“When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.” NeedsWellsPhilosophyStoriesUseLawDifficultCasesExampleFieldsTheoryStandardsScientistFunctionComplexesInsightSillyDevicesMechanismAbstractionSpeculationIllustrationRhetoricalHypothetical Book:Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms Source: Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
“Putting together philosophy and children would have been difficult for most of history. But very fortunately for me, when I started graduate school there was a real scientific revolution taking place in developmental psychology.” ChildrenHas BeensRealPhilosophySchoolTogetherDifficultPsychologyRevolutionGraduatesGraduate SchoolDevelopmentalScientific Revolution Author:Alison Gopnik
“Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative people hear nobody, for they are ever prating. And the first evil this inability to keep silence produces is an inability to listen.” PeopleFirstsHardPhilosophyEvilDifficultSilenceTalkingProduceConversationDiseaseCuresRemedyInabilityTalkative Book:Plutarch's Complete Works Source: Plutarch's Complete Works
“In the 17 years since I graduated from this great College of Law, I have seen that, for many of us, it becomes increasingly easy to rationalize our actions in the name of expediency when facing difficult decisions-to choose a path where the ends justify the means. I want to ask you to challenge Machiavelli's philosophy. I want to humbly suggest that you be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important-and sometimes even more important-than the ends.” WantYearsMeanImportantEndsSometimesPhilosophyActionLawAsksNamesEasyDifficultChallengesDecisionPathCollegeComplicatedJustifyGuardianOur ActionsRationalizeExpediencyDifficult DecisionsEnds Justify The Means Author:Beau Biden
“What man needs is not philosophy or religion in the academic or formalistic sense of the term, but ability to think rightly. The malady of the age is not absence of philosophy or even irreligion but wrong thinking and a vanity which passes for knowledge. Though it is difficult to define right thinking, it cannot be denied that it is the goal of the aspirations of everyone.” ThinkingMenNeedsPhilosophyAgeDifficultGoalTermAbilityAbsenceVanityAspirationDeniedAcademicMaladyIrreligionWrong Thinking Author:Krishnananda Saraswati
“My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality, has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice, however bad we can make them, I make them.” PhilosophyDifficultPracticePlayerCoachingMentality Author:Bill Belichick
“My philosophy is making a movie is difficult enough and I just feel as if you should have a really good time when you do make films whether it's a drama or a comedy.” IfsFeelsShouldEnoughPhilosophyFilmDifficultComedyDramaShould HaveGood Times Author:Will Packer