Quote: concepts represent the complex of our experiences; no other justification

Quotation

The only justification for our concepts and system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy. ... this universe of ideas is just as little independent of the nature of our experiences as clothes are of the form of the human body. This is particularly true of our concepts of time and space, which physicists have been obliged by the facts to bring down from the Olympus of the a priori in order to adjust them and put them in a serviceable condition.   Google-1   Google-2

Published before 1923

Additional Titles

Quote: physicists have changed the concepts of time and space to fit experience; were a priori

Related Topics

Topic: abstraction as part of language (18 items)
Topic: special relativity (73 items)
Topic: empirical truth (44 items)