Metaphysics

"[…] he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics." (Moses Maimonides, "The Guide for the Perplexed", 1190)

"When you understand physics, you have entered the hall; and when, after completing the study of natural philosophy, you master metaphysics, you have entered the innermost court and are with the king in the same palace." (Moses Maimonides, "The Guide for the Perplexed", 1190)

"That is better and more valuable which requires fewer, other circumstances being equal. [...] For if one thing were demonstrated from many and another thing from fewer equally known premises, clearly that is better which is from fewer because it makes us know quickly, just as a universal demonstration is better than particular because it produces knowledge from fewer premises. Similarly in natural science, in moral science, and in metaphysics the best is that which needs no premises and the better that which needs the fewer, other circumstances being equal." (Robert Grosseteste," Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libros", cca. 1217–1220)

"Physic […] is situate in a middle term or distance between natural history and metaphysic. For natural history describes the variety of things; physic the causes, but variable or respective causes; and metaphysic the fixed and constant causes." (Sir Francis Bacon, "The Advancement of Learning", 1605)

"Only geometry can hand us the thread [which will lead us through] the labyrinth of the continuum's composition, the maximum and the minimum, the infinitesimal and the infinite; and no one will arrive at a truly solid metaphysics except he who has passed through this [labyrinth]." (Gottfried W Leibniz, "Dissertatio Exoterica De Statu Praesenti et Incrementis Novissimis Deque Usu Geometriae", 1676)

"Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being, necessarily existing." (Isaac Newton,  "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" ["The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"], 1687)

"[…] even if someone refuses to admit infinite and infinitesimal lines in a rigorous metaphysical sense and as real things, he can still use them with confidence as ideal concepts (notions ideales) which shorten his reasoning, similar to what we call imaginary roots in the ordinary algebra, for example, v-2." (Gottfried W Leibniz, [letter to Varignon], 1702)

"By the very nature of poetry it is impossible for everyone to be at the same time a sublime poet and a sublime metaphysician, for metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars." (Giambattista Vico, "The New Science", 1725)

"The topics of ontology, or metaphysic, are cause, effect, action, passion, identity, opposition, subject, adjunct, and sign." (Isaac Watts, "Logic, or The right use of reason, in the inquiry after truth", 1725)

"One should not be deceived by philosophical works that pretend to be mathematical, but are merely dubious and murky metaphysics. Just because a philosopher can recite the words lemma, theorem and corollary doesn't mean that his work has the certainty of mathematics. That certainty does not derive from big words, or even from the method used by geometers, but rather from the utter simplicity of the objects considered by mathematics." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746)

"Thus, metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reason, those in which imagination has the greatest role." (Jean d'Alembert, "Discours Preliminaire de L'Encyclopedie", 1751)

"That metaphysics has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact, that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of metaphysics. (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason" , 1781)

"It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic." (Immanuel Kant, "The Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"Metaphysical truths can only be established by producing effects from corresponding causes; and though we may confront such demonstrative evidence with the immutable laws of mathematical decision, we must be sensible that there will still remain some pretense for doubt; thus the basis of that knowledge, which on these principles we have been long labouring to accomplish, will become an endless toil, an endless force for controversy: and having the passions and the prejudices of mankind to combat, which mathematical certainty can alone effectually suppress, we must content ourselves only with making converts of those who have minds sufficiently expansive without the shackles of Euclid, and the vanity of displaying their own learning and pedantry." (James Douglas, "A Dissertation on the Antiquity of the Earth", 1785)

"All that can be said upon the number and nature of elements is, in my opinion, confined to discussions entirely of a metaphysical nature. The subject only furnishes us with indefinite problems, which may be solved in a thousand different ways, not one of which, in all probability, is consistent with nature." (Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, "Elements of Chemistry", 1790)

"Nothing universal can be rationally affirmed on any moral or any political subject. Pure metaphysical abstraction does not belong to these matters. The lines of morality are not like the ideal lines of mathematics. They are broad and deep as well as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are not made by the process of logic, but by the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, regulator, the standard of them all. Metaphysics cannot live without definition; but prudence is cautious how she defines." (Edmund Burke, "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs", 1791)

