Quotes About Philosophy

Humans are the lowest (least intelligent) of spirits and the highest (most intelligent) of animals. We are rational animals, incarnate minds, the smartest of animals and the stupidest of spirits:

Our lives teem with numbers, but we sometimes forget that numberss are only tools. They have no soul; they may indeed become fetishes.

We are by now well into the eighteenth century, when the Enlightenment identified the search for knowledge as the highest form of human activity. It was a time for scientists to wipe the metaphysical dust from their eyes.

The purpose of dialogue," Bohm suggests, "is to reveal the incoherence in our thought." There are three types of incoherence.

Watson loved them sour kind of jokes, which I enjoyed myself. I mean, ain't life some kind of a sour joke? Might's well laugh, that's the way him and me seen it, whether nice folks seen the joke or not. One time when Watson caught me grinning along with him, he give a wink and lifted up his hat.

Nothing exists but atoms and the void"—so wrote Democritus. And it is "void" that underlies the Eastern teachings—not emptiness or absence, but the Uncreated that preceded all creation, the beginningless potential of all things.

then lung-gom may be simplistically regarded as a manifestation of mind over matter, of matter returning to energy

there is nothing to be done. only accept it... and hurt.

The idea that one man's unique personal vision is greater than the importance of fashions in art or mainstream type philosophy.

In contrast, the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather, believing in God while remaining dubious concerning what one believes about God (a distinction that fundamentalism is unable to maintain).

The unchallenged assumption is that humans may use animals for their own purposes, and they may raise and kill them to satisfy their preference for a diet containing animal flesh.

If our life has no meaning other than our own happiness, we are likely to find that when we have obtained what we think we need to be happy, happiness itself still eludes us.

It is a mistake to assume that the law should always enforce morality.

Why [..] should the boundary of sacrosanct life match the boundary of our species?

The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?5

Pacifists have usually regarded the use of violence as absolutely wrong, irrespective of its consequences. This, like other 'no matter what' prohibitions, assumes the validity of the distinction between acts and omissions. Without this distinction, pacifists who refuse to use violence when it is the only means of preventing greater violence would be responsible for the greater violence they fail to prevent.

To say that life is meaningless is to express an attitude, not to state a fact

Unless you can refute the central argument of this book, you should now recognize that speciesism is wrong, and this means that, if you take morality seriously, you should try to eliminate speciesist practices from your own life, and oppose them elsewhere. Otherwise no basis remains from which you can, without hypocrisy, criticize racism or sexism.

If you agree that bringing someone into existence can be bad for that person and if you also accept the argument that bringing someone into existence can't be good for that person, then this leads to a strange conclusion: being born could harm you but it couldn't help you.

We do not have to make self-sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.

Reason is inherently expansionist. It seeks universal application.

Humanos o no, todos los animales son iguales.

Bentham señala la capacidad de sufrimiento como la característica básica que le torga a un ser el derecho a una consideración igual

Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upwards and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be travelled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we will end.