27 Quotes by Morris Raphael Cohen

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.