The World Is Out There, But Descriptions

I Think Of An Intellectual As Just Being Bookish, Being Interested In History Books, Utopian Ideas, That Kind Of Thing.

As Long As We Try To Project From The Relative And Conditioned To The Absolute And Unconditioned, We Shall Keep The Pendulum Swinging Between Dogmatism And Skepticism. The Only Way To Stop This Increasingly Tiresome Pendulum Swing Is To Change Our Conception Of What Philosophy Is Good For. But That Is Not Something Which Will Be Accomplished By A Few Neat Arguments. It Will Be Accomplished, If It Ever Is, By A Long, Slow Process Of Cultural Change - That Is To Say, Of Change In Common Sense, Changes In The Intuitions Available For Being Pumped Up By Philosophical Arguments.

[walt] Whitman And [humanist Educator John] Dewey Tried To Substitute Hope For Knowledge. They Wanted To Put Shared Utopian Dreams - Dreams Of An Ideally Decent And Civilized Society - In The Place Of Knowledge Of God's Will, Moral Law, The Laws Of History, Or The Facts Of Science.... As Long As We Have A Functioning Political Left, We Still Have A Chance To Achieve Our Country, To Make It The Country Of Whitman's And Dewey's Dreams.

My Principal Motive Is The Belief That We Can Still Make Admirable Sense Of Our Lives Even If We Cease To Have... An Ambition Of Transcendence.

A Talent For Speaking Differently, Rather Than For Arguing Well Is The Chief Instrument Of Cultural Change.