The Old Deferentialists, taking the rationality of science for granted, assumed that there must be a uniquely rational method of inquiry exclusive to the sciences; the New Cynics, noticing the failure of efforts to articulate what that uniquely rational method is, conclude that science is not a rational enterprise, in fact, that the whole idea of...
Wittgenstein On Calculi Containing Contradictions
Indeed, even at this stage I predict a time when there will be mathematical investigations of calculi containing contradictions, and people will actually be proud of having emancipated themselves even from consistency.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remar...
Priest On the Say-so of Experts
[N]o one is an expert in many areas, and we all have to accept things on the say-so of experts in some areas. If someone believes that it is irrational to believe contradictions on the basis of experts in logic and philosophy, their belief is not irrational. The charge of irrationality is levelled against people who ought to have known better.
Graham...
Rorty On Analytic Philosophy
Any problem that enjoys a simultaneous vogue in ten of the hundred or so “analytic” philosophy departments in America is doing exceptionally well. The field these days is a jungle of competing research programs, programs which seem to have a shorter and shorter half-life as the years go by.
Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays: 1972...
Moore On the Business of Philosophers
It is not the business of the ethical philosopher to give personal advice or exhortation.
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethi...
Grice On Philosophy
It is no more sensible to complain that philosophy is no longer capable of solving practical problems than it is to complain that the study of the stars no longer enables one to predict the course of world events.
Paul Grice, “Postwar Oxford Philosoph...
Wittgenstein On Language
Our language can be regarded as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with extensions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new suburbs with straight and regular streets and uniform houses.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigati...
Quine On Empiricism
For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical...
Russell On Wittgenstein
It has long been one of my dreams to found a great school of mathematically-minded philosophers, but I don’t know whether I shall ever get it accomplished. I had hopes of Norton, but he has not the physique, Broad is all right, but has no fundamental originality. Wittgenstein of course is exactly my dream.
Bertrand Russell to Lady Ottoline...
How is Pure Mathematics Possible
The question which Kant put at the beginning of his philosophy, namely “How is pure mathematics possible?” is an interesting and difficult one, to which every philosophy which is not purely sceptical must find some answer.
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosop...
Schwartz On Kripke
Here I must pause a moment to pay homage to Saul Kripke. I do not think that I am exaggerating too much if say that Kripke's Naming and Necessity is the apotheosis of analytic philosophy. Kripke’s analysis involving his prying apart of analyticity, a prioricity, and necessity, including his demonstrating that such statements as “Water is H20,” “Tigers...
Stalnaker On Kripke
[Kripke’s] most important philosophical accomplishment is in the way he posed and clarified the questions, and not in the particular answers that he gave to him.
Robert Stalnaker, “Reference and Necessit...
Weston On Arguments
Once we have arrived at a conclusion that is well supported by reasons, we use arguments to explain and defend it. A good argument doesn't merely repeat conclusions. Instead it offers reasons and evidence so that other people can make up their minds for themselves. If you become convinced that we should indeed change the way we raise and use animals,...
Hand On Understanding
Of course, people seem to think that understanding a phenomenon takes away its mystery. This is true in the sense that understanding means removing obscurity, obfuscation, ambiguity and confusion.
David Hand, The Improbability Princip...