Philosopher

The Philosopher:

“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. ”

— Ecclesiastes 1:18

“Philosophers have never predicted anything successfully, and do not try to do so”

— Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope

“Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way that 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 is ‘purely descriptive’.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue Book

識得本心本性
正是宗門大病
To know the original Mind, the essential Nature,
This is the great disease of (our) religion.

—Zen saying, translation by R H Blyth in Haiku I.

“[G]reat things are also to be hoped for if I can find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken”

— Descartes, Meditations

“What we gain by science is, after all, sadness.”

— Thomas Hardy

“Technical advance may eliminate sufferings, but not suffering.” [1]

— Anthony Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple

“Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -
Unweave a rainbow.”

— John Keats, “Lamia”

“Rorty says that there’s no utility in trying to use language to represent what is assumed to be ‘out there,’ independent of the observer. However, he is missing the whole root of philosophy. Philosophy is a disease that some people catch when they se their world sink out from beneath their feet. Philosophy is catching the falling floor. Philosophy is holding onto what cannot be held. Probably, Heisenberg is right about the world. There’s no way to view our own lives without changing them. However, when you see love fade, people drift away, and everything you thought you could trust fail— that is when philosophy becomes an act of desperate necessity. All that’s left is to sort through life and find that one thing that will hold up the floor, be it forms or God or self. Maybe it’s foolishness, but it’s not a disease you recover from. You either find something to hold onto or drown. Once you set down the path of philosophy there are no others.”

— Gendo Summers, “On the Banks of the Yodo”

“What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

“Philosophy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.”

—attributed to Henry B. Adams