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Philosophy Quotes

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Philosophy Quotes

“The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.”

World Has Beens Hard Philosophy Reality Spirit Dies Tradition Philosophical Imperfect Representation Superficial Plato

Book:The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)

Source: The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)

“The breakdown of Plato's philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which should then improve education, and so on indefinitely. Correct education could not come into existence until an ideal state existed, and after that education would be devoted simply to its conservation. For the existence of this state he was obliged to trust to some happy accident by which philosophic wisdom should happen to coincide with possession of ruling power in the state.”

Should Made States Philosophy Facts Happens Would Be Existence Ideals Possession Accidents Improvement Devoted Conservation Plato Ruling Obliged Breakdown Philosophic Plato S Happy Accidents

Author:John Dewey

“Plato says a multitude can never philosophize and hence can never recognize the seriousness of philosophy or who really philosophizes. Attempting to influence the multitude results in forced prostitution.”

Philosophy Results Influence Multitudes Plato Attempting Seriousness Prostitution

Author:Allan Bloom

“Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.”

Ifs Said Different Philosophy Able Wonder Break Strange Prejudice Lays Familiar Fancy Native Plato Slumber Dogmatic Plato And Aristotle

Book:William James: Essays and Lectures

Source: William James: Essays and Lectures

“Plato and his objectivistic successors ... preserved the awareness of differences that pragmatism has been invented to deny the difference between thinking in the laboratory and in philosophy, and consequently the difference between the destination of mankind and its present course.”

Thinking Has Beens Philosophy Courses Differences Mankind Awareness Deny Destination Plato Laboratory Successors Pragmatism

Book:Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason

“Plato, the first true pope of philosophy (sorry, Socrates), argued for a World of Forms above the reality-a transcendent plane of perfect essences, pure and lovely, where nothing ever gets muddy (including the essence of mud.)”

World Firsts Philosophy Reality Form Perfect Pure Essence Sorry Including Lovely Planes Pope Plato Mud Transcendent Muddy

Author:N.D. Wilson

“Plato's Symposium shows that flirtation and philosophy can further one another.”

Philosophy Shows Philosophical Plato Flirtation Plato S Symposium

Author:Mason Cooley

“For the Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy, it is of no importance whether Plato or Aristotle ever lived. For the mystical practice of an Indian, Persian, Chinese, or Neo-Platonic mystic it is a matter of indifference whether Rama, Buddha, Laotse, or Porphyrius are myths or not. The mystic has no personal relation to them. It is not here a question of somebody telling me the truth which of myself I cannot find, but of my finding an access to the depths of the world in the depths of my soul.”

World Soul Matter Philosophy Practice Findings Importance Relation Depth Myth Access My Soul Chinese Indian Indifference Mystical Plato Rama Mystic Persian Platonic

Book:The Word and the World

Source: The Word and the World

“Socrates condemned art because he preferred philosophy and only after much internal struggle did Plato accept this judgment.”

Art Philosophy Accepting Struggle Judgment Art Is Internals Plato Internal Struggle

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche

“In general, I distrust philosophy. Plato recommended chasing poets from the city; the 'great' Heidegger was a Nazi; Lukacs was a communist; and J. P. Sartre wrote: 'Any anti-communist is a dog.'”

Philosophy Cities Dog Poet Communist Nazi Plato Distrust Chasing Heidegger Anti Communist

Author:Claude Simon

“I had no idea what philosophy was until I went to college at UBC. I first read Hume and Plato, so naturally I was under the misapprehension that philosophers are trying to figure out what is true, and that contemporary philosophers are mainly trying to figure out what is true about the mind. Of course Hume and Plato were trying to do that, hence my misapprehension.”

Trying Mind Firsts Ideas Philosophy Courses Figures College Philosopher Contemporary No Idea Plato Hume

Author:Patricia Churchland

“I intend Deaths in Venice to contribute both to literary criticism and to philosophy. But it's not "strict philosophy" in the sense of arguing for specific theses. As I remark, there's a style of philosophy - present in writers from Plato to Rawls - that invites readers to consider a certain class of phenomena in a new way. In the book, I associate this, in particular, with my good friend, the eminent philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, who practices it extremely skilfully.”