“Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea.”

— George Santayana

Source: The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy (1911), pp. 48-49
Context: Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

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George Santayana 109

20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with P… 1863–1952

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“Ideas may be superior to vested interest. They are also very often the children of vested interest.”

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Source: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936), Ch. 24 "Concluding Notes" p. 383-384
Context: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

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“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”

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Misattributed
Variant: Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.

“Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea.”

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George Santayana 109

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