Historically Speaking All - Or Very Nearly

The Scientific Tradition Is Distinguished From The Pre-scientific Tradition By Having Two Layers. Like The Latter, It Passes On Its Theories; But It Also Passes On A Critical Attitude Towards Them.

Every Intellectual Has A Very Special Responsibility. He Has The Privilege And The Opportunity Of Studying. In Return, He Owes It To His Fellow Men (or 'to Society') To Represent The Results Of His Study As Simply, Clearly And Modestly As He Can. The Worst Thing That Intellectuals Can Do - The Cardinal Sin - Is To Try To Set Themselves Up As Great Prophets Vis-à-vis Their Fellow Men And To Impress Them With Puzzling Philosophies. Anyone Who Cannot Speak Simply And Clearly Should Say Nothing And Continue To Work Until He Can Do So.

Genuine Philosophical Problems Are Always Rooted Outside Philosophy And They Die If These Roots Decay.

We Are Social Creatures To The Inmost Centre Of Our Being. The Notion That One Can Begin Anything At All From Scratch, Free From The Past, Or Unindebted To Others, Could Not Conceivably Be More Wrong.

But Some Of These Theories Are So Bold That They Can Clash With Reality: They Are The Testable Theories Of Science. And When They Clash, Then We Know That There Is A Reality; Something That Can Inform Us That Our Ideas Are Mistaken.