Metaphysics Quotes
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to
thinkclearly.
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More Metaphysics Quotes
Ptolemy... against the champions of this or that cosmology of the heavens... had dared to claim that it is legitimate to interpret the facts of astronomy by the simplest geometrical scheme which will 'save the phenomena,' no matter whose Metaphysics might be upset. His conception of the physical structure of the earth, however, prevented him from carrying through in earnest this principle of relativity, as his objections to the hypothesis that the earth moves amply show.
ptolemy— Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1924)
A more detailed, but still uncontroversial comprehensive, definition is that philosophy is rationally critical thinking, of a more or less systematic kind about the general nature of the world (Metaphysics or theory of existence), the justification of belief (epistemology or theory of knowledge), and the conduct of life (ethics or theory of value). Each of these three elements...
— Anthony Quinton (born 1925) in: Ted Honderich ed. (1995) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.
— 1893 Appearance and Reality, preface.
Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.
f. h. bradley— Appearance and Reality, preface (1893)
Metaphysics — what Metaphysics do those trees have?
patrick swift— Portuguese Notes (Gandon Editions Biography 1993)
Metaphysics has as the proper object of its enquiries three ideas only: God, freedom, and immortality.
Immanuel Kant— B 395 (Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787))
Metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so, and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence.
— Joseph Wood Krutch (1929), The Modern Temper
Look, there's no Metaphysics on earth like chocolates.
fernando pessoa— Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher (1888 - 1935)
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But, like a hawk encumbered with his hood, Explaining Metaphysics to the nation I wished he would explain his explanation.
Rochdale— 1819-24 Don Juan, canto1, dedication, stanza 2.
The late philosopher Morris R. Cohen of CCNY was asked by a student in the Metaphysics course, “Professor Cohen, how do I know that I exist?” The keen old prof replied, “And who is asking?”
Saul Bellow— Humboldt’s Gift (1996), p. 163
I think Metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.
— Ch. 20 (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974))
A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of Metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.
william winwood reade— "Intellect", p. 385
The Metaphysics of substance. The strange feeling which comes over us when we sense: this is skin – this is bone – all in a single vision that is completely unearthly. The dreaminess of our existence mixed at the same time with the indescribably sweet illusion of reality.
max beckmann— In: Beckmann’s sketchbook - probably referring to his last triptych painting 'The Argonauts', he painted in 1950, the year he died.
That teaching of modern Metaphysics which exhorts man to feel comparatively little esteem for the truly thinking portion of himself and to honor the active and willing part of himself with all his devotion...
julien benda— p. 149 (Treason of the Intellectuals (1927))
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But, like a hawk encumber'd with his hood, Explaining Metaphysics to the nation – I wish he would explain his Explanation.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Lord Byron, Don Juan (1819-24), Canto 1, Dedication, line 13.
Second, and far more serious, are particular examples of a sophistry and sleight of hand in the misuse of metaphor, and more importantly a distortion of Metaphysics in support of an evolutionary programme.
simon conway morris— p.314 (Life's Solution (2003))
The way towards ' wisdom ' or towards ' freedom ' is the way towards your inner being. This is the simplest definition of Metaphysics .
mircea eliade— Attributed in The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom (2011) edited by Diana Doroftei and Matthew Cross
The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious Metaphysics.
sam harris— p. 32 (Letter to a Christian Nation (2006))
In the metaphysical elements of aesthetics the various nonmoral feelings are to be made use of; in the elements of moral Metaphysics the various moral feelings of men, according to the differences in sex, age, education, and government, of races and climates, are to be employed.
Immanuel Kant— Part III : Selection on Education from Kant's other Writings, Ch. I Pedagogical Fragments, # 58
It has never been in my power to study anything, mathematics, ethics, Metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semeiotic .
charles sanders peirce— Letter to Victoria (23 December 1908)
Many agnostics (including myself) are quite as doubtful of the body as they are of the soul, but this is a long story taking one into difficult Metaphysics. Mind and matter alike, I should say, are only convenient symbol in discourse, not actually existing things.
bertrand russell— What is an Agnostic? (1953).
Occultism is the Metaphysics of dunces.
— Theodor W. Adorno, "Theses Against Occultism" in Minima Moralia, (1951), p. 238-41
Now these two questions Does there exist a material reality distinct from sensible appearances? and What is the nature of reality? do not have their source in experimental method, which is acquainted only with sensible appearances and can discover nothing beyond them. The resolution of these questions transcends the methods used by physics; it is the object of Metaphysics. Therefore, if the aim of physical theories is to explain experimental laws, theoretical physics is not an autonomous science; it is subordinate to Metaphysics.
pierre duhem— Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, tr. Philip P. Wiener, 1991, Princeton University Press, p. 10, ISBN 069102524X
God is growth, God is structure/knowledge, God is everything and nothing simultaneously. And, rather heretically for the Abrahamic religions, to perceive i.e. to cognate i.e. to be of matter i.e. to be structured energy generating a gravimetric field is an aspect of God relating to another aspect of God through light, which is of course God. In this, the underlying Metaphysics are most definitely Pandeist.
— Niall Douglas, Freeing Growth - A Neo-Capitalist Manifesto, 2009, page 8.
I was thrown out of college for cheating on the Metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of another boy.
woody allen— Woody Allen, Annie Hall (1977).
Ptolemy... against the champions of this or that cosmology of the heavens... had dared to claim that it is legitimate to interpret the facts of astronomy by the simplest geometrical scheme which will 'save the phenomena,' no matter whose Metaphysics might be upset. His conception of the physical structure of the earth, however, prevented him from carrying through in earnest this principle of relativity, as his objections to the hypothesis that the earth moves amply show.
— Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1924)
Madame de Staël thought it was pride in man to endevour to penetrate the secret of the universe; and speaking of the higher Metaphysics she said: "I prefer the Lord's Prayer to it all."
— Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, in Albertine-Adrienne Necker de Saussure, Sketch of the Life, Character and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1820), p. 329
— Often misquoted as "I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer".
Hinduism has produced the profoundest Metaphysics that we know of.
— Count Hermann Keyserling, The Huston Smith Reader.
Religion is the only Metaphysics that the multitude can understand and adopt.
joseph joubert— Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 504.
