Hans Reichenbach Quotes & Sayings

The essence of knowledge is generalization. That fire can be produced by rubbing wood in a certain way is a knowledge derived by generalization from individual experiences; the statement means that rubbing wood in this way will always produce fire. The art of discovery is therefore the art of correct generalization ... The separation of relevant from irrelevant factors is the beginning of knowledge. — Hans Reichenbach

If error is corrected whenever it is recognized as such, the path of error is the path of truth. — Hans Reichenbach

The mathematician uses an indirect definition of congruence, making use of the fact that the axiom of parallels together with an additional condition can replace the definition of congruence. — Hans Reichenbach

Common to the two geometries is only the general property of one-to-one correspondence, and the rule that this correspondence determines straight lines as shortest lines as well as their relations of intersection. — Hans Reichenbach

Philosophy is regarded by many as inseparable from speculation ... Philosophy has proceeded from speculation to science. — Hans Reichenbach

It appears that the solution of the problem of time and space is reserved to philosophers who, like Leibniz, are mathematicians, or to mathematicians who, like Einstein, are philosophers. — Hans Reichenbach

The concept of congruence in Euclidean geometry is not exactly the same as that in non-Euclidean geometry ... Congruent means in Euclidean geometry the same as determining parallelism, a meaning which it does not have in non-Euclidean geometry. — Hans Reichenbach

Occasionally one speaks ... of signals or signal chains. It should be noted that the word signal means the transmission of signs and hence concerns the very principle of causal order ... — Hans Reichenbach

We must ... maintain that mathematical geometry is not a science of space insofar as we understand by space a visual structure that can be filled with objects - it is a pure theory of manifolds. — Hans Reichenbach

Absolute time would exist in a causal structure for which the concept indeterminate as to time order lends to a unique simultaneity, i.e., for which there is no finite interval of time between the departure and return of a first-signal ... — Hans Reichenbach

Visual forms are not perceived differently from colors or brightness. They are sense qualities, and the visual character of geometry consists in these sense qualities. — Hans Reichenbach

The differential element of non-Euclidean spaces is Euclidean. This fact, however, is analogous to the relations between a straight line and a curve, and cannot lead to an epistemological priority of Euclidean geometry, in contrast to the views of certain authors. — Hans Reichenbach

We can ... treat only the geometrical aspects of mathematics and shall be satisfied in having shown that there is no problem of the truth of geometrical axioms and that no special geometrical visualization exists in mathematics. — Hans Reichenbach

You see, there is no more purpose or meaning in the world than you put into it. — Hans Reichenbach

The philosopher of science is not much interested in the thought processes which lead to scientific discoveries; he looks for a logical analysis of the completed theory, including the establishing its validity. That is, he is not interested in the context of discovery, but in the context of justification. — Hans Reichenbach

The statement that although the past can be recorded, the future cannot, is translatable into the statistical statement: Isolated states of order are always postinteraction states, never preinteraction states. — Hans Reichenbach