Quotes About Philosophy

Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin concur on the claim that there is a kind of natural knowledge of God (and anything on which Calvin and Aquinas are in accord is something to which we had better pay careful attention).

The sensus divinitatis is a belief-producing faculty (or power, or mechanism) that under the right conditions produces belief that isn't evidentially based on other beliefs.

while there is indeed conflict between science and naturalism (the view that there is no such person as God or anything like God), there is no conflict between science and religion.

The natural theologian does not, typically, offer his arguments in order to convince people of God's existence; and in fact few who accept theistic belief do so because they find such an argument compelling. Instead the typical function of natural theology has been to show that religious belief is rationally acceptable.

There are too many of numbers for them to arise as a result of human intellectual activity. Consider, for example, the following series of functions: 2 lambda n is two to the second to the second .... to the second n times. The second member is ##2 (n); the third 3#2(n), etc.

There are properties, one wants to say, that have never been entertained by any human being; and it also seems wrong to think that properties do not exist before human beings conceive them.

These questions that philosophers confront have to be reconfronted in every generation. The problems of philosophy reoccur in different forms.

If my belief in other minds is rational, so is my belief in God.

God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so.

If we can't think about God, then we can't think about him; and therefore can't make statements about him, including statements to the effect that we can't think about him. The statement that we can't think about God-the statement that God is such that we can't think about him- is obviously a statement about God; if we can't think about God, then we can't say about him what we can't think about him.

How could there be truths totally independent of minds or persons?... How could the things that are in fact true or false—propositions, let's say—exist in serene and majestic independence of persons and their means of apprehension? How could there be propositions no one has ever so much as grasped or thought of?

Accordingly, criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below rather than above; they should not be presented ex cathedra but argued to and tested by a relevant set of examples.

Now Kant is by no means easy to understand, which is no doubt part of his charm. If you want to be a really great philosopher, make sure not to say too clearly what you have in mind (well, maybe that's not quite enough, but it's a good start);

It's hard to say what philosophy is. Somebody, and I forget who, defined it as just thinking exceptionally hard.

If you have evidence for every proposition you believe, then you will believe infinitely many propositions. So presumably some propositions can properly be believed and accepted without evidence. Well, why not belief in God? Why is it not entirely acceptable, desirable, right, proper, and rational to accept belief in God without any argument or evidence?

I guess I just don't get the point. It's like, why should you bother getting attached to anything if, A: It's never gonna last, and B: It hurts like hell when it's over?

On n'est pas le même selon qu'on a mangé du boudin ou du caviar; on n'est pas le même non plus selon qu'on vient de lire du Kant […] ou du Queneau.

Ya?am reddetmek demektir. Her ?eyi kabul eden, lavabo deli?inden fazlas?n? ya??yor olamaz.

sería fácil ser Dios si el mal no existiera, pero entonces tampoco habría ninguna necesidad de Dios

Acaso todavía hay mentes lo bastante ingenuas para pensar que las teorías sirven para ser creídas?

La muerte contenida dentro de la vida me asustó.

The entire human condition can be summed up like that: it could be worse.

Sí, la vida está llena de estos pequeños sinsabores que la perturban de un modo negativo. Mucho más que los problemas metafísicos, son las ínfimas contrariedades las que nos muestran el lado aburdo de la existencia.

Zaratustra no puede morir, sería lo nunca visto.