Bradley’s Reviews > Classic Philosophical Questions > Status Update

“A clear logical conscience does cost something – just as any virtue, just as all that we cherish, costs us dear… The genius of a man’s logical method should be loved and referenced as his bride, whom he has chosen from all the world.” ~ Charles Sanders Peirce, Four Approaches to Philosophy

“But, above all, let it be considered that what is more wholesome than any particular belief is integrity of belief, and that to avoid looking into the support of any belief from the fear that it may turn out rotten is quite as immoral as it is disadvantageous.” ~Charles Sanders Peirce, Four Approaches to Philosophy

Continued: Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe…In the citizenship of the universe consist man’s true freedom, and his liberation from the thralldom of narrow hopes and fears. ~ Bertrand Russell, Methodologies of Philosophy

The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable.
~ Bertrand Russell, Methodologies of Philosophy

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.
~Bertrand Russell, Methodologies of Philosophy

The world spins round her [the soul] and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change [the changeable world of the senses]. ~Socrates, from The Phaedo

And you, too, judges, must face death hopefully… Whether life or death is better is known to God, and to God only. ~Socrates, from The Apology

But if death is a journey to another place, and what we are told is true – that there are all who have died – what good could be greater than this, my judges? Would a journey not be worth taking, at the end of which, in the other world, we should be released from the self-styled judges here and should find the true judges who are said to sit in judgment below… ~Socrates, from The Apology

I would very much rather defend myself as I did, and die, then as you would have had me do, and live…And now I shall go away, sentenced by you to death; and they will go away, sentenced by truth to wickedness and injustice. ~Socrates, from The Apology

And if I tell you that no better thing can happen to a man then to discuss virtue every day and the other matters about what you have heard me arguing and examining myself and others, and that an unexamined life is not worth living, then you will believe me still less. But that is so, my friends, though it is not easy to persuade you. ~Socrates, from The Apology