"The process of sound philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we started from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow."  
 
Bertrand Russell, "Facts and Propositions", p. 206  
 
 
"[T]he point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."  
 
Bertrand Russell, "Particulars, Predicates, and Relations", p. 216  
 
 
"It is the peculiar business of philosophy to ascertain and make clear the meaning of statements and questions. . . . [W]e cannot by philosophical analysis decide whether anything is real, but only what it means to say that it is real."  
 
Moritz Schlick, "Positivism and Realism", p. 86  
 
 
"The philosopher Wilfred Sellars once characterized philosophy as aiming 'to understand how things, in the broadest possible sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest possible sense of the term'."  
 
Tim van Gelder, "The roles of philosophy in cognitive science", Philosophical Psychology, 11(2).  
 
 
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."  
 
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations  
 
 
"[T]he only difference between science and philosophy is that science is what you more or less know and philosophy is what you do not know."  
 
Bertrand Russell, Excursus Into Metaphysics, p. 231  
 
 
"The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery."  
 
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, sec. 119  
 
 
"Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions.... As soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.... [I]t is part of the business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.... Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect."  
 
Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy, Ch. XV, "The Value of Philosophy"  
 
 
"Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value -- perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free."  
 
Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy, Ch. XV, "The Value of Philosophy"  
 
 
"Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good."  
 
Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy, Ch. XV, "The Value of Philosophy"  
 
 
"Philosophy is the quest 1) to discover the tacit assumptions that we operate on; 2) to critically examine those assumptions; and 3) to improve upon those assumptions by replacing them with better alternatives."  
 
Usenet sci.philosophy.meta posting from leeb@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Lee Borkman), 11 Jul 94 19:53:54 CST  
 
 
"The philosopher . . . is someone who is beset by the temptation to say everything explicitly."  
 
Robert Nozick, The Examined Life, p. 273  
 
 
"It is natural to feel victimized by philosophy, but this particular defensive reaction goes too far. It is like the hatred of childhood and results in a vain effort to grow up too early, before one has gone through the essential formative confusions and exaggerated hopes that have to be experienced on the way to understanding anything. Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up."  
 
Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, p. 12  
 
 
"[T]he philosopher, whose primary technique is argument, is in the business of straightening out the cupboard of knowledge. If you ask a philosopher to settle an issue, he will do it not by consulting the world directly, but by seeing how it fits in with other things we know."  
 
Tim van Gelder, "The roles of philosophy in cognitive science", Philosophical Psychology, 11(2).  
 
 
"By practical necessity, philosopher-cartographers almost always do not know the particular topics that they are trying to fit into the map as well as the specialists on that topic, and as a result the specialists often regard the cartographer as superficial or misinformed. (In the worst case, all relevant specialists will take this attitude; the philosopher becomes something of a dilettante, purporting to know about many things, but having no really deep familiarity with any of them.) However, the appropriate response to this inevitable problem is not to stop drawing up maps altogether, but to continue striving to draw up better maps, which means cooperating with all the specialists in order to develop the best way of describing their particular region...."  
 
Tim van Gelder, "The roles of philosophy in cognitive science", Philosophical Psychology, 11(2).  
 
 
"The trouble with philosophy, some say, is that it isn't Science; if it were more like Science it would solve its soluble problems and dissolve or discard the rest. The trouble with philosophy, others say, is that it has tried to be 'scientific' about matters that can only be dealt with through Art. If it would give up its love affair with the Scientific Method, it would no longer have to cast its projects in terms that guaranteed failure. The trouble with philosophy, I think, is that it is much harder than it looks to either Scientists or Artists, for it shares -- and must share -- the aspirations and methods of both."  
 
Daniel Dennett, Elbow Room  
 
 
"You cannot think without abstractions; accordingly, it is of the utmost importance to be vigilant in critically revising your modes of abstraction. It is here that philosophy finds its healthy niche as essential to the healthy progress of society. It is the critique of abstractions."  
 
Alfred North Whitehead, quoted in James Bailey, After Thought, p. 157  
 
 
"On my bad days, I sometimes wonder what philosophers are for. Philosophers used to believe they had a proprietary method that reveals proprietary truths, but that is increasingly hard to credit. Nobody has been able to say what the method is, while the proprietary truths have been thin on the ground. There are, to be sure, a fair number of traditionally philosophical problems: scepticism, freedom of the will, the nature of the mental, the objectivity of the moral, the a priori, the modal, justification, induction and so on. But millennia of arguing these topics have now flowed under the bridge, and all the plausible positions seem already to be occupied; to say something new you have to say something outrageous."  
 
Jerry Fodor, "The Selfish Gene Pool", Times Literary Supplement, 7/27/05