In rational inquiry, we idealize to selected domains in such a way (we hope) as to permit us to discover crucial features of the world. Data and observations, in the sciences, have an instrumental character. They are of no particular interest in themselves, but only insofar as they constitute evidence that permits one to determine fundamental features of the real world, within a course of inquiry that is invariably undertaken under sharp idealizations, often implicit and simply common understanding, but always present. Noam Chomsky
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More Quotes By Noam Chomsky
  1. Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry?

  2. I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.

  3. The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values.

  4. Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

  5. Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile.

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