When asked for the answer to ‘68+57’, I unhesitatingly and automatically produced ‘125’, but it would seem that if previously I never performed this computation explicitly I might just as well have answered ‘5’. Nothing justifies a brute inclination to answer one way rather than another.
Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein On Rules And Private Language
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
Ernest Hemingway (via penseesduchoeur)
Modern linguistics shares the delusion- the accurate term, I believe – that modern ‘behavioral sciences’ have in some essential respect achieved a transition from ‘speculation’ to ‘science’ …. Obviously any rational person will favour rigorous analysis and careful experiment; but to a considerable degree, I feel, the ‘behavioral sciences’ are merely mimicking the surface features of the natural sciences; much of their scientific character has been achieved by a restriction of subject matter and a concentration on rather peripheral issues.
Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind, 1968.
The sounds of the rain outside my window.