William James Quotes

Say, Not so, and you will out circle the philosophers.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

What I always liked about Socrates was his insistence on questioning things for the sake of reaching some sort of clarity - even if it is only clarity about the gaps in our knowledge.

Dialectic thought is an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means.

Philosophy, as the modern world knows it, is only intellectual club-swinging.

Philosophers write for professors; thinkers for writers.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

When we reason upon general subjects, one may justly affirm, that our speculations can scarce ever be too fine, provided they be just.

No philosophical opinion, however ancient, however generally received, ought to rest upon authority. There is no presumption in requiring evidence for it, or in regulating our belief by the evidence we can find.

My profession is I'm a dissident philosopher.

Every single university student should study philosophy. You need to lead the examined life and question your beliefs. If you don't learn critical thinking, then political debate degenerates into a contest of slogans.

I'm a fan of robust debate, and I'm not averse to engaging in the odd ad hominem attack myself.

Philosophy is problem-solving. There's a philosophical problem, and then you try to solve it by approaching it from different angles and seeing what way works. That's what comedy is: you have a topic and you try to just hit it as many different ways as you can.

Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.

I am a philosopher, not a scientist, and we philosophers are better at questions than answers.

To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute.

Philosophy itself cannot but benefit from our disputes, for if our conceptions prove true, new achievements will be made; if false, their refutation will further confirm the original doctrines.

I read all the great philosophers but most people just hear what they want to hear and it makes it easy for them to brand us devil worshippers.

The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.

Men who are lovers of wisdom [i.e., philosophers] must be inquirers into many things.

Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not.

The beginning of philosophy is the recognition of the conflict between opinions.