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Philosophy Quotes

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Philosophy Quotes

“The permanent mental attitude which the sensitive intelligence derives from philosophy is an attitude that combines extreme reverence with limitless skepticism.”

Philosophy Attitude Extremes Permanent Sensitive Reverence Skepticism Limitless Mental Attitude

Author:John Cowper Powys

“Skepticism literally means a thoughtful inquiry, the looking at a problem in a disinterested spirit, the surveying of a question from many sides. In this sense it is the very essence of philosophy and science.”

Mean Philosophy Problem Spirit Sides Essence Thoughtful Skepticism Inquiry Disinterested

Book:The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy

Source: The Field of Philosophy: An Outline of Lectures on Introduction to Philosophy

“Whenever philosophy has taken into its plan religion, it has ended in skepticism; and whenever religion excludes philosophy, or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to willful blindness and superstition.”

Philosophy Spirit Taken Plans Atheism Positive Atheism Superstitions Skepticism Blindness Inquiry

Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“All the progress we have made in philosophy ... is the result of that methodical skepticism which is the element of human freedom.”

Humans Made Philosophy Results Progress Atheism Elements Positive Atheism Skepticism Human Freedom Methodical

Author:Charles Sanders Peirce

“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.”

“You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.”

Men Heart Long Philosophy Shows Reality Alive Honest Prove Assumption Sincere Realism Skepticism Idealism Honest Man Realist Idealist Sceptic

Book:Essays in critical realism: a co-operative study of the problem of knowledge

Source: Essays in critical realism: a co-operative study of the problem of knowledge

“The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of any one, who feeling inhimself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.”

Men Wells Philosophy Feelings Study Doubt Offers Accounts Philosophical Satisfaction Refuse Conviction Innocent Rejects Skepticism Inclination Careless Scruples Sceptic

Book:A Treatise of Human Nature

Source: A Treatise of Human Nature

“There is, indeed a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are corrected by common sense and reflection.”

May Philosophy Results Common Doubt Reflection Common Sense Skepticism Scepticism

Book:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh ; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature

Source: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh ; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature

“The registering of doubts hath two excellent uses: the one, that it saveth philosophy from errors and falsehoods; when that which is not fully appearing is not collected into assertion, whereby error might draw error, but reserved in doubt: the other, that the entry of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges to draw use of knowledge; insomuch as that which, if doubts had not preceded, a man should never have advised, but passed it over without note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts, is made to be attended and applied.”

“No other book has been so chopped, knifed, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles lettres of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? With such venom and skepticism? With such thoroughness and erudition? Upon every chapter, line and tenet?”

Has Beens Book Philosophy Lines Psychology Modern Subjects Mass Chapters Skepticism Modern Times Venom Erudition Thoroughness

Author:Bernard Ramm