“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.

That, for me, actually is the most important thing about doing a period film is trying to make these people as lovable as they are back then.

If you look at it, the corset is a very beautiful item, but when I put one on, I realized how little you could actually move.

I am none of these; I’m a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.

a writer doesn’t only need the time when he’s actually writing – he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people.

I think it’s fine for girls to ask boys out. I actually prefer it.

I just happen to believe that people are not stupid. And the way I will come at it is to educate people, help people to actually understand that it is that progressive movement that is causing them the problems.

I introduced legislation in the Senate that I believe is more narrowly focused at the actual threat, which is radical Islamic terrorism, and what my legislation would do is suspend all refugees for three years from countries where ISIS or Al Qaida control substantial territory.

I actually think film and TV are sort of the same thing now. To me they’re all motion pictures. There’s a camera, a script, other actors and a director. Doing a sitcom is a little different.