Bernard Williams Quotes

It is right that we be concerned with the scientific probity of metaphysics.

Let us come to the philosophers, whose authority is of greater weight, and their judgment more to be relied on, because they are believed to have paid attention, not to matters of fiction, but to the investigation of the truth.

When it comes to the real operational issues that govern our understanding of physical reality, ontological definitions of classical philosophers are, in my opinion, sterile.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

Philosophy changes day by day.

I don't think there's an interesting boundary between philosophy and science. Science is totally beholden to philosophy. There are philosophical assumptions in science and there's no way to get around that.

To me, what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that's generated in other areas.

Truth as such is not a particularly important concept in naturalistic philosophy.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

Philosophy was once considered science.

I bought some books in order to learn the first principles of philosophy.

If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand.

It was 1988, and I was just finishing a D.Phil at Oxford University on the topic of 'Nietzsche and German Idealism.'

I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.

I discovered philosophy in my youth when I read 'wildly,' and thus I was exposed to the world of ideas.

It is a great advantage for a system of philosophy to be substantially true.

Philosophy is an odd thing. When we use the word in everyday speech, you know, you sometimes hear it hilariously.

Well, I don't know if I can comment on Kant or Hegel because I'm no real philosopher in the sense of knowing what these people have said in any detail so let me not comment on that too much.

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

Modern secular thought has its own dualism: It treats only the physical world as knowable and testable, while locking everything else - mind, spirit, morality, meaning - into the realm of private, subjective feelings. The so-called fact/value split.

First, philosophy concerns itself with all kinds of issues that don't get much airtime in day-to-day life. What's the nature of reality? Can we ever truly know anything, and if so, how? What does it mean to be a moral agent? And while we're at it, is there any such thing as agency anyway?

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

Since Plato, we have been considering the nature of knowledge, the meaning of meaning and the status of the physical world.

Rationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us.

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.