20th-century Philosopher Quotes

It seems to me that philosophers should be more relaxed about whether or not some form of materialism is true.

The discovery that the universe has no purpose need not prevent a human
being from having one.

I am not innocent. Innocence is a science of the sublime. And I am only at the very beginning of the apprenticeship.

Hélène Cixous

The universe is full of men going through the same motions in the same surroundings, but carrying within themselves, and projecting around them, universes as mutually remote as the constellations.

Emmanuel Mounier

Surely if we have learned anything from the history of morals it is that the thing to do with a moral quandary is not to hide it.

The centipede was happy quite Until the toad for fun Said: "Pray which leg comes after which?" This wrought his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in the ditch Considering how to run.

Brand Blanshard

The most essential example of the theory of self-organisation in chemistry is the theory of non-linear, non-equilibrium thermodynamics of chemical reactions presented by Prigogine and his co-workers.

Equations seem like treasures, spotted in the rough by some discerning individual, plucked and examined, placed in the grand storehouse of knowledge, passed on from generation to generation. This is so convenient a way to present scientific discovery, and so useful for textbooks, that it can be called the treasure-hunt picture of knowledge.

Robert P. Crease

The Treatise is also one of the most important books of Western thought ever written. Spinoza was the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature; that true religion has nothing to do with theology, liturgical ceremonies, or sectarian dogma but consists only in a simple moral rule: love your neighbor; and that ecclesiastic authorities should have no role whatsoever in the governance of a modern state.

I have been hearing for years and years about how the financial services sector pays such exorbitant wages because the people who work there are so immensely talented that they are cheap at $50 million a year. I never particularly bought that line before. But I never imagined that all those Masters of the Universe would do quite this badly. If we had paid them $50 million a year to go far, far away and leave our financial system alone, it would have been a bargain.

Modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system

Giorgio Agamben

Europe is as fearful of Islam today as she has been in the past. She now knows that the strength of Islam (which in the past expressed that of the Arabs) has been reborn and has appeared in a new form: Arab nationalism.

We live in a world populated by structures - a complex mixture of geological, biological, social, and linguistic constructions that are nothing but accumulations of materials shaped and hardened by history

Many people are never happier than when they get the opportunity to complain, while others are deeply unhappy with how things are but just accept the fact. Complaint occurs when we refuse to accept that things are wrong and we do something about it, even if that something is simply articulating our unease.

We don't call war hell because it is fought without restraint. It is more nearly right to say that, when certain restraints are passed, the hellishness of war drives us to break with every remaining restraint in order to win. Here is the ultimate tyranny: those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor.

ALL MEANINGFUL KNOWLEDGE IS FOR THE SAKE OF ACTION, AND ALL MEANINGFUL ACTION FOR THE SAKE OF FRIENDSHIP.

Nihilism is not an existential quandary but a speculative opportunity.

To kill or not to kill, that was the question that haunted me.

Torbjörn Tännsjö

Perhaps every science must start with metaphor and end with algebra; and perhaps without the metaphor there would be no algebra.

The interpretation of thought as ""inner speech" has taken different forms, and has been used to clarify a variety of problems--thus problems pertaining to the logical forms of thought and the connection of thought with things.

Wilfrid Sellars

It could plausibly be argued that far from Christian theology having hampered the study of nature for fifteen hundred years, it was Greek corruptions of biblical Christianity which hampered it.

Performance for another in no way signals the inferiority of the performer to the one for whom the performance is intended.

That which is injurious loses its capacity to harm when it is brought into the light, and we attract to us that which we emanate.

David Hawkins (philosopher)

In the logic of science there is a principle as important as that of parsimony: it is that of sufficient reason.

Lewis White Beck

It is undeniable that every human being is entitled to living space, daily bread, and the protection of the law as a common birthright; these are fundamentals and should not be handed out as an act of charity.