All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that arguing over induction and deduction is pointless, much like a worm's ends quarreling.
Alfred North Whitehead's quote highlights the futility of conflict between two fundamental philosophical approaches: induction (drawing generalizations from specific instances) and deduction (deriving specific conclusions from general principles). He illustrates that just as the two ends of a worm cannot reasonably argue with each other, proponents of these differing methodologies should recognize that both approaches have value and can coexist without discord.
Themes
InductionDeductionPhilosophyReasoningConflict
In practice
Example use cases
In a classroom discussion about scientific methods, this quote can illustrate the importance of integrating different approaches.
More from Alfred North Whitehead
All quotes →The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.
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The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
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As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
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I consider Christianity to be one of the great disasters of the human race... It would be impossible to imagine anything more un - Christianlike than theology.
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Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
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