Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel Quotes

Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.

A philosopher once said, 'Half of good philosophy is good grammar.'

Logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge.

Logic invents as many fallacies as it detects; it is a good weapon, but as liable to be used in a bad as in a good cause.

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

It is true the orator may make a myriad replica of his own passion out of those who listen to him. But that does not prove he is right or they are not fools.

Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason.

Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems.

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.

Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic; since both are conversant with subjects of such a nature as it is the business of all to have a certain knowledge of, and which belong to no distinct science. Wherefore all men in some way participate of both; since all, to a certain extent, attempt, as well to sift, as to maintain an argument; as well to defend themselves, as to impeach.

If you use a trick in logic, whom can you be tricking other than yourself?

Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.

To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization.

Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers.

I preferred the weapons of dialectic to all the other teachings of philosophy, and armed with these, I chose the conflicts of disputation rather than the trophies of war.

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.

Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.

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

Rhetoric and dialectics can't change what I have learned from observation and experience.

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument or follow a long chain of reasoning.

Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.

You should carefully study the Art of Reasoning, as it is what most people are very deficient in, and I know few things more disagreeable than to argue, or even converse with a man who has no idea of inductive and deductive philosophy.

Philosophy is easier than politics.

By free-thinking I mean the use of the understanding in endeavoring to find out the meaning of any proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature of the evidence for or against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming force or weakness of the evidence.