Quotes About Generalities

The classic deductive inference (actually taken from Aristotle's Categories) is "All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal." Usually a good deductive inference goes from greater generalities to lesser ones:

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

Thus we must advance from generalities to particulars; for it is a whole that is best known to sense-perception, (25) and a generality is a kind of whole, comprehending many things within it, like parts.

definiteness and precision: details were not to be encountered with generalities, but with details. Nor could any progress be made, on such a subject, by merely showing that existing things were bad; it was necessary also to show how they might be made better. No great man whom we read of was qualified to do this thing except Bentham. He has done it, once and for everp .

Estudiar la evolución cultural de la humanidad sin perderse en generalidades parece un proyecto megalómano, condenado al fracaso. No hace falta ser historiador para comprender que la

First, it is a commitment to particularism, to giving priority to the specificity of particulars, not to abstractions and generalities that divert our attention away from concrete realities. Idealizations tend to be partial and distorting, obscuring the heterogeneity and complexity of actual experiences and concrete practices, which is why they do not provide an adequate standpoint for the diagnosis of social problems and injustices.

Modern poets like Frost still want to make 'deep' statements; but they are also more sceptical of such high-sounding generalities than many of their forebears. So, rather like T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land , they gesture enigmatically to such profundities while at the same time being nervous of committing themselves to them.

For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently – though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers, but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.

Art has no other object than to set aside the symbols of practical utility, the generalities that are conventionally and socially accepted, everything in fact which masks reality from us, in order to set us face to face with reality itself.

The glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent.

Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?

Intellectual generalities are always interesting, but generalities in morals mean absolutely nothing.

History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.

Sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, are experts in generalities. When confrontedy by the bull's horns of a concrete case, they all look like Anglo-Saxon bullfighters.

Politicians... talk in generalities and lies, and I think they've caused all our grief. They're so awful, they're really funny. I hate thinking this because my dad loved politics.