by Euro-Television, quoted in A.J. Ayer: A Life (1999), p. 2.
“Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”
Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), Ch. 1 "Science : Conjectures and Refutations", Section VII