Morris Raphael Cohen Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“Liberalism regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situation, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.”

“Liberalism, on the other hand, regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situations, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.”

“If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again.”

“Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature.”

“The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.”

“Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols.”

“Literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.”

“A creative element is surely present in all great systems, and it does not seem possible that all sympathy or fundamental attitudes of will can be entirely eliminated from any human philosophy.”

“It is not impossible to think that the minds of philosophers sometimes act like those of other mortals, and that, having once been determined by diverse circumstances to adopt certain views, they then look for and naturally find reasons to justify these views.”

“This open eye for possible alternatives which need to be scrutinized before we can determine which is the best grounded is profoundly disconcerting to all conservatives and to almost all revolutionaries.”