"I see with much pleasure that you are working on a large work on the integral Calculus [...] The reconciliation of the methods which you are planning to make, serves to clarify them mutually, and what they have in common contains very often their true metaphysics; this is why that metaphysics is almost the last thing that one discovers. The spirit arrives at the results as if by instinct; it is only on reflecting upon the route that it and others have followed that it succeeds in generalising the methods and in discovering its metaphysics." (Pierre-Simon Laplace [letter to Sylvestre F Lacroix] 1792)

"With the synthesis of every new concept in the aggregation of coordinate characteristics the extensive or complex distinctness is increased; with the further analysis of concepts in the series of subordinate characteristics the intensive or deep distinctness is increased. The latter kind of distinctness, as it necessarily serves the thoroughness and conclusiveness of cognition, is therefore mainly the business of philosophy and is carried farthest especially in metaphysical investigations." (Immanuel Kant, "Logic", 1800)

"Metaphysical inquiry attempts to trace things to the very first stage in which they can, even to the most penetrating intelligences, be the subjects of a thought, a doubt, or a proposition; that profoundest abstraction, where they stand on the first step of distinction from nonentity, and where that one question might be put concerning them, the answer to which would leave no further question possible. And having thus abstracted and penetrated to the state of pure entity, the speculation would come back, tracing it into all its modes and relations; till at last metaphysical truth, approaching nearer and nearer to the sphere of our immediate knowledge, terminates on the confines of distinct sciences and obvious realities. Now, it would seem evident that this inquiry into primary truth must surpass, in point of dignity, all other speculations. If any man could carry his discoveries as far, and make his proofs as strong, in the metaphysical world, as Newton did in the physical, he would be an incomparably greater man than even Newton." (John Foster, "Essays", cca. 1805)

"Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation", 1819)

"The science of the mathematics performs more than it promises, but the science of metaphysics promises more than it performs. The study of the mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence; but the study of metaphysics begins with a torrent of tropes, and a copious current of words, yet loses itself at last in obscurity and conjecture, like the Niger in his barren deserts of sand." (Charles C Colton, "Lacon", 1820)

"Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work." (Charles C Colton, "Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan" 1823)

"All parts of knowledge have their origin in metaphysics, and finally, perhaps, revolve into it. Mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is not purely metaphysical." (Thomas De Quincey, "Kant in His Miscellaneous Essays", Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 28, 1830)

"Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to rise above the mind." (Thomas Carlyle, "Critical and Miscellaneous: Collected and Republished", 1839)

"Therefore science always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge." (Ralph W Emerson, "The Poet", 1844)

"Metaphysics. The science to which ignorance goes to learn its knowledge, and knowledge to learn its ignorance. On which all men agree that it is the key, but no two upon how it is to be put into the lock." (Augustus De Morgan, [letter to Dr. Whewell] 1850)

"Religion is the metaphysics of the masses […] Just as they have popular poetry, and the popular wisdom of proverbs, so they must have popular metaphysics too: for mankind absolutely needs an interpretation of life; and this, again, must be suited to popular comprehension." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion", 1851)

"Some think to avoid the influence of metaphysical errors, by paying no attention to metaphysics; but experience shows that these men beyond all others are held in an iron vice of metaphysical theory, because by theories that they have never called in question." (Charles S Peirce, 1867)

"Nor do I know any study which can compete with mathematics in general in furnishing matter for severe and continued thought. Metaphysical problems may be even more difficult; but then they are far less definite, and, as they rarely lead to any precise conclusion, we miss the power of checking our own operations, and of discovering whether we are thinking and reasoning or merely fancying and dreaming." (Isaac Todhunter, "Conflict of Studies and Other Essays", 1873)

"A metaphysical conclusion is either a false conclusion or a concealed experimental conclusion." (Hermann von Helmholtz, "On Thought in Medicine", 1877)

"It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it off." (Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits", 1878)

"Logic works, metaphysics contemplates." (Joseph Joubert, "The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert", 1883)

"Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly." (William James, "The Principles of Psychology" Vol 1, 1890)

"Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct." (Francis H Bradley, "Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay", 1893)

"The history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature’s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life’s machinery or of the world around us." (Santiago Ramón y Cajal, "Reglas y Consejos sobre Investigacíon Cientifica: Los tónicos de la voluntad", 1897)

