“By means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”

Certain issues in philosophy of science (having to do with observation and the definition of a theory’s empirical import) had beenmisconstrued as issues in philosophy of logic and of language. With respect to modality.

Ask “If that turned out to be true, would you still say they were good scientists?” The answer would reveal something about how they themselves understood what it is to be a scientist.

To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, aboutwhat is actual and observable….

It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature,

I hold the exact opposite: important philosophical problems concerning language have been misconstrued as relating to the content of science and the nature of the world. This is not at all new, but is the traditional nominalist line.

Philosophers often think all scientists must be scientific realists. If you ask a simple question like “Are electrons real?” the answer will be “Yes”. But if your questions are less superficial, for example whether some well-known scientist was a good scientist.

Then, they had insisted that only empirical criteria matter and that they actually did not believe in the reality of sub-atomic entities.

It’s actually quite a good ethos for life: go into the unknown with truth, commitment, and openness and mostly you’ll be okay.

I look at the newspapers, and I cannot believe most of the stories I read. Bernie Madoff, who actually screwed millions of people for billions of dollars.

[You have to be] willing to be changed by the person you’re listening to, where you’re not just waiting for a pause so you can say your thing, but you’re actually letting them have an effect on you if they can.

Migrants come up and no longer seek to evade the Border Patrol, but are actually left at the border by their smugglers.

That somehow distances us from actually taking part fully with the reality we do have, and that creates suffering.

I read a lot. I spend of lot time thinking. It actually looks like I’m doing nothing, but… hanging out with clever and interesting people is a must if you’re writing comedy, like hanging out with a good bass player when you’re a drummer.

We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.

I try to pick songs that I actually like because I realize that I have to live with these songs for a long time, from when I’m working on them in the studio to possibly playing them onstage for the rest of my life.