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1 " No sane person should believe that something is subjective merely because it cannot be settled beyond controversy. "
― Hilary Putnam
2 " Science is wonderful at destroying metaphysical answers, but incapable of providing substitute ones. Science takes away foundations without providing a replacement. Whether we want to be there or not, science has put us in the position of having to live without foundations. It was shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our historical position-and no end to it is in sight-is that of having to philosophise without 'foundations'. "
3 " Philosophy needs vision and argument… there is something disappointing about a philosophical work that contains arguments, however good, which are not inspired by some genuine vision, and something disappointing about a philosophical work that contains a vision, however inspiring, which is unsupported by arguments…Speculation about how things hang together requires… the ability to draw out conceptual distinctions and connections, and the ability to argue… But speculative views, however interesting or well supported by arguments or insightful, are not all we need. We also need what [the philosopher Myles] Burnyeat called ‘vision’ – and I take that to mean vision as to how to live our lives, and how to order our societies. "
4 " All of this is really impossible, in the way that it is really impossible that monkeys should by chance type out a copy of Hamlet. "
5 " Rosenzweig daringly criticizes Plato’s dialogues because in them “the thinker knows his thoughts in advance,” and moreover the other is only raising the objections the author thought of himself. "
― Hilary Putnam , Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life: Rosenzweig, Buber, Levinas, Wittgenstein
