“It was precisely this notion of infinite series which in the sixth century BC led the Greek philosopher Zeno to conclude that since an arrow shot towards a target first had to cover half the distance, and then half the remainder, and then half the remainder after that, and so on ad infinitum, the result was, as I will now demonstrate, that though an arrow is always approaching its target, it never quite gets there, and Saint Sebastian died of fright.” FirstsResultsHalfCenturyShotsDiedInfiniteDistanceSeriesNotionSaintPhilosopherGreekTargetAdsNever QuitArrowsFrightGreek Philosopher Book:Jumpers Source: Jumpers
“The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were now transposed to the sphere of work, while tasks lacking in any financial reward were drained of all significance and left to the haphazard attentions of decadent dilettantes. It now seemed as impossible that one could be happy and unproductive as it had once seemed unlikely that one could work and be human.” HumansLeftAttentionImpossibleCenturyTasksRewardsFinancialPhilosopherSatisfactionGreekSignificanceFormulasThinkerSpheresLeisureLackingUnlikelyBourgeoisDrainedGreek PhilosopherUnproductiveHaphazardDilettantes Author:Alain de Botton
“At one time, many philosophers held that faultless "laws of thought" were somehow inherent, a priori, in the very nature of mind. This belief was twice shaken in the past century; first when Russell and his successors showed how the logic men employ can be defective, and later when Freud and Piaget started to reveal the tortuous ways in which our minds actually develop.” MenWayMindFirstsPastLawBeliefCenturyLogicPhilosopherOne TimeInherentSuccessorsDefective Author:Jean Piaget
“A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.” PeopleHeartDoeMadeEnoughFormMarriageHistoryRichEffectsCenturyStrangeQuietMarriedPhilosopherIntenseMade ItEnjoymentBoredomNineteenth CenturyMarried Life Book:The Red and the Black: World Classics Source: The Red and the Black: World Classics
“As the worldly philosophers of the past affirmed, the goal of economics is to improve the way society functions. In The New Financial Order, Robert Shiller joins this proud tradition by directing his brilliant economic skills toward the creation of financial institutions designed to reduce the risks an unknown future visits on most members of our society and others. Shiller's imaginative and compelling analysis will appeal to all readers who share his passion for initiating not only a richer, but a better, century.” WayPastOrderPassionGoalRiskShareEconomicCenturyCreationReaderProudSkillsMembersEconomicsTraditionFunctionInstitutionsFinancialPhilosopherBrilliantAppealsAnalysisOur SocietyCompellingWorldlyImaginativeFinancial InstitutionsUnknown Future Author:Peter L. Bernstein
“The wild black scavengers of the skies laid their eggs in season and lovingly fed their young. They soared high over prairies and mountains and plains, searching for the fulfillment of that share of life's destiny which was theirs according to the plan of Nature. Their philosophers demonstrated by unaided 15 Animals reason alone that the Supreme Cathartes aura regnans had created the world especially for buzzards. They worshipped him with hearty appetites for many centuries.” WorldReasonYoungBlackAnimalDestinyPlansSkyShareCenturyMountainSeasonsPhilosopherSupremeFulfillmentEggsFedsAppetiteAurasPrairieHeartyBuzzards Author:Walter M. Miller, Jr.
“Contemporary philosophers are facing problems that were unthinkable only one century ago, such as whether space and time are mutually Independent, whether there is objective chance or only uncertainty, whether physics can explain chemical change, whether our behavior is fully determined by our genomes, whether ideation can change the brain, or whether either the economy or ideas are the ultimate roots of the social.” IdeasProblemSocialChanceSpaceBrainEconomyCenturyBehaviorRootsUltimateIndependentPhilosopherDeterminedPhysicsObjectivesContemporaryUncertaintyChemicalsTime And SpaceUnthinkableGenomeIdeation Author:Mario Bunge
“Wine has been with us since the beginning of civilization. It is the temperate, civilized, sacred, romantic mealtime beverage recommended in the Bible. Wine has been praised for centuries by statesmen, philosophers, poets, and scholars. Wine in moderation is an integral part of our culture, heritage and gracious way of life.” WayHas BeensCultureCenturyPoetCivilizationSacredWinePhilosopherCivilizedHeritageScholarModerationGraciousStatesmenBeverages Author:Robert Mondavi
“Why do I wear tennis shoes? That's two questions. Do I wear tennis shoes? The answer to that question is, "Yes." "Why?" That's a question philosophers have been pondering for centuries.” Has BeensTwoAnswersCenturyShoesPhilosopherTennisPonderingTennis Shoes Author:Irwin Corey