"All our ideas and concepts are only internal pictures, or if spoken, combinations of sounds. The task of our thinking is so to use and combine them that by their means we always most readily hit upon the correct actions and guide others likewise. In this, metaphysics follows the most down-to-earth and practical point of view, so that extremes meet. The conceptual signs that we form thus exist only within us, we cannot measure external phenomena by the standard of our ideas. We can therefore pose such formal questions as whether only matter exists and force is a property of it, or whether force exists independently of matter or conversely whether matter is a product of force but none of these questions are significant since all these concepts are only mental pictures whose purpose is to represent phenomena correctly." (Ludwig Boltzmann, 1899)

"Science and metaphysics therefore come together in intuition. " (Henri Bergson, "Introduction to Metaphysics", 1903)

"Science […] deals exclusively with changes of configuration, and traces the accelerations which are observed to occur, leaving to metaphysics to deal with the underlying agency, if it exists." (Lloyd Morgan, "The Interpretation of Nature", 1906)

"Diagrammatic reasoning is the only really fertile reasoning. If logicians would only embrace this method, we should no longer see attempts to base their science on the fragile foundations of metaphysics or a psychology not based on logical theory; and there would soon be such an advance in logic that every science would feel the benefit of it." (Charles S Peirce, "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism", Monist 16(4), 1906)

"If the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to metaphysics." (Pierre Duhem, "The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory", 1906)

"Metaphysics, or the attempt to conceive the world as a whole by means of thought, has been developed, from the first, by the union and conflict of two very different human impulses, the one urging men towards mysticism, the other urging them towards science." (Bertrand Russell, "Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays", 1919)

"Metaphysics, because it opens out a limitless vista of possibilities, must take care never to lose sight of the inexpressible, which indeed constitutes its very essence." (René Guénon, "Introduction générale à l'étude des doctrines hindoues", 1921)

"Philosophy in its old form could exist only in the absence of engineering, but with engineering in existence and daily more active and far reaching, the old verbalistic philosophy and metaphysics have lost their reason to exist. They were no more able to understand the ‘production’ of the universe and life than they are now able to understand or grapple with 'production' as a means to provide a happier existence for humanity. They failed because their venerated method of ‘speculation’ can not produce, and its place must be taken by mathematical thinking. Mathematical reasoning is displacing metaphysical reasoning. Engineering is driving verbalistic philosophy out of existence and humanity gains decidedly thereby." (Alfred Korzybski,  "Manhood of Humanity", 1921)

"A system of philosophy, or metaphysics, is a union of a world view and a life view in one harmonious, complete, integral conception. In so far as any man strives to attain, by rational inquiry, a consistent and comprehensive view of life and reality, he is a metaphysician." (Joseph Alexander Leighton, "Man and the Cosmos - An introduction to Metaphysics", 1922)

"The objective world of science has nothing in common with the world of things-in-themselves of the metaphysician. The metaphysical world, assuming that it has any meaning at all, is irrelevant to science." (A. D'Abro, "The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein", 1927)

"A precise language awaits a completed metaphysics." (Alfred North Whitehead, "Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology", 1929)

"Metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence." (Joseph W Krutch, "The Modern Temper", 1929)

"The progress of human thought is through metaphysics to physics." (A. Gowans Whyte, "The Triumph of Physics", The Rationalist Annual, 1931)

"One has to recognize that science is not metaphysics, and certainly not mysticism; it can never bring us the illumination and the satisfaction experienced by one enraptured in ecstasy. Science is sobriety and clarity of conception, not intoxicated vision."(Ludwig Von Mises, "Epistemological Problems of Economics", 1933)

"To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician." (Bertrand Russell, [lecture] 1935)

"In every writer on philosophy there is a concealed metaphysic, usually unconscious; even if his subject is metaphysics, he is almost certain to have an uncritically believed system which underlies his specific arguments." (Bertrand Russell, "Dewey’s New Logic" [in "The Philosophy of John Dewey", ed. by Paul A Schilpp & Lewis E Hahn, 1939])

"Since science’s competence extends to observable and measurable phenomena, not to the inner being of things, and to the means, not to the ends of human life, it would be nonsense to expect that the progress of science will provide men with a new type of metaphysics, ethics, or religion."  (Jacques Maritain, "Science and Ontology", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 5, 1944)

"The complete use of pure reason brings us finally from physical to metaphysical knowledge. But the concepts of metaphysical knowledge do not in themselves fully satisfy the demand of our integral being. They are indeed entirely satisfactory to the pure reason itself, because they are the very stuff of its own existence. But our nature sees things through two eyes always, for it views them doubly as idea and as fact and therefore every concept is incomplete for us and to a part of our nature almost unreal until it becomes an experience." (Sri Aurobindo, "The Life Divine", 1944)

