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The philosophical writer stands in danger of harming his readers in the very act of trying to help them, by fostering an unhealthy presumption, passivity, and dependence.

— Arthur Melzer

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More quotes by Arthur Melzer

The philosophic life—the radically personal effort to see life whole—can never be genuinely pursued as a collective enterprise of specialists.

One cannot philosophize in public any more than one can make love there.

Only a person fully in touch with the irrational temptations buried within him has a chance of becoming genuinely rational.

Intellectual humility and the keen sense of our ignorance are the necessary starting points for genuine philosophical development; therefore, books—even as they transmit brilliant philosophical insights—undercut philosophy at its root.

In every age people are strongly tempted to rely upon the thinking and findings of others. And this can often seem like a useful shortcut. But if philosophy is to remain authentic and not degenerate into a “tradition,” then above all it must resist this dangerous temptation—the very temptation upon which modern progress-philosophy seeks to build.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Arthur Melzer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.