Quotes About Philosophy

Just as scientists test a theory by taking it into the lab and mixing chemicals in a test tube to see if the results confirm the theory, so we test a worldview by taking it into the laboratory of ordinary life.

In their original historical context, these verses were astonishing. In the ancient world, virtually all the major "isms"—Platonism, neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Hindu pantheism—taught a low view of the material world. In these philosophies, salvation was conceived as a complete break between matter and spirit, a flight from the physical world. To make that break, adherents adopted a regimen of asceticism to suppress bodily urges and desires.

The problem is that many people treat morality as a list of rules. But in reality, every moral system rests on a worldview. In every decision we make, we are not just deciding what we want to do. We are expressing our view of the purpose of human life.

worldview, the convictions by which we direct our lives.

When we hear people talk about ideas that are false, yet necessary for a humane social order, that is a signal that they have bumped up against the hard edge of a reality that does not fit their worldview. They have stumbled upon the truths of general revelation. And they are seeking to suppress those truths by demoting them to useful fictions.

Ever since Kant, the phrase as if has come to signal truths that people are compelled to hold, even though they cannot account for those truths within their own worldview. They live as if Christianity were true, even though their worldview denies it. Instead of giving up their worldview in the face of contrary facts, they endure a severe mental schizophrenia.

As was done at the time of Maggie's death, scientists and individuals today are still pondering the possibility, if not the certainty, of the eternal life of the human soul. like death itself, this remains one of our greatest mysteries.

The ancient world was not a place for modern gender equity. But the Stoic philosophers, in their discourses on political and moral life, held that virtue, or ethical excellence, had no gender. Zeno of Citium envisaged an ideal community of sages that included women. The view follows from the Stoic doctrine that all humans are endowed with reason.

So, despite the popular view of Stoicism as a philosophy that would strip us of most emotions, the ancient Stoics argue that the very best of us show rational exuberance and desire, and a cautious wariness, lest we be too easily led astray or deceived. We cherish friends and nurture warm and welcoming attitudes toward them. This is what it is to be righteous. Put bluntly, even sages have emotional skin in the game.

A lesser known Stoic writer, Hierocles, visualizes a series of extended, concentric circles with the self at the center. "To be at home" in the world requires striving to bring the outermost circles toward the center.

Philosophy is practice for dying and death," Socrates famously says in Plato's Phaedo. Seneca casts the philosophical training this way: "Wouldn't you say a person was quite stupid if he thought that a lamp was worse off after it was extinguished than before it was lighted. We too are extinguished; we too are lighted. Betweentimes is something that we feel; on either side is complete lack of concern.

The Stoics are exhorters. And at their best, they exhort us to rise to our potential through reason, cooperation, and selflessness.

The sense of being at home in the world through social connection with others is a deep and pervasive Stoic theme. Stoicism, whether ancient or modern, sees social supports and not just inner strength as critical to how we surmount rather than succumb to adversity.

For some, Stoicism will always put the accent note in the wrong place.

what was her life about? Did she mean nothing?

Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

Somewhere I read that human beings are the only creatures to spend the present driving themselves crazy about the future.

He leaned in and quoted, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." That's the thing about Oxford. You go for a drink in a pub with some guy and next thing he's quoting Hamlet.

Sometimes questions are more important than answers.

Allie says: Are you trying to tell me there's literally no right choice here? The voice says: There's never been a right choice, honeybun. The whole idea that there are two things and you have to choose is the problem.

Consider this: which is greater, God or the world?" They say, for they have learned this already from the nuns, "God is greater, because God created the world." Eve says, "So the one who creates is greater than the thing created?" They say, "It must be so." Then Eve says, "So which must be greater, the Mother or the Son?

Shikataganai, desho

I love having existential crises at bedtime, it's so restful.

A belief in invisible cats cannot be logically disproved," although it does "tell us a good deal about those who hold it."19