Russell (1961: 53-4):
Most sciences, at their inception, have been connected with some form of false belief, which gave them a fictitious value. Astronomy was connected with astrology, chemistry with alchemy. Mathematics was associated with a more refined type of error. Mathematical knowledge appeared to be certain, exact, and applicable to the real world; moreover it was obtained by mere thinking, without the need for observation. Consequently, it was thought to supply an ideal, from which every-day empirical knowledge fell short. It was supposed, on the basis of mathematics, that thought is superior to sense, intuition to observation. If the world of sense does not fit mathematics, so much the worse for the world of sense. In various ways, methods of approaching nearer to the mathematician's ideal were sought, and the resulting suggestions were the source of much that was mistaken in metaphysics and the theory of knowledge. This form of philosophy begins with Pythagoras.
Blogger Comments:
In Chomskyan Formal linguistics, the Pythagorean ideal knowledge is termed 'Competence', and the every-day empirical knowledge that falls short is termed mere 'Performance'.
In Chomskyan Formal linguistics, thought is superior to sense, and intuition superior to observation: the data for theorising are intuitions about language, not observations of it.
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