A Quote by Edward de Bono
It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions,
not repeated assessment of their validity.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
I was trained as a philosopher never to put philosophers and their ideas into historical contexts, since historical context has nothing to do with the validity of the philosopher's positions. I agree that assessing validity and contextualizing historically are two entirely distinct matters and not to be confused with one another. And yet that firm distinction doesn't lead me to endorse the usual way in which history of philosophy is presented.
Most corporate decisions aren't going to meet the test of high validity. But they're going to be way above the low-validity situations that we worry about.
In the same way that I've no desire to live in earlier historical periods, I never touch historical recipes. Most historical cooking is detestable.
Assumptions are made and most assumptions are wrong.
The sense of historical continuity, and a feeling for philosophical rectitude cannot, however, be compromised.
A lot of times continuity is your best hope for taking that next step. Can you have a balance of continuity and some additions and bolster it and walk that fine line of adding and embracing continuity?
Some of the most interesting research that I did was about risk assessment and how ordinary citizens like me handle risk assessment and how irregular our risk assessments are.
This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories nature presents to us is the inheritance of biology from The Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by theory, historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion.
If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don't tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don't understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage to ask questions.
I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.
We have a tendency to make assumptions about everything! The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are truth. We could swear they are real. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking-we take it personally-then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison in our word. That is why whenever we make assumptions, we're asking for problems. We make assumptions, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.
In order that a "self" may exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences and, particularly, continuity bridging gaps of unconsciousness. For example, the continuity of our "self" is resumed after sleep, anaesthesia, and the temporary amnesias of concussion and convulsions.
Mitterrand had a sense for symbols, and he was the first Socialist president since 1958. He wanted to show that there is historical continuity, a connection with the great figures of French history.
Reviewing the record of American intervention in Indochina in the Pentagon Papers, one cannot fail to be struck by the continuity of basic assumptions from one administration to the next. Never has there been the slightest deviation from the principle that a noncommunist regime must be imposed and defended, regardless of popular sentiment.
Dialogue is a space where we may see the assumptions which lay beneath the surface of our thoughts, assumptions which drive us, assumptions around which we build organizations, create economies, form nations and religions. These assumptions become habitual, mental habits that drive us, confuse us and prevent our responding intelligently to the challenges we face every day.
A theory is only as good as its assumptions. If the premises are false, the theory has no real scientific value. The only scientific criterion for judging the validity of a scientific theory is a confrontation with the data of experience.
Related Authors
Abraham Maslow Quotes
American
Psychologist
Carl Jung Quotes
Swiss
Psychologist
Daniel Kahneman Quotes
Israeli
Psychologist
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Quotes
American
Psychologist
Erich Fromm Quotes
American
Psychologist
James Hillman Quotes
American
Psychologist
M. Scott Peck Quotes
American
Psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes
Hungarian
Psychologist
Nathaniel Branden Quotes
American
Psychologist
Ram Dass Quotes
American
Psychologist
Rollo May Quotes
American
Psychologist
Sigmund Freud Quotes
Austrian
Psychologist
Tara Brach Quotes
American
Psychologist
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes
Austrian
Psychologist
Wayne Dyer Quotes
American
Psychologist