Metaphysical Thesis

Famous quotes containing the words metaphysical and/or thesis:

    When philosophers use a word—”knowledge,” “being,” “object,” “I,” “proposition,” “name”—and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?—What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.
    Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)

    Some have said that the thesis [of indeterminacy] is a consequence of my behaviorism. Some have said that it is a reductio ad absurdum of my behaviorism. I disagree with this second point, but I agree with the first. I hold further that the behaviorism approach is mandatory. In psychology one may or may not be a behaviorist, but in linguistics one has no choice.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)