Philosophy Quotes

"Disagreement is the engine of intellectual progress."

"A truly rational person would be paralyzed by the complexity of reality."

"The unexamined tradition is not worth keeping."

"The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that admits a decisive proof."

"Crisis alone is not enough; there must also be a basis, though it need not be rational, for choosing a new paradigm over an old one."

"Once it has achieved the status of paradigm, a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its place."

"What scientists think they are doing and what they really do are two different things."

"The decision to employ a new paradigm involves a comparison of both paradigms with nature and with the problem they came to solve."

"It is as if the professional community had committed itself to playing a game in which only certain moves are legal."

"What is anomalous is not determined by nature but by the paradigm with which we approach nature."

"A new paradigm often seems irrational or absurd when judged by the standards of the old paradigm."

"Science does not progress toward truth but rather shifts between different ways of understanding the world."

"The myth of the given is perhaps the most insidious of all philosophical myths."

"The threat of an infinite regress is often a sign that we have misunderstood the problem."

"The given cannot be given; it must be constructed through rational activity."

"The distinction between appearance and reality dissolves when we recognize the role of concepts."

"Normativity is built into the structure of rational activity itself."

"Intentionality is the mark of the mental, but it is always socially situated."

"Consciousness is woven into the fabric of rational activity."

"The given is a philosophical fiction that obscures the role of conceptual activity."

"Normativity is not imposed from without but emerges from rational practice."

"Meaning is not intrinsic to signs but arises from their role in a language game."

"The dualism of appearance and reality reflects a failure to understand conceptual activity."

"The space of thoughts is the same as the space of possible sentences."

"We cannot step outside language to compare our concepts with reality."

"Intentionality requires a subject who is already embedded in a language community."

"Thought is always already socialized; there is no private language."

"Normativity cannot be reduced to facts; it is irreducibly normative."

"The given in perception is always already conceptualized."

"Meaning emerges from the interplay of language and practice."