"In various ways, methods of approaching the mathematician's ideal were sought, and the resulting suggestions were the source of much that was mistaken in metaphysics and theory of knowledge." (Bertrand Russell, "A History of Western Philosophy", 1945)

"[…] science, properly interpreted, is not dependent on any sort of metaphysics. It merely attempts to cover a maximum of facts by a minimum of laws." (Herbert Feigl, "Naturalism and Humanism", American Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1949)

"When a scientific theory is firmly established and confirmed, it changes its character and becomes a part of the metaphysical background of the age: a doctrine is transformed into a dogma." (Max Born, "Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance", 1949)

"Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language." (Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Philosophical Investigations", 1953)

"[…] if the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to metaphysics." (Pierre-Maurice-Marie Duhem, "The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory", 1954)

"Our craving for generality has [as one] source […] our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is ‘purely descriptive’." (Ludwig Wittgenstein, "The Blue and Brown Books", 1958)

"Mathematics has, of course, given the solution of the difficulties in terms of the abstract concept of converging infinite series. In a certain metaphysical sense this notion of convergence does not answer Zeno’s argument, in that it does not tell how one is to picture an infinite number of magnitudes as together making up only a finite magnitude; that is, it does not give an intuitively clear and satisfying picture, in terms of sense experience, of the relation subsisting between the infinite series and the limit of this series." (Carl B Boyer, "The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development", 1959)

"Mathematics is neither a description of nature nor an explanation of its operation; it is not concerned with physical motion or with the metaphysical generation of quantities. It is merely the symbolic logic of possible relations, and as such is concerned with neither approximate nor absolute truth, but only with hypothetical truth. That is, mathematics determines what conclusions will follow logically from given premises. The conjunction of mathematics and philosophy, or of mathematics and science is frequently of great service in suggesting new problems and points of view." (Carl B Boyer, "The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development", 1959)

"Nothing is more fruitful - all mathematicians know it - than those obscure analogies, those disturbing reflections of one theory on another; those furtive caresses, those inexplicable discords; nothing also gives more pleasure to the researcher. The day comes when this illusion dissolves: the presentiment turns into certainty; the yoked theories reveal their common source before disappearing. As the Gita teaches, one achieves knowledge and indifference at the same time. Metaphysics has become Mathematics, ready to form the material of some treatise whose cold beauty has lost the power to move us." (André Weil, "De la métaphysique aux mathématiques", 1960)

"Roughly, by a complex system I mean one made up of a large number of parts that interact in a nonsimple way. In such systems, the whole is more than the sum of the parts, not in an ultimate, metaphysical sense, but in the important pragmatic sense that, given the properties of the parts and the laws of their interaction, it is not a trivial matter to infer the properties of the whole." (Herbert Simon, "The Architecture of Complexity", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 106 (6), 1962)

"All our language is composed of brief little dreams; and the wonderful thing is that we sometimes make of them strangely accurate and marvelously reasonable thoughts. […] What should we be without the help of that which does not exist? Very little. And our unoccupied minds would languish if fables, mistaken notions, abstractions, beliefs, and monsters, hypotheses, and the so-called problems of metaphysics did not people with beings and objectless images our natural depths and darkness. Myths are the souls of our actions and our loves. We cannot act without moving towards a phantom. We can love only what we create." (Paul Valéry, "The Outlook for Intelligence", 1962)

"Philosophy is metaphysics. Metaphysics thinks beings as a whole - the world, man, God - with respect to Being, with respect to the belonging together of beings in Being. Metaphysics thinks beings as being in the manner of representational thinking which gives reasons." (Martin Heidegger, "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking", 1964)

"There are metaphysical problems, which cannot be disposed of by declaring them meaningless. For, as I have repeatedly said, they are ‘beyond physics’ indeed and demand an act of faith. We have to accept this fact to be honest. There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the incredible and those who believe that ‘belief’ must be discarded and replaced by 'the scientific method'." (Max Born, "Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance", 1964)

