80 Quotes by Rebecca Goldstein

Quite often we are led to aporia, an impasse, unable to proceed a step further. Socrates is almost always there, but even he is only a supporting character. The starring role is given to the philosophical question. It is the philosophical question that is supposed to take center stage, cracking us open to an entirely new variety of experience.

(As Plato:) There is nothing superstitious about forcing bad consequences for the hubris of paternalistic utopianism. Humanity should never be frozen into a vision of the best. A creative society must be willing to tolerate some degree of instability because creativity is inherently unstable.

Given cognitive vulnerabilities, it would be convenient to have an arrangement whereby reality could tell us off; and that is precisely what science is. Scientific methodology is the arrangement that allows reality to answer us back.

Kleos is sometimes translated as "acoustic renown" the spreading renown you get from people talking about your exploits. It's a bit like having a large Twitter following.

When we call a philosopher distinguished, we are not saying that she is worthy and not saying that she is recognized, but we are saying that she occupies the intersection of both – that she is recognized and worthy; even that she is recognized because she's worthy. In the case of arate, the direction of the "because" can seem a little vaguer, so that it can sometimes seem almost as if someone is regarded as worthy because they are recognized.

(I)n order to refute a conclusion, you have to put forth the best possible argument for it. (p. 158)

Our failures in charity are chained to a narrowed vision of the world that makes too much of the differences between us, and this is our enslavement.

one evangelical scientist who had felt his doubts falling away from him when he was hiking in the mountains and came upon a frozen waterfall—in fact a trinity of a frozen waterfall, with three parts to it. “At that moment, I felt my resistance leave me. And it was a great sense of relief.

He hadn’t altogether gotten it himself until this moment of seeing straight through to the soul of her.