#phil

Before man ventures into daydreams about his futuristic society, he should first immerse himself in the nothingness of his being, and finally restore life to what it is all about: a working hypothesis. ↗

— Tomislav Sunic

#existence #life #philosophy #life

Human social life, I suggest, is the magma that erupts and builds up, so to speak, at the fault lines where natural human capacities meet and grind against and over natural human limitations…. This meeting of powers and limitations produces a creative, dynamic tension and energy that generates and fuels the making of human social life and social structures…. It is real human persons living through the tensions of natural existential contradictions who construct patterned social meanings, interactions, institutions, and structures. ↗

— Christian Smith

#human-nature #humanism #identity #personalism #personhood

If those at your top are weak, your bottom will be rotten ↗

— Benny Bellamacina

#humor #life #philosophy #wisdom #life

He could very likely have appealed for leniency. At least he could have saved his life by agreeing to leave Athens. But had he done this he would not have been Socrates. He valued his conscience--and the truth-- higher than life. ↗

— Jostein Gaarder

#life #philosophy #sacrifice #truth #values

Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to ‘play God’, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today. ↗

— Ramez Naam

#science #nature

To believe in nothing is as ridiculous as to believe in everything. Reason and factual evidence may convert a belief into knowledge. ↗

— Felix Alba-Juez

#philosophy #science #science

We are the lucky ones for we shall die, as there is an infinite number of possible forms of DNA all but a few billions of which will never burst into consciousness. ↗

— Frank Close

#science #science

Our craving for generality has [as one] source … our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is “purely descriptive. ↗

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

#metaphilosophy #philosophy #science #the-blue-book #wittgenstein

Il y a les sachants et les savants: c'est la mémoire qui fait les uns, c'est la philosophie qui fait les autres. La philosophie ne s'apprend pas; la philosophie est la réunion des sciences acquises au génie qui les applique. ↗

— Alexandre Dumas

#philosophy #science

It is the mythical, the romantic seduction of the pseudoknowledge, i.e. the folkore - both popular and scientific - that propagates quickly and easily through society, hiding and diminishing the powerful reality of what the new ideas and technologies can offer to humanity. ↗

— Manuel Toharia-Cortés

#philosophy #science #romantic