PHILOSOPHY QUOTES IV
quotations about philosophy
Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.
GASTON BACHELARD
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire
The process of philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
The wisdom of philosophy is set in opposition to the common sense of mankind. The first pretends to demonstrate, a priori, that there can be no such thing as a material world; that sun, moon, stars, and earth, vegetable and animal bodies, are, and can be nothing else, but sensations in the mind, or images of those sensations in the memory and imagination; that, like pain and joy, they can have no existence when they are not thought of. The last can conceive no otherwise of this opinion, than as a kind of metaphysical lunacy, and concludes that too much learning is apt to make men mad; and that the man who seriously entertains this belief, though in other respects he may be a very good man, as a man may be who believes that he is made of glass; yet, surely he hath a soft place in his understanding, and hath been hurt by much thinking.
THOMAS REID
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
You could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
Everyone has his own philosophy that doesn't hold good for anybody else.
KOBO ABE
The Woman in the Dunes
Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systemic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality.
JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON
The Field of Philosophy
Now, if wisdom is God, who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth, then the philosopher is a lover of God.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
Philosophy is no longer a field conducted entirely from the comfort of an armchair. Over the past decade, this notoriously abstract discipline has developed a branch of "experimental philosophy" that conducts its own scientific studies. Though such work continues to face resistance from conventional armchair philosophers, there's an increasing focus on using empirical studies in conjunction with philosophical thinking: One survey found that 62% of highly cited papers from 1960-1999 used a priori (purely reason-based) methods. From 2009 to 2013, just 12% of comparably cited papers used a priori thinking alone.
OLIVIA GOLDHILL
"Philosophers are using science and data points to test theories of morality", Quartz, March 28, 2016
If your divines are not philosophers, your philosophy will neither be divine, nor able to divine.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
Guesses at Truth
A man becomes a philosopher by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to free himself.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
The World As Will and Idea
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
JOHN KEATS
"Lamia"
Philosophy is a discipline open to anyone -- all you need is a bit of curiosity and an open mind.
BILL BREWER
"Philosophy: Understanding personal identity with Professor Bill Brewer", The Guardian, April 18, 2016
Philosophical problems can be compared to locks on safes, which can be opened by dialing a certain word or number, so that no force can open the door until just this word has been hit upon, and once it is hit upon any child can open it.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Occasions
Philosophy and the neurosciences collaborate in a very fruitful manner.
KATHINKA EVERS
"Neuroscience and philosophy take the stand", Indiana Daily Student, April 10, 2016
If philosophy is still necessary, it is so only in the way it has been from time immemorial: as critique, as resistance to the expanding heteronomy, even if only as thought's powerless attempt to remain its own master and to convict of untruth, by their own criteria, both a fabricated mythology and a conniving, resigned acquiescence.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Why Still Philosophy?
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
KARL MARX
Theses on Feuerbach
When we affirm that philosophy begins with wonder, we are affirming in effect that sentiment is prior to reason.
RICHARD WEAVER
Ideas Have Consequences
Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god.
PLATO
Phaedrus