“The words 'theory' and 'practice' are of Greek origin; they carry our thoughts back to the ancient philosophers by whom they were contrived, and by whom they were also contrasted and placed in opposition, as denoting two mutually conflicting and mutually inconsistent ideas. ... [this fallacy] based on a double system of natural laws retarded for centuries the development of physical science, notably mechanics.” TwoIdeasLawNaturalPracticeCenturyTheoryDevelopmentAncientPhilosopherGreekOppositionOur ThoughtsMechanicFallacyNatural LawInconsistentRetardedPhysical ScienceTheory And Practice Author:William John Macquorn Rankine
“A couple of hundred years from now, maybe [science fiction writers] Isaac Asimov and Fred Pohl will be considered the important philosophers of the twentieth century, and the professional philosophers will almost all be forgotten, because they're just shallow and wrong, and their ideas aren't very powerful.” YearsImportantIdeasPowerfulFictionCenturyCoupleHundredScience FictionForgottenPhilosopherShallowTwentieth CenturyVery PowerfulFiction WritersIsaac Author:Marvin Minsky
“Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century. The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God's hands in chains. According to al-Ghazzali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries.” WantDoeIdeasCountryHandsLawPiecesCenturyFiguresIslamPhilosopherChainsFlamesHeatIslamicAlsAlasLaws Of NatureInfluentialCottonIncoherence Author:Steven Weinberg
“It's strange that in an age when we pride ourselves on our independence of thought we meekly submit without further question to the declaration of a clearly unbalanced nineteenth century philosopher that God is dead! That's cheeky, of course - and one rarely comes away from reading Nietzsche without learning something new and significant. He's certainly FAR more unsettling for faith than any contemporary atheist I know of.” KnowsAgeCoursesReadingCenturyStrangePrideIndependenceAtheistPhilosopherSignificantContemporarySomething NewSubmitDeclarationNineteenth CenturyUnbalancedGod Is DeadLearning Something NewCheekyIndependence Of Thought Author:George Pattison
“Many philosophers in the second half of the 20th century really seemed to think that they were laying the foundations for science by laying down the conceptual (necessary) truths.” ThinkingHalfCenturyFoundationPhilosopher20th CenturyLaying Down Author:Patricia Churchland
“Given how long philosophers have been at conceptual analysis (I mean the 20th century stuff), and how many have been doing it, what can we say are the two most important concept results of all that effort?” MeanLongHas BeensTwoImportantGivenStuffResultsEffortCenturyConceptsPhilosopherAnalysis20th Century Author:Patricia Churchland
“A century ago mainstream science was still quite happy to countenance vital and mental powers which had a 'downwards' causal influence on the physical realm in a straightforwardly interactionist way. It was only in the middle of the last century that science finally concluded that there are no such non-physical forces. At which point a whole pile of smart philosophers (Feigl, Smart, Putnam, Davidson, Lewis) quickly pointed out that mental, biological and social phenomena must themselves be physical, in order to produce the physical effects that they do.” WayStillsWholeLastsOrderForceSocialInfluenceMiddleEffectsCenturyProduceSmartPhilosopherRealmsMainstreamCountenanceMental PowerPhysical Force Author:David Papineau
“The great philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries did not think that epistemological questions floated free of questions about how the mind works. Those philosophers took a stand on all sorts of questions which nowadays we would classify as questions of psychology, and their views about psychological questions shaped their views about epistemology, as well they should have.” ThinkingShouldMindWellsViewsPsychologyCenturyShould HavePhilosopherPsychologicalEpistemology18th CenturyGreat Philosophers Author:Hilary Kornblith
“17th century philosophers were not in a position to understand the mind as well as we can today, since the advent of experimental methods in psychology. It shows no disrespect for the brilliance of Descartes or Kant to acknowledge that the psychology which they worked with was primitive by comparison with what is available today in the cognitive sciences, any more than it shows disrespect for the brilliance of Aristotle to acknowledge that the physics he worked with does not compare with that of Newton or Einstein.” MindWellsDoeShowsTodayPsychologyCenturyPositionMethodPhilosopherAvailablePhysicsCompareAcknowledgeComparisonPrimitiveBrillianceNewtonDisrespectCognitiveAdventCognitive Science17th Century Author:Hilary Kornblith
“I was occupied by a range of questions, often different from those fashionable in the professional philosophy of the past half century, that have sometimes troubled philosophers in the past. It's taken me several decades to work out my own philosophical agenda, and it is wide.” DifferentSometimesPhilosophyPastMy OwnHalfTakenCenturyPhilosophicalPhilosopherWork OutWideDecadesRangeAgendasFashionable Author:Philip Kitcher