We find sects and parties in most branches of science; and disputes which are carried on from age to age, without being brought to an issue. Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from mathematics and natural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the beginning; mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.
A major danger in using highly abstractive methods in political philosophy is that one will succeed merely in generalizing one's own local prejudices and repackaging them as demands of reason. The study of history can help to counteract this natural human bias.
I created 'The Westerner' because of anger - anger at never-miss sheriffs, always-right marshalls, whitewashed gunfighters. . . anger at TV's quick-draw tin gods who stand behind a tin star or ten cents' worth of righteous anger and justify their skill and slaughter with a self-conscious grin or a minute's worth of bad philosophy.
I arrived from Harvard, where I had studied philosophy and the history of ideas, with a bias toward literature and formal thought.
Behind the epistemological scholasticism of empirio-criticism one must not fail to see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle which in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society.
If your divines are not philosophers, your philosophy will neither be divine, nor able to divine.
Pessimism is an emotion not a philosophy.
Tantra is for a person who has reached a point in their spiritual evolution where everything looks the same.
When I think about discussions at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, a group which includes not only philosophers and psychologists, but also computer scientists and linguists, it is noteworthy that one can't always tell just from the content of particular contributions from the audience, whether a given questioner is a philosopher or an empirical scientist.
Philosophy. . . is the creative perception by the spirit of the meaning of human existence.
Philosophy must never be divorced from action. Unless it is put into practice, philosophy is nothing more than an intellectual game.
I have this terrible habit of wanting to try to be consistent and develop a philosophy that's coherent.
I regret that some on the extreme right have been so critical of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and have adamantly opposed the naming of a successor who shares her judicial philosophy and qualities. And their criticism actually reflects poorly upon them.
Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.
I practice Buddhist philosophy and contemplation but I don't know if I'm more of anything.
Art is far feebler than necessity.
All paths are present, always. . . and we can but choose among them.
When I'm not writing music, I'm playing guitar, or reading philosophy. So all I have left is just an hour or two for Claudia Schiffer.
I am too good for philosophy and not good enough for physics. Mathematics is in between.
City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.