It is now middle of October and my last post with philosophical quotes was on June 1st. I think the time has come to revive this tradition. So, here they come – my latest selection of philosophical quotes for you.
“Exclude God from the definition of science and, in one fell definitional swoop, you exclude the greatest natural philosophers of the so-called scientific revolution—Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Boyle, and Newton (to name just a few).”
Clark in De Cruz (2014/2017)
“Authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation.”
Miller in De Cruz (1999/2007/2017)
“/…/ our belief that morality is objective (moral realism) is an illusion that helps us to cooperate better.”
Ruse in De Cruz (1986/2017)
“It is natural to think that explanation has something to do with (human) understanding, or “making sense” of, the universe. The whole structure of scientific explanation surely shows, however, that this is a mistake – all such explanation is derivative, and that means that we don’t ever really understand anything about the universe (why should we?). Instead, we simply attempt to describe it /…/.”
Worrall (2004)
“Science began as an outgrowth of theology, and all scientists, whether atheists or theists . . . accept an essentially theological worldview.”
Davies (1995)
“/…/ science must pretend that what it cannot control does not exist, and so must operate as if there is no supernatural realm.”
Scott in Del Ratzsch (1993/2004)
“If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies . . . are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. . . . In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
Dawkins in Del Ratzsch (1996/2004)
“Some would deny that empirical results bear upon issues of meaning at all.”
Del Ratzsch (2004)
“Logical ambiguity is where we flesh-and-blood humans – scientists included – must sometimes live.”
Del Ratzsch (2004)
“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems
Weinberg in Ruse (2000/2010)
pointless.”
“God answers the question: Why is there something rather than nothing? He does not answer: Where did this planet or this cabbage come from?”
Ruse (2010)
“/…/ we can never get outside our sensing and thinking to tell if the world is really as we think it is. In other words, we cannot prove an ultimate correspondence between our seeing and thinking and absolute reality. /…/ At the best, we can have a kind of coherence of our beliefs. Within the system we can have correspondence. /…/ Overall, however, we must accept that we are prisoners of our own, evolved selves.”
Ruse (2010)
“/…/ each concept of God is a cypher for a particular worldview /…/”
Goecke (2017)
“A god is a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe – the powers of your own body and of nature.”
Campbell (1991/1985)
keep exploring!
humanfactor 