Philosophy Quotes

"The social construction of reality is inescapable and not pernicious."

"Mental content supervenes on physical states only locally."

"Distributed cognition is more fundamental than individual consciousness."

"The examined life requires questioning our deepest assumptions."

"The semantics of a language reveals the fundamental categories by which a culture understands existence."

"A system of thought is only as strong as its fundamental definitions and axioms."

"Every paradox is an invitation to reconsider our fundamental assumptions about language and meaning."

"To understand a culture, study the definitions it makes and the distinctions it draws."

"Language is a mirror that reflects not just reality but the way minds structure reality."

"A system that tolerates contradiction is no system at all; it is merely confusion."

"Language carries the accumulated wisdom of generations, but it also carries their errors and confusions."

"The goal of philosophy is not to create a system but to dissolve the problems created by language."

"A language that cannot express a thought reveals something about the limits of the culture that speaks it."

"Every definition is a decision about how we will use language; it reflects values and assumptions."

"The ambiguities of natural language are not defects to be eliminated but features to be understood and managed."

"We are condemned to use language to analyze language; we cannot escape the circle, but we can explore it."

"The semantics of a culture embodies its history, its values, and its vision of human possibility."

"To understand another person's language is to understand their way of being in the world."

"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."

"We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge."

"The idea that a machine can be conscious is about as meaningful as the idea that a ghost can be conscious."

"Can machines think? This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms 'machine' and 'think'."

"The use of the word 'machine' in philosophical contexts is notoriously difficult."

"If each man according to each woman according to each thing has a certain value or utility..."

"Even if we could build a machine that could think, that would not settle philosophical questions about consciousness."

"Isolated pockets of mental effort would not be particularly useful."

"The extent to which we regard something as behaving in an intelligent manner is determined as much by our own state of mind and training as by the properties of the object we are studying."

"The imitation game is not the right test for machine intelligence if consciousness is required."

"The degree of accuracy which is obtainable is primarily a question of the cost."

"The argument from design has never seemed very compelling to me."