Explanation of quotes by person posts

Beginning in March 2017, I started to make quote blog posts that were each focused on an individual person. A list of these posts can be found at this link. The goal of each post was to find my favorite quotes for each person and organize them into a clear structure. In this regard, I attempted to make a rough outline of their important contributions and principles.

I tried my hardest to not misrepresent anybody and I sincerely apologize if I took anybody out of context. If I was unfamiliar with the person's work, I tried to limit the quotes to general philosophy unspecific to that person. It's also important to say that all these posts are a work in progress. As I learn more about a person's work, I try to go back and edit the post with the improved understanding.

The other purpose of these posts is to add to a list of philosophy quotes at this link. I find it useful to have these quotes organized and available especially when I recombine the quotes such as here, here and here.

I should also mention that these posts were largely created using Wikiquote.org. I have the largest gratitude for Wikiquote because without this website, all of these posts would have been much harder to create. Special thanks to the editors who add material to Wikiquote.

The rest of this post is two seemingly contradicting quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche that epitomize what I'm trying to do with the the person posts: to avoid misrepresentation while finding the most valuable insights.

"The worst readers - The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they can use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole." (Mixed Opinions and Maxims, 1879)

"Philosophers' error - The philosopher supposes that the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the structure; but posterity finds its value in the stone which he used for building, and which is used many more times after that for building - better. Thus it finds the value in the fact that the structure can be destroyed and nevertheless retain value as building material." (Mixed Opinions and Maxims, 1879)

 

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Fundamentals of belief

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons, Diacritica

Photo license: CC BY-SA 3.0

This post is a collection of quotes about beliefs. There are 12 quotes divided into 5 sections.

A. Something accepted as true is a belief (3)
B. Every belief is a representation of reality (1)
C. In life, an individual forms a web of beliefs (2)
D. Ideally, every belief should be in congruence with all other beliefs (4)
E. People agree on most aspects of reality (2)

A. Something accepted as true is a belief

David Hume (1711-1776, philosopher):
1. "In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore proportions his beliefs to the evidence." (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)

Rene Descartes (1596-1650, philosopher):
2. "The aim of our studies must be the direction of our mind so that it may form solid and true judgments on whatever matters arise." (Rules for the Direction of the Mind, 1628)

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925, philosopher):
3. "A judgement for me is not the mere grasping of a thought, but the admission of its truth." (On Sense and Reference, 1892)

B. Every belief is a representation of reality

Plato (427 BC- , philosopher):
4. "All that is said by us can only be imitation and representation." (Critas)

C. In life, an individual forms a web of beliefs

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, philosopher):
5. "What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of propositions." (On Certainty, 1969 posthumous)

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, philosopher):
6. "The child learns to believe a host of things, i.e. it learns to act according to those beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system, some things stand unshakably fast and some are more or less liable to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it." (On Certainty, 1969 posthumous)

D. Ideally, every belief should be in congruence with all other beliefs

Otto Neurath (1882-1945, philosopher):
7. “Every new statement is to be confronted with existing ones, already brought to a state of harmony between themselves. A statement will be considered correct if it can be joined to them." (Soziologie im Physikalismus, 1931)

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970, philosopher)
8. “Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one." (Our Knowledge of the External World, 1914)

Willard van Orman Quine (1908-2000, philosopher):
9. "Implication is thus the very texture of our web of belief, and logic is the theory that traces it." (The Web of Belief, 1970)

Richard von Mises (1883-1953, mathematician):
10. “No contradiction exists, if the events are correctly interpreted." (Probability, Statistics and Truth, 1957)

E. People agree on most aspects of reality

William James (1842-1910, philosopher):
11. "The most violent revolutions in an individual's belief leave most of his old order standing. Time and space, cause and effect, nature and history, and one's own biography remain untouched." (What Pragmatism Means. Lectures at the Lowell Institute and Columbia University, 1931)

G. E. Moore (1873-1958, philosopher):
12. “I can prove now, for instance that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, 'here is one hand' and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, 'and here is the another'." (Proof of an External World, 1939)