Irrefragability, Thy Name Is Mathematics.

Irrefragability, Thy Name Is Mathematics.

For Me The Problem Of Induction Is A Problem About The World: A Problem Of How We, As We Are Now (by Our Present Scientific Lights), In A World We Never Made, Should Stand Better Than Random, Or Coin-tossing Chances Changes Of Coming Out Right When We Predict By Inductions. . . .

Linguistically, And Hence Conceptually, The Things In Sharpest Focus Are The Things That Are Public Enough To Be Talked Of Publicly, Common And Conspicuous Enough To Be Talked Of Often, And Near Enough To Sense To Be Quickly Identified And Learned By Name; It Is To These That Words Apply First And Foremost.

To Define An Expression Is, Paradoxically Speaking, To Explain How To Get Along Without It. To Define Is To Eliminate.

The Mastery Of One's Phonemes May Be Compared To The Violinist's Mastery Of Fingering. The Violin String Lends Itself To A Continuous Gradation Of Tones, But The Musician Learns The Discrete Intervals At Which To Stop The String In Order To Play The Conventional Notes. We Sound Our Phonemes Like Poor Violinists, Approximating Each Time To A Fancied Norm, And We Receive Our Neighbor's Renderings Indulgently, Mentally Rectifying The More Glaring Inaccuracies.