“Philosophers get paid for posing interesting questions; scientists for answering them. Thus, one cannot live without the other…”

—  Carlos Gershenson

Source: Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems (2007), p. 60

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Philosophers get paid for posing interesting questions; scientists for answering them. Thus, one cannot live without th…" by Carlos Gershenson?
Carlos Gershenson photo
Carlos Gershenson 46
Mexican researcher 1978

Related quotes

“How does the philosophical question differ from the non-philosophical question? To philosophize means, we said, to direct one's view toward the totality of the world. So is that a philosophical question (and that alone) which has for its explicit and formal theme the sum-total of all existing things? No! What is peculiar and distinctive about a philosophical question is that it cannot be posed, considered, or answered (so far at least as an answer is possible) without "God and the world" also coming into consideration, that is, the whole of what exists.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Since "the answers of the special sciences" do not reach "the horizon of total reality", they are given "without having to speak at the same time of 'God and the world.'" (p. 96)
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 95

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“Pose your questions to people and you will get countless useless answers.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

“A Question for the Sun,” p. 123
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Hopelessness”

Thomas Piketty photo

“Economists are all too often preoccupied with petty mathematical problems of interest only to themselves. This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientificity without having to answer the far more complex questions posed by the world we live in.”

Thomas Piketty book Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Source: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), p. 32.

Matt Ridley photo

“I asked John Maynard Smith, one of the first people to pose the question 'Why sex?', whether he still thought some new explanation was needed. 'No. We have the answers. We cannot agree on them, that is all.”

Matt Ridley (1958) economist

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 2. The Enigma

Ian Bremmer photo

“Political scientists don't work at banks—which is a problem. As political issues become more important for the markets, analysts at banks are asked all sorts of questions they don't have the ability to answer. And if you're getting paid to answer questions—as analysts at banks are—you never want to be in the position of saying you don't know.”

Ian Bremmer (1969) American political scientist

"Diary of a Political Scientist," http://www.slate.com/id/2094743/entry/2095060/ Slate (February 5, 2004).

Albert Camus photo

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays by Albert Camus, An Absurd Reasoning : Absurdity and Suicide p. 3 (1942, 1955)
Absurdity and Suicide
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Context: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. If I ask myself how to judge that this question is more urgent than that, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument.

“I get paid to ask questions I don't know the answers to and to complain about the things that bother me.”

Jack Cafferty (1942) American journalist

[It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America, Wiley, 9780470144794].
2008

Poul Anderson photo

“All those agonizing philosophical-theological conundrums amount to "Ask a silly question, get a silly answer."”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Harvest of Stars (1993), Ch. 63

Isaac Asimov photo

“It is the nature of science that answers automatically pose new and more subtle questions.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Wellsprings of Life (1960), p. 141
General sources

Related topics