Time
Time is a criterion commonly appealed to in debate, often referred to as "the test of time". This criterion posits that over time erroneous beliefs and logical errors will be revealed, while if the belief is true, the mere passage of time cannot adversely affect its validity. Time is an inadequate test for truth, since it is subject to similar flaws as custom and tradition (which are simply specific variations of the time factor). Many demonstrably false beliefs have endured for centuries and even millennia. It is commonly rejected as a valid criterion. For example, most people will not convert to another faith simply because the other religion is centuries (or even millennia) older than their current beliefs.
Read more about this topic: Criteria Of Truth
Famous quotes containing the word time:
“It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“And who in time knowes whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gaine of our best glorie shal be sent,
T’inrich unknowing Nations with our stores?
What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident
May come refin’d with th’accents that are ours?”
—Samuel Daniel (c. 1562–1619)
“The purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now,
was and is, to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to nature: to show
virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and
body of the time his form and pressure.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)