Quotes About Philosophy

Aristotle maintains that there is only one reality: the world of particulars in which we live, the world men perceive by means of their physical senses.

emotions differ from thought and action: they are an automatic function. But a man does choose his emotions—ultimately. He does it by virtue of his ability to think, and if necessary to rethink an issue, rejecting an invalid idea at the root of some feeling and replacing it by a new conclusion.

The voluntarist worship of mindless action may be designated by the term "activism." Activism is the form of irrationalism which extols direct physical action, based on will or instinct or faith, while repudiating the intellect and its products, such as abstractions, theory, programs, philosophy. In a very literal sense, activism is irrationalism—in action. "We approach the realities of the world only in strong emotion and in action ... ," says Hitler.

Moral laws, according to Kant, are a set of orders issued to man by a nonheavenly, nonearthly entity (which I shall discuss shortly), a set of unconditional commandments or "categorical imperatives"—to be sharply contrasted with mere "counsels of prudence.

An interest," writes Kant, "is present only in a dependent will which is not of itself always in accord with reason; in the divine will we cannot conceive of an interest.

It is Kant who made possible the sudden mushrooming of the Platonic collectivism in the modern world, and especially in Germany.

To satisfy this need, one must recognize that philosophy is a system of ideas. By its nature as an integrating science, it cannot be a grab bag of isolated issues. All philosophic questions are interrelated. One may not, therefore, raise any such questions at random, without the requisite context. If one tries the random approach, then questions (which one has no means of answering) simply proliferate in all directions.

Reality, declares Hegel, is inherently contradictory;

Plato appeals to soaring idealism scornful of the practical. Aristotle appeals to joyful realism on earth. Kant appeals to rage.

Fundamental philosophic ideas are almost always profoundly controversial. They are not bromides; they are not self-evident, unless it's like "A is A." They involve tremendous abstraction and tremendous complexity. And therefore, if you find that you can zip them off in one or two sentences that absolutely no one could ever question, the chances are very strong that you did something wrong, that you missed out on what this idea actually says.

Kant did not preach Nazism. But, on a fundamental level and for the first time, he flung at Western man its precondition: "Du bist nichts" ("You are nothing").

Do the stars have a meaning? Then my life has a meaning.

Democrtitus, in the fifth century B.C. had declared that all the world was composed of only two elements: atomes and the void. This reduction of the myriad of forms to only two was the ultimate in dualistic reasoning. Christianity adopted dualism when it created the strict division between good and evil and heaven and hell.

We must doubt the certainty of everything which passes through the senses, but how much more ought we to doubt things contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and the soul.

My body is not a tomb for other creatures.

While I thought I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

There's nothing more political than epistemological struggles.

Wie kann ein Mann ein Ding lieben, das, ihm zum Trotze, auch denken will? Ein Frauenzimmer, das denket, ist ebenso ekel als ein Mann, der sich schminket. Lachen soll es, nichts als lachen, um immerdar den gestrengen Herrn der Schöpfung bei guter Laune zu halten.

The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day ." "It must come sometimes to 'jam to-day,'" Alice objected. "No, it ca'n't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know

Life, what is it but a dream?

Reeling and Writhing of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied, 'and the different branches of arithmetic-ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.

What a funny watch!' she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!' 'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does YOUR watch tell you what year it is?' 'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together.' 'Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.

I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it.

Alicia: ¿Cuánto tiempo es para siempre? Conejo blanco: A veces, sólo un segundo.