“Any philosophy worth taking seriously would have to be built upon a firm foundation of unyielding despair.” PhilosophyDespairBuiltFoundationFirmUnyieldingFirm Foundation Author:Bertrand Russell
“I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations.” PhilosophyWantedStudyCivilizationFoundationAncientGreekLatinBroadsLifelongAncient Civilizations Author:Tim Blake Nelson
“Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.” NeedsKindEndsPhilosophyStrongHeavenWonderKnowledgeProgressIgnoranceResearchPhilosophicalFoundationGenerousYieldHonour Author:Michel de Montaigne
“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.” MenTwoPhilosophyHelpingLanguageTermPartyCommonWonderClassObjectsPhilosophicalFoundationStrategySizeCommunicateMilesDiscussionCarrieSchemesConnectingDomainMarketplaceTangibleAscentInscriptionsAscending Author:Willard Van Orman Quine
“Scientific wealth tends to accumulate according to the law of compound interest. Every addition to knowledge of the properties of matter supplies the physical scientist with new instrumental means for discovering and interpreting phenomena of nature, which in their turn afford foundations of fresh generalisations, bringing gains of permanent value into the great storehouse of natural philosophy.” MeanMatterPhilosophyLawValuesTurnsInterestNaturalWealthGainsScientistFoundationPropertyPermanentPhenomenonDiscoveringAccumulationSuppliesCompoundsInterpretingGeneralizationCompound InterestNatural PhilosophyGeneralisationProperties Of Matter Author:Lord Kelvin
“. . . the membership relation for sets can often be replaced by the composition operation for functions. This leads to an alternative foundation for Mathematics upon categories -- specifically, on the category of all functions. Now much of Mathematics is dynamic, in that it deals with morphisms of an object into another object of the same kind. Such morphisms (like functions) form categories, and so the approach via categories fits well with the objective of organizing and understanding Mathematics. That, in truth, should be the goal of a proper philosophy of Mathematics.” ShouldWellsKindPhilosophyFormUnderstandingGoalDealsObjectsFitApproachFunctionRelationMathematicsFoundationObjectivesAlternativesOperationsCategoriesCompositionReplacedOften IsMembership Author:Saunders Mac Lane
“Recognizing that we have the kind of blood we have because we have the kind of kidneys we have, we must acknowledge that our kidneys constitute the major foundation of our philosophical freedom. Only because they work the way they do has it become possible for us to have bones, muscles, glands and brains. Superficially, it might be said that the function of the kidney is to make urine; but in a more considered view one can say that the kidneys make the stuff of philosophy itself.” WayKindSaidPhilosophyMightStuffViewsBrainBloodMajorsFunctionPhilosophicalFoundationBonesAcknowledgeMusclesRecognizingKidneysGlands Author:Homer Smith
“Philosophy... is indeed outrageous, inherently so. It seeks to disquiet the foundations of our lives and to offer us in recompense nothing better than itself- and this on the basis of no expert knowledge, of nothing closed to the ordinary human being, once... [one] lets himself or herself be informed by the process and ambition of philosophy.” HumansPhilosophyProcessHuman BeingsOur LivesOffersAmbitionOrdinaryBasesFoundationExpertsOutrageousRecompense Author:Stanley Cavell