John Dewey Quotes

Can the knowledge deriving from reason even begin to compare with knowledge perceptible by sense?

Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. ... Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

Man discovers truth by reason only, not by faith.

Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.

Even after the observation of the frequent conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.

We are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with truth as far as our reason permits us to discover it.

Philosophy means thinking things out for oneself. Ultimately, there can be only one true philosophy, since reason is one and we all live in the same world.

Perhaps pure reason without heart would never have thought of God.

Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.

Only he who finds empiricism irksome is driven to method.

Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.

Rationalism doesn't require "belief," only observation. The real, measurable world doesn't care what you believe.

Thenceforth they thought that, rationally concluded, doubt could become an instrument of knowledge.

All our knowledge hast its origins in our perceptions … In nature there is no effect without a cause … Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments … Science is the observation of things possible, whether present or past; prescience is the knowledge of things which may come to pass.

The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

There is no perfect knowledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate; none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'

We need only reflect on what has been prov'd at large, that we are never sensible of any connexion betwixt causes and effects, and that 'tis only by our experience of their constant conjunction, we can arrive at any knowledge of this relation.

I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them.

There cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason.

Every principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses . . .