Russian - Philosopher | July 25, 1880 - January 28, 1947
It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one.
Morris Raphael Cohen
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If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.
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Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed.
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Literature and philosophy both allow past idols to be resurrected with a frequency which would be truly distressing to a sober scientist.
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Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.
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Law is a formless mass of isolated decisions.
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Again, both literature and philosophy work by appealing to certain reigning idols.
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If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again.
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Let philosophy resolutely aim to be as scientific as possible, but let her not forget her strong kinship with literature.
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The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic.
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To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained can accept the results of science only on authority.
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In thus pointing out certain respects in which philosophy resembles literature more than science, I do not mean, of course, to imply that it would be well for philosophy if it ceased to aim at scientific rigor.
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