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Philosophical Quotes

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Philosophical Quotes

“On a small scale, person-to-person, Jesus encountered the kinds of suffering common to all of us. And how did he respond? Avoiding philosophical theories and theological lessons, he reached out with healing and compassion. He forgave sin, healed the afflicted, cast out evil, and even overcame death.”

Kind Persons Suffering Evil Jesus Sin Common Healing Compassion Theory Lessons Philosophical Casts Scales Avoiding Healed Theological

Author:Philip Yancey

“THERE is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.”

Source: Essays Moral, Political, and Literary

“In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.”

Reason Causes Common Secret Opinion Discovery Argument Stronger Philosophical Experiments Investigation Conjecture Speculators

Author:W. S. Gilbert

“The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment.”

“As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum swinging between dogmatism and skepticism. The only way to stop this increasingly tiresome pendulum swing is to change our conception of what philosophy is good for. But that is not something which will be accomplished by a few neat arguments. It will be accomplished, if it ever is, by a long, slow process of cultural change - that is to say, of change in common sense, changes in the intuitions available for being pumped up by philosophical arguments.”

“the most common type of pessimism is neither philosophical nor religious: it is the pessimism of thwarted desire. ... It is the cynical sneer of the man who, seeking roses, finds only ashes.”

Men Desire Religious Common He Man Type Philosophical Rose Seeking Pessimism Cynical Ashes Sneer

Author:Georgia Harkness

“Do you come to a philosopher as to a cunning man, to learn something by magic or witchcraft, beyond what can be known by common prudence and discretion?”

Men Common Known Magic Philosophical Philosopher Cunning Prudence Witchcraft Discretion Cunning Man

Book:Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics

Source: Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics

“Logical investigations can obviously be a useful tool for philosophy. They must, however, be informed by a sensitivity to the philosophical significance of the formalism and by a generous admixture of common sense, as well as a thorough understanding both of the basic concepts and of the technical details of the formal material used. It should not be supposed that the formalism can grind out philosophical results in a manner beyond the capacity of ordinary philosophical reasoning. There is no mathematical substitute for philosophy.”

“The strategy of semantic ascent is that it carries the discussion into a domain where both parties are better agreed on the objects (viz., words) and on the main terms connecting them. Words, or their inscriptions, unlike points, miles, classes and the rest, are tangible objects of the size so popular in the marketplace, where men of unlike conceptual schemes communicate at their best. The strategy is one of ascending to a common part of two fundamentally disparate conceptual schemes, the better to discuss the disparate foundations. No wonder it helps in philosophy.”

“It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It's wrong.”

Thinking Common Nice Theory Philosophical Defects

Author:Saul

“Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a feeling for its unity in relation to the whole. For example, philosophy should not only be contrasted to non-philosophy, but also to poetry.”

“A fool marvels at rare things, but a wise man at common ones.”

Men Common Wise Fool Philosophical Rare Things

Author:Confucius

“The experimentalists think that we can only get at our concepts by way of empirical investigation, while the armchair philosophers think that we can skip the experiments and figure things out from our armchairs. What they have in common, however, is regarding our concepts as the targets of philosophical theorising, and I just don't think that, in the vast majority of cases, the subject matter of philosophy has our concepts as its target.”

Thinking Way Matter Philosophy Common Cases Subjects Figures Concepts Philosophical Majority Philosopher Experiments Target Investigation Subject Matter Skip Armchairs

Author:Hilary Kornblith

“It's not just that there is a cooperative spirit of investigation there, where we all recognise that we are engaged in a common project of inquiry. It's also that the philosophers are well-versed in the relevant empirical data, and the scientists are well-versed in the more abstract issues which are typically the central focus of philosophical work.”

Wells Spirit Common Issues Focus Projects Scientist Philosophical Philosopher Data Engaged Abstract Relevant Investigation Inquiry Recognise Cooperatives

Author:Hilary Kornblith

“There is a very common, though also very silly, picture of Kant according to which as empirical beings we are not free at all, and we are free only as noumenal jellyfish floating about in an intelligible sea above the heavens, outside any context in which our supposedly "free" choices could have any conceivable human meaning or significance. Part of the problem here is that Kant faces up honestly to the fact that how freedom is possible is a deep philosophical problem to which there is no solution we can rationally comprehend.”

Humans Facts Problem Faces Choices Heaven Common Sea Solutions Philosophical Honestly Silly Significance Floating Free Choice Jellyfish Deep Philosophical

Author:Allen W. Wood

“Not a physical migration, but a cultural, psychological, philosophical migration back to Africa, which means the restoring our common bond will give us the spiritual strength and the incentive to strengthen our political and social and economic position right here in America, and to fight for the things that are ours by right here on this continent.”

Giving Mean America Spiritual Political Fighting Social Common Economic Position Philosophical Psychological Continents Incentives Migration Restoring Spiritual Strength

Author:Malcolm X

“One of the peculiar features of philosophical questions is how eager people are to offer solutions that miss the point of the questions. Sometimes these failed solutions are scientific, and sometimes they are religious, and sometimes they are based on what is called plain common sense.”

People Sometimes Religious Common Missing Offers Solutions Philosophical Common Sense Features Peculiar Philosophical Questions

Book:Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

Source: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”

“The common behavior of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language.”

Mean Language Common Mankind Behavior Philosophical

Book:Philosophical Investigations

Source: Philosophical Investigations

“What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common.”

Thinking Common Philosophical Meaningful

Book:The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Source: The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

“We have really, that I know of, no philosophical basis for high and low. Moreover, the vegetable kingdom does not culminate, as the animal kingdom does. It is not a kingdom, but a common-wealth; a democracy, and therefore puzzling and unaccountable from the former point of view.”

Knows Doe Science Wealth Animal Views Common Democracy Evolution Lows Bases Philosophical Point Of View Kingdoms Former Vegetables Highs And Lows Puzzling Animal Kingdom

Book:Letters of Asa Gray

Source: Letters of Asa Gray

“One can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense.”

Common Philosophical Philosopher Common Sense Temptation Puzzles

Author:Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Now I do not myself share that superstitious reverence for the beliefs of common sense which many contemporary philosophers profess. But I think that we must start from them, and that we ought to depart from them only when we find good reason to do so.”

Thinking Reason Belief Common Share Ought Philosophical Philosopher Contemporary Common Sense Reverence Superstitious

Author:C. D. Broad

“Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings.”

Source: Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution

“Bernard Williams has been a distinctive presence on the intellectual scene for more than three decades. . . . His writings do not offer the dubious exhilaration of grand philosophical theory, in which messy reality is tamed and caged, but the thrill of seeing pretension punctured by a kind of high-voltage common sense (backed up by impressive erudition). . . . There is no one in philosophy quite like him.”

“I welcome this chance to further strengthen the unbreakable ties between the United States and Israel and to assure you of our commitment to Israel's security and well-being. Israel and America may be thousands of miles apart, but we are philosophical neighbors sharing a strong commitment to democracy and the rule of law. What we hold in common are the bonds of trust and friendship, qualities that in our eyes make Israel a great nation. No people have fought longer, struggled harder, or sacrificed more than yours in order to survive, to grow, and to live in freedom”

“Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles-external matter and internal mind or consciousness-although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy.”

Source: Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection