March 2011
1 post
December 2010
5 posts
“I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but...”
– George Santayana,Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies
“To us investigators, the concept ‘soul’ is irrelevant and a matter...”
– Ernst Mach, History and Root of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy
“It is not our business to set up prohibitions, but to arrive at conventions… In...”
– Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language
September 2010
14 posts
“Only he who has tasted freedom can feel the desire to make over everything in...”
– Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom
“What sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of man one is; for a...”
– Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy
“Sometimes I seem to see a difficulty, but then again I don’t see it.”
– Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig (1889-1921)
“As a rule, all heroism is due to a lack of reflection, and thus it is necessary...”
– Ernest Renan, Caliban: A Philosophical Drama Continuing “The Tempest” of William Shakespeare
“It has often been said that every man who has suffered misfortunes prefers to be...”
– Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Peoples
“History has now been for the first time systematically considered, and has been...”
– Auguste Comte, System of Positive Polity
“That which has no existence cannot be destroyed — that which cannot be destroyed...”
– Jeremy Bentham, Anarchical Fallacies
August 2010
11 posts
“There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis — about the meaning of...”
– Alfred Jules Ayer, A.J. Ayer: A Life
“A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares...”
– John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions
“No, you cannot expect people to understand the higher reaches of philosophy....”
– Herbert Marcuse, Negations: Essays in Critical Theory
“For a man’s Conscience, and his Judgement is the same thing; and as the...”
– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Bourgeois and Proletarians
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the modern working class—the proletarians. - Karl Marx, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei
“It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
July 2010
3 posts
The Philosopher King
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. - Plato, The Republic
“The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone...”
– Karl Popper, On Freedom
May 2010
3 posts
“Seek simplicity and distrust it.”
– Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature
Why I Am So Wise
I know my fate. One day there will be associated with my name the recollection of something frightful - of a crisis like no other before on earth, of the profoundest collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ecce Homo
April 2010
11 posts
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
– Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
“It is the search for the truth, not possession of the truth which is the way of...”
– Karl Theodor Jaspers, Way to Wisdom : An Introduction to Philosophy
“It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in...”
– John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Meditations
I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world — no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Doesn’t it follow that I don’t exist? No, surely I must exist if it’s me who is convinced of something. But there is a deceiver, supremely powerful and cunning whose aim is to see that I am always deceived. But surely I exist, if I am deceived. Let him deceive me all he can,...
“If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered...”
– Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach
“The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.”
– Denis Diderot
March 2010
15 posts
“The world is… the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and...”
– Maurice Merleau-Ponty 