"We must accept, I think, that there is an inherent limitation in the structure of science that prevents a scientific theory from ever giving us an adequate total explanation of the universe. Always, there is a base in nature (or, correspondingly, a set of assumptions in theory) which cannot be explained by reference to some yet more fundamental property. This feature of science has been commented on by many writers in the philosophy of science; and, certainly the limitation is a point of difference between science and those religious or metaphysical systems in which there is an attempt to present a doctrine that gives answers for all ultimate questions." (Richard Schlegel, "Completeness in Science", 1967)

"The concept of reality (in the sense of independence from the cognizing consciousness) does not belong with (rational) science, but within metaphysics." (Rudolf Carnap, "The Logical Structure of the World", 1967)

"The system problem is essentially the problem of the limitation of analytical procedures in science. This used to be expressed by half-metaphysical statements, such as emergent evolution or ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts,’ but has a clear operational meaning." (Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "General System Theory", 1968)

"As to the role of emotions in art and the subconscious mechanism that serves as the integrating factor both in artistic creation and in man's response to art, they involve a psychological phenomenon which we call a sense of life. A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence." (Ayn Rand, "The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature", 1969)

"For some years now the activity of the artist in our society has been trending more toward the function of the ecologist: one who deals with environmental relationships. Ecology is defined as the totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment. Thus the act of creation for the new artist is not so much the invention of new objects as the revelation of previously unrecognized relation- ships between existing phenomena, both physical and metaphysical. So we find that ecology is art in the most fundamental and pragmatic sense, expanding our apprehension of reality." (Gene Youngblood, "Expanded Cinema", 1970)

"General systems theory is the scientific exploration of 'wholes' and 'wholeness' which, not so long ago, were considered metaphysical notions transcending the boundaries of science. Hierarchic structure, stability, teleology, differentiation, approach to and maintenance of steady states, goal-directedness - these are a few of such general system properties." (Ervin László, "Introduction to Systems Philosophy", 1972)

"Metaphysics attempts to discover the ultimate nature of reality, and in this sense, the innerspace of science fiction is metaphysical fiction." (Kate Wilhelm, 1974)

"[…] science is not sacrosanct. The restrictions it imposes (and there are many such restrictions though it is not easy to spell them out) are not necessary in order to have general coherent and successful views about the world. There are myths, there are the dogmas of theology, there is metaphysics, and there are many other ways of constructing a worldview. It is clear that a fruitful exchange between science and such ‘nonscientific’ world-views will be in even greater need of anarchism than is science itself. Thus, anarchism is not only possible, it is necessary both for the internal progress of science and for the development of our culture as a whole." (Paul Feyerabend, "Against Method", 1975)

"To gauge the understanding and insight that metaphysics provides is to ask whether, in the final analysis, it helps us to cope with our world and harmonize our existence with nature, humanity, and ourselves, and leads to greater freedom and self-realization. Metaphysics is only the beginning. The end is human progress." (Rudolph Rummel, "Understanding Conflict and War: The dynamic psychological field", 1975)

"The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two." (Ken Wilber, "No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth", 1979)

"The ability of a scientific theory to be refuted is the key criterion that distinguishes science from metaphysics. If a theory cannot be refuted, if there is no observation that will disprove it, then nothing can prove it - it cannot predict anything, it is a worthless myth." (Eric Lerner, "The Big Bang Never Happened", 1991)

"The mystery of sound is mysticism; the harmony of life is religion. The knowledge of vibrations is metaphysics, the analysis of atoms is science, and their harmonious grouping is art. The rhythm of form is poetry, and the rhythm of sound is music. This shows that music is the art of arts and the science of all sciences; and it contains the fountain of all knowledge within itself." (Inayat Khan, "The Mysticism of Sound and Music", 1996)

"Metaphysics in philosophy is, of course, supposed to characterize what is real - literally real. The irony is that such a conception of the real depends upon unconscious metaphors." (George Lakoff,  "Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought", 1999)

"There is no 'scientific worldview' just as there is no uniform enterprise 'science' - except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche […]." (Paul Karl Feyerabend, "Conquest of Abundance", 1999)

"To look at the development of physics since Newton is to observe a struggle to define the limits of science. Part of this process has been the intrusion of scientific methods and ideas into domains that have traditionally been the province of metaphysics or religion. In this conflict, Hawking’s phrase ‘to know the Mind of God’ is just one example of a border infringement. But by playing the God card, Hawking has cleverly fanned the flames of his own publicity, appealing directly to the popular allure of the scientist-as-priest."  (Peter Coles, "Hawking and the Mind of God", 2000)