Philosophy Quotes

"Reification—treating historical and social products as natural facts—is the disease of modern consciousness."

"The individual and society are not opposed; each is incomprehensible without the other."

"The suppression of contradictions in art and thought does not resolve them; it merely prepares future crises."

"A new theory is adopted not because it is proven correct but because educated practitioners prefer it."

"We are all imprisoned in Plato's cave, watching shadows."

"We cannot see beyond our paradigm any more than we can see our own eyes."

"Science cannot resolve all disputes by rational argument alone."

"Kuhn's insight was that science is not a steady accumulation of truth."

"The structure of paradigm shifts is universal."

"Paradigms make certain questions answerable and others meaningless."

"The scientist's worldview is shaped by his paradigm."

"The concept of truth must be rethought for each paradigm."

"The paradigm determines the boundaries of normal science."

"The first-rate mind must think in contradictions."

"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

"To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract."

"Metaphysics is the search for the general principles of nature and experience."

"Philosophy is the product of wonder; it begins in wonder and ends in wonder."

"Just as Descartes was the philosopher of substance and Locke of experience, Kant is the philosopher of criticism."

"The ultimate explanations of life must start from the notion of force, or activity, or creation."

"The two systems which dominate thought are mechanism and organism."

"Every philosophy is the product of its time; it cannot transcend its period."

"A person is a society in the microcosm, organized under a monarchy."

"Speculative philosophy is the endeavor to find a scheme of the general ideas which will apply to everything."

"Abstract logical thought is a small fragment of the human experience."

"The world is not what I think, but what I live through."

"Consciousness is being toward things."

"Ambiguity is not something to be overcome but acknowledged as fundamental to existence."

"Existence precedes essence; we create ourselves through lived experience."

"Meaning emerges from the dialogue between self and world."