The level of precision a subject can reach is peculiar to that subject, but it doesn't follow that nothing can be accurately predicated of it:
"It is characteristic of such knowledge [ethics] that it should be deficient in “exactness,” in precision of statement, and closeness of logical concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws."
"[T]he man of education will seek exactness so far in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a Rhetorician."
If you ever wondered, those are among the things that made that single person standing out of the crowd od Humanity for more than two thousands years.<3
"The earliest that this quotation appears in print is in Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959) by Lowell Bennion."
or
"First attributed to Aristotle in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959). Unfound as such.
Sometimes thought (though I feel it's a bit of a stretch) a misinterpretation of Nicomachean Ethics 1.3.4 (1094b): "For it is the mark of an educated person to search for the same kind of clarity in each topic to the extent that the nature of the matter accepts it.""
"It is characteristic of such knowledge [ethics] that it should be deficient in “exactness,” in precision of statement, and closeness of logical concatenation. We must not look for a mathematics of conduct. The subject-matter of Human Conduct is not governed by necessary and uniform laws. But this does not mean that it is subject to no laws."
"[T]he man of education will seek exactness so far in each subject as the nature of the thing admits, it being plainly much the same absurdity to put up with a mathematician who tries to persuade instead of proving, and to demand strict demonstrative reasoning of a Rhetorician."
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8438/8438-h/8438-h.htm
Along the same lines: "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." -- Robert Frost
apparently not, actually:
"The earliest that this quotation appears in print is in Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959) by Lowell Bennion."
or
"First attributed to Aristotle in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959). Unfound as such.
Sometimes thought (though I feel it's a bit of a stretch) a misinterpretation of Nicomachean Ethics 1.3.4 (1094b): "For it is the mark of an educated person to search for the same kind of clarity in each topic to the extent that the nature of the matter accepts it.""