Philosophical Questions Quotes

• Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.

  Susanne Katherina Langer

  Philosophical, Science, Order

  "Feeling and Form". Book by Susanne Katherina Langer, ch. 1, 1953.

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• Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.

  Paul Tillich

  Philosophical, Answers, Existential

  Paul Tillich (1988). “Writings on religion”

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• One of the peculiar features of philosophical questions is how eager people are to offer solutions that miss the point of the questions. Sometimes these failed solutions are scientific, and sometimes they are religious, and sometimes they are based on what is called plain common sense.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Religious, Philosophical, People

  Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (2014). “Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away”, p.18, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

  Robert Graves

  Philosophical, Destiny, Poet

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• 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.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Mean

  Garth Hallett, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1977). “A companion to Wittgenstein's "Philosophical investigations"”, Cornell Univ Pr

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• God is the ultimate philosophical questioner, the one who asks the logically paradoxical ultimate philosophical question about the nature of his own existence.

  Kedar Joshi

  God, Philosophical, Existence

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• Theatre within theatre, when characters sees themselves on stage, always raises philosophical questions of choice and free will.

  Mark Ravenhill

  Philosophical, Character, Choices

  Source: voltairefoundation.wordpress.com

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• We have to reconcile ourselves with philosophical questions in every field. Every field should be open to inquiry and knowledge.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Philosophical, Inquiry, Fields

  Source: dinmerican.wordpress.com

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• Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know.

  Ted Chiang

  Philosophical, Mean, Reality

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• There is a worry that many have expressed that, on the naturalistic way of approaching philosophical questions, philosophy will somehow be co-opted by science. I'm not much worried about this.

  Hilary Kornblith

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Worry

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• In the end, we learn about the most basic philosophical questions - like "How to live?" - from a broad mixture of sources, including literature and philosophy, history and anthropology. These sources can guide our reflections on our own experiences, as we explore and reconsider. Mann contributed to such explorations in a distinctive way, and I hope my book brings that out.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophy, Book, Philosophical

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Mann was profoundly influenced by two philosophers, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, who returned to the most ancient of all philosophical questions - "How to live?" - and whose writings offered novel perspectives for considering that question (much more perspective-offering than rigorous argument!)

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophical, Writing, Offering

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• I'm not sure that I 'am' a philosopher - but I do engage with questions that are generally recognized as philosophical questions, such as the character of human existence and what makes for a good human life.

  George Pattison

  Philosophical, Character, Philosopher

  "Towards hope". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. July 18, 2014.

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• One of the recurring philosophical questions is: 'Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?' Which says something about the nature of philosophers , because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone.

  Terry Pratchett

  Fall, Philosophical, Squirrels

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “Small Gods: (Discworld Novel 13)”, p.10, Random House

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• I think one reason is that philosophers are more insecure to speak accessibly because non-philosophers are skeptical that philosophers have any special expertise. After all, all people - not just philosophers - have attitudes and points of view on various philosophical questions, and they rather resent being told that there are professionals who can think about these things better.

  Rebecca Goldstein

  Attitude, Philosophical, Insecure

  "Interview with Rebecca Goldstein on Plato at the Googleplex, philosophy for the public, and everything". Interview with Ophelia Benson, www.butterfliesandwheels.org. March 20, 2014.

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• I'm not a sociologist, and the novel has often concerned itself with sociology. It's one of the generating forces that's made fiction interesting to people. But that's not my concern. I'm interested in psychology. And also certain philosophical questions about the world.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Philosophical, People, Interesting

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• If you thought you were trying to find out more about it because you're gonna get an answer to some deep philosophical question...you may be wrong! It may be that you can't get an answer to that particular question by finding out more about the character of nature. But my interest in science is to simply find out about the world.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Philosophical, Character, Trying

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.115, Princeton University Press

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• Black is the absence of all color. White is the presence of all colors. I suppose life must be one or the other. On the whole, though, I think I would prefer color to its absence. But then black does add depth and texture to color. Perhaps certain shades of gray are necessary to a complete palette. Even unrelieved black. Ah, a deep philosophical question. Is black necessary to life, even a happy life? Could we ever be happy if we did not at least occasionally experience misery?

  Mary Balogh

  Philosophical, Happy Life, Thinking

  Mary Balogh (2009). “Then Comes Seduction”, p.230, Dell

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• Godshawk looked surprised, the way that people generally do when you ask them philosophical questions in shrubberies in the middle of the night.

  Philip Reeve

  Philosophical, Night, People

  Philip Reeve (2011). “Fever Crumb”, p.168, Scholastic Inc.

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• That's a stupid question,' said Malachi. 'Because he didn't warn him. He didn't warn anyone.' 'No, it's a philosophical question,' Kearns corrected him. 'Which makes it useless, not stupid.

  Rick Yancey

  Stupid, Philosophical, Useless

  Rick Yancey (2009). “The Monstrumologist”, p.297, Simon and Schuster

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• If God were to exist for the entire humanity, he would be profoundly vile, as he allows the existence of unfathomable sin, stupidity, madness, and misery for no reason than his own despicable enjoyment. God exists though, not for all humanity, but for a one chosen man - a philosopher - who is bound to answer the greatest philosophical question, the question about the nature of the questioner's existence, which progressively quenches the divine vanity.

  Kedar Joshi

  God, Pain, Philosophical

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• The plain fact is that there are no conclusions. If we must state a conclusion, it would be that many of the former conclusions of the nineteenth-century science on philosophical questions are once again in the melting-pot.

  James Jeans

  Philosophical, Science, Facts

  James Jeans, Sir James Hopwood Jeans (1981). “Physics and Philosophy”, p.216, Courier Corporation

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• ...What is at stake is civilization and humanity, nothing less. The idea that everything is permitted, as Nietzsche put it, rests on the premise of nihilism and has nihilistic implications. I will not pretend that the case against nihilism and for civilization is an easy one to make. We are here confronting the most fundamental of philosophical questions, on the deepest levels. In short, the matter of pornography and obscenity is not a trivial one, and only superficial minds can take a bland and untroubled view of it.

  Irving Kristol

  Philosophical, Views, Civilization

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• That's an interesting philosophical question. When your boner goes away, is that one gone... forever?

  Adam Carolla

  Funny, Philosophical, Humor

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• Maybe the most provocative thing one can do - and I'm not the first one to do it - is to ask the moral and philosophical question: why are some people better than others? Why are some people more moral than others?

  David Bezmozgis

  Philosophical, People, Firsts

  Interview with Ratik Asokan, logger.believermag.com. September 23, 2014.

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