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Philosophical Quotes

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Philosophical Quotes

“Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.”

Giving Doe Philosophy Body Results Clear Activity Tasks Philosophical Aim Boundaries Doctrine Logical Propositions Cloudy Clarification

Book:Tractatus Logico-philosophicus: The German Text of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung

Source: Tractatus Logico-philosophicus: The German Text of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung

“Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical.”

Found Philosophical Propositions Nonsensical

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“All philosophy is a 'critique of language' (though not in Mauthner's sense). It was Russell who performed the service of showing that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one.”

Needs Real Philosophy Form Language Philosophical Logical Propositions Critique Real Ones

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps--to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the whole world aright.”

World Way Whole Used Speak Language Steps Philosophical Following Whole World Climbs Propositions Ladders Understand Me Nonsensical

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“It is possible--indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic--to give in advance a description of all 'true' logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”

Giving Logic Philosophical Surprise Description Logical Conception Propositions

Book:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that they say nothing.”

Shows Philosophical Contradiction Propositions Tautology

Book:Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

Source: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

“The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values.”

Humans Wells Seems Values Turns Social Issues Theory Philosophical Fundamentals Insight Ridiculous Experts Propositions Specialists Human Values Social Theory

Book:The Chomsky Reader

Source: The Chomsky Reader

“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true”

Believe Philosophy Atheism Philosophical Atheist Rationality Propositions Subversive Atheistic Theism Supposing Undesirable Supposing That

Author:Bertrand Russell

“The ends of scientific classification are best answered, when the objects are formed into groups respecting which a greater number of general propositions can be made, and those propositions more important, than could be made respecting any other groups into which the same things could be distributed. ... A classification thus formed is properly scientific or philosophical, and is commonly called a Natural, in contradistinction to a Technical or Artificial, classification or arrangement.”

Made Important Ends Science Natural Numbers Greater Groups Objects Importance Philosophical Artificial Arrangements Propositions Classification

Author:John Stuart Mill

“In the first place a philosophical proposition must be general. It must not deal specially with things on the surface of the earth, or within the solar system, or with any other portion of space and time. . . . This brings us to a second characteristic of philosophical propositions, namely that they must be a priori. A philosophical proposition must be such as can neither be proved nor disproved by empirical evidence. . . . Philosophy, if what has been said is correct, becomes indistinguishable from logic as that word has now come to be used.”