13 quotes
The atomists, unlike Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
What was best in the Cynic doctrine passed over into Stoicism, which was an altogether more complete and rounded philosophy.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma, and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary for the preservation of the community.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
If virtue is the sole good, there can be no reason against cruelty and injustice, since, as the Stoics are never tired of pointing out, cruelty and injustice afford the sufferer the best opportunities for the exercise of virtue.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Stoicism, unlike the earlier purely Greek philosophies, is emotionally narrow, and in a certain sense fanatical; but it also contains religious elements of which the world felt the need, and which the Greeks seemed unable to supply.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
It has only been very slowly that scientific method, which seeks to reach principles inductively from observation of particular facts, has replaced the Hellenic belief in deduction from luminous axioms derived from the mind of the philosopher.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
One cannot accept the attitude of some among the Stoics, who said, "What does it matter to me if my family suffer? I can still be virtuous." The Christian principle, "Love your enemies," is good, but the Stoic principle, "Be indifferent to your friends," is bad.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Things may have a real essence, which will consist of their physical constitution, but this is in the main unknown to us, and is not the "essence" of which scholastics speak. Essence as we can know it is purely verbal; it consists merely in the definition of a general term.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Mystical doctrines as to the relation of time to eternity are also reinforced by pure mathematics, for the mathematical objects, such as numbers, if real at all, are eternal and not in time. Such eternal objects can be conceived as God's thoughts. Hence Plato's doctrine that God is a geometer, and Sir James Jeans' belief that He is addicted to arithmetic.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
In the welter of conflicting fanaticisms, one of the few unifying forces is scientific truthfulness, by which I mean the habit of basing our beliefs upon observations and inferences as impersonal, and as much divested of local and temperamental bias, as is possible for human beings.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
There is, in fact, an element of sour grapes in Stoicism. We can't be happy, but we can be good; let us therefore pretend that, so long as we are good, it doesn't matter being unhappy. This doctrine is heroic, and, in a bad world, useful; but it is neither quite true nor, in a fundamental sense, quite sincere.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)