6/01/2010

name that philosopher

"Every method of inquiry is justified; disputes can only arise over the question of the purpose and fruitfulness of a given method."

* * * * * *

If you guessed the epistemological anarchist Paul Feyerabend, you're wrong. It's Carnap, in 1932's "Psychology in Physical Language" (p. 192 in the Ayer collection). (On this blog, 'Carnap' is always a pretty good guess.) It sounds to me like his Principle of Tolerance, with methods of inquiry substituted for logical systems.

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