6 Quotes by Stephen Mumford

A metaphysical understanding of what the world is, how it works, and how it all fits together, in general and abstract terms, could be the most real and important thing there is. In that case, we don't do metaphysics so that we can stay healthy and wealthy: we want to stay healthy and wealthy so that we can do metaphysics.

A metaphysical understanding of what the world is, how it works, and how it all fits together, in general and abstract terms, could be the most real and important thing there is. In that case, we don’t do metaphysics so that we can stay healthy and wealthy: we want to stay healthy and wealthy so that we can do metaphysics.

When something changes, we should not see it as a single thing bearing contrary properties, according to perdurantism, but as different things–temporal parts–bearing those properties. If the view is an attempt to explain change, then it means that each of those temporal parts must themselves be changeless.

There is more to the world than that which we humans have created.

All that matters for philosophers is that it could be true.

We like to feel that we are dealing in objective, eternal, and immutable truths, unaffected by our human perspective on things.