The role of empirical work in informing our philosophical theories, as I see it, is not that it gives us a better view of our folk concepts, but that it gives us a better view of knowledge, and the mind, and so on.
I noticed affixed to a laboratory door the following words: "Les théories passent. Le Grenouille reste. [The theories pass. The frog remains.] &mdashJean Rostand, Carnets d'un biologiste." There is a risk that in the less severe discipline of criticism the result may turn out to be different; the theories will remain but the frog may disappear.
When you build your network, keep yourself open to new ideas, concepts, and theories. Some of them may even contradict and challenge long-held points of view. This isn't beneficial only to someone in my profession, but to every line of work.
The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.
May the ability to see many points view keep us gentle.
Like works of literature, mathematical ideas help expand our circle of empathy, liberating us from the tyranny of a single, parochial point of view. Numbers, properly considered, make us better people.
The way we respond to criticism pretty much depends on the way we respond to praise. If praise humbles us, then criticism will build us up. But if praise inflates us, then criticism will crush us; and both responses lead to our defeat.
Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us.
Travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty.
Let us ask Mary to help us respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children!
In Judaism or Christianity and so forth, you invent rules that don't exist anywhere except in your imagination. You spend your life trying to gain points and to avoid all kinds of things that detract from your points. And if by the time you die you gather enough points, then you pass on to the next level, in Heaven.
By afflictions God is spoiling us of what otherwise might have spoiled us. When he makes the world too hot for us to hold, we let it go.
Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious, because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories than libraries can get along without catalogs and for the same reason: theories help us make sense of incoming information.
Because I'm a former critic, I view criticism differently than most do. I can take criticism, but if you're going to eviscerate us, be specific.
I want ABC to be a fantastic home for creative, talented people with unique points of view and personal stories to tell and for us to be able to support them in bringing their ideas to the screen.
Being up on something is a way of dismissing it. To espouse any point of view is a danger - it might leave us stuck with last year's cause. Prized for their novelty alone, ideas, gimmicks, trends become equivalent, interchangeable.