Philosophical Quotes
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There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than in philosophical debates to endeavour to refute any hypothesis by a pretext of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads us into absurdities, 'tis certainly false; but 'tis not certain an opinion is false, because 'tis of dangerous consequence.
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The doctrine called Philosophical Necessity is simply this: that, given the motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act might be unerringly inferred: that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event.
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Thinking in terms of risk certainly has its unsettling aspects (...), but it is also a means of seeking to stabilise outcomes, a mode of colonising the future. The more or less constant, profound and rapid momentum of change characteristic of modern institutions, coupled with structured reflexivity, mean that on the level of everyday practice as well as philosophical Seitenwechsel interpretation, nothing can be taken for granted. What is acceptable/appropriate/recommended behaviour today may be seen differently tomorrow in the light of altered circumstances or incoming knowledge-claims.
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Governmental intervention and personal responsibility are not mutually exclusive issues, but they do frame a 'do it ourselves' vs. 'what are you doing for us' debate. For the black community, that's a debate that's been raging at least as far back as the W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington philosophical grudge matches.
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The quest for philosophical beginnings is idle, for everywhere in all beginnings we find only the crude, the unformed, the empty and the ugly. What matters in all things is the higher levels.
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Creeds and causal systems have argued with each other for millennia, and even so we and our ancestors have managed to live in a world of differing opinions. Philosophical disputes don't often affect the price of fish or wine.
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Without question, the single most important attribute of a successful entrepreneur is integrity. And that's not some philosophical or theoretical malarkey; it's hard-nosed fact.
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I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.
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Conscience is the most dangerous thing you possess. If you wake it up, it may destroy you. To live a life of total moral rigor is not necessarily the way to go. It's the path for very few people. Most people need to come up with some kind of middle ground that satisfies their practical, moral, and philosophical esthetic needs.
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To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
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An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.
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The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment.
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Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.
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I want to be scary, boring, philosophical, funny, touching.
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It seems to me obvious that infants and many animals that do not in any ordinary sense have a language or perform speech acts nonetheless have Intentional states. Only someone in the grip of a philosophical theory would deny that small babies can literally be said to want milk and that dogs want to be let out or believe that their master is at the door.
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Classical philosophical theism maintained the ontological distinction between God and creative world that is necessary for any genuine theism by conceiving them to be of different substances, with particular attributes predicated of each.
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In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.
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Art has no need of philosophical arguments, it does not follow the signposts of philosophical systems; Art like life, dictates systmes to philosophy.
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Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.
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Pointing forward in time, we see in Plato the first detailed formulation in Western thought of themes that would persist and be developed further in the classical philosophical tradition, from Aristotle to Augustine to the Scholastics: that the material world points beyond itself to an eternal source; that things have immutable forms or essences; that the foundation of morality is to be found in this source and in these essences; that human beings have immaterial souls; that all of this is knowable through reason, and that knowing it is the highest end of philosophy and science.
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When I study philosophical works I feel I am swallowing something which I don't have in my mouth.
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The life of man in this world is like the life of a fly in a room filled with 100 boys, each armed with a fly-swatter.
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While I do not agree with all of the claims made by experimental philosophers, especially those who seem to think xphi will somehow replace the rest of philosophy, I think xphi projects are interesting and important, I love Josh Knobe's work, and that these projects contribute something new and worthwhile to the philosophical conversation.
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Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are.
