The Usual Picture Of Socrates

A Talent For Speaking Differently, Rather Than For Arguing Well Is The Chief Instrument Of Cultural Change.

You Read The Pragmatists And All You Know Is: Not Descartes, Not Kant, Not Plato. It's Like Aspirin. You Can't Use Aspirin To Give Yourself Power, You Take It To Get Rid Of Headaches. In That Way, Pragmatism Is A Philosophical Therapy. It Helps You Stop Asking The Unhelpful Questions.

As Long As We Try To Project From The Relative And Conditioned To The Absolute And Unconditioned, We Shall Keep The Pendulum Swinging Between Dogmatism And Skepticism. The Only Way To Stop This Increasingly Tiresome Pendulum Swing Is To Change Our Conception Of What Philosophy Is Good For. But That Is Not Something Which Will Be Accomplished By A Few Neat Arguments. It Will Be Accomplished, If It Ever Is, By A Long, Slow Process Of Cultural Change - That Is To Say, Of Change In Common Sense, Changes In The Intuitions Available For Being Pumped Up By Philosophical Arguments.

Truth [is] What Is Better For Us To Believe.

Philosophers Get Attention Only When They Appear To Be Doing Something Sinister - Corrupting The Youth, Undermining The Foundations Of Civilization, Sneering At All We Hold Dear. The Rest Of The Time Everybody Assumes That They Are Hard At Work Somewhere Down In The Sub-basement, Keeping Those Foundations In Good Repair. Nobody Much Cares What Brand Of Intellectual Duct Tape Is Being Used.