Vaniver comments on Rationality Quotes April 2013 - LessWrong

6 Post author: Vaniver 08 April 2013 02:00AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 11 April 2013 01:02:31AM 4 points [-]

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

--Francis Bacon

Comment author: simplicio 18 April 2013 07:16:24PM 2 points [-]

Neither is necessarily or even usually true though, is it?

Comment author: Vaniver 19 April 2013 01:27:54AM *  3 points [-]

Necessarily, of course not. Usually, well, this is Francis Bacon, and so the intended meaning of the quote is more like "We can be more certain in the outputs of empiricism than we can be in the outputs of deductive argument beginning with intuitions or other a priori knowledge."