“Philosophy is an activity: it is a way of thinking about certain sorts of question.”

Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction

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Nigel Warburton 7
British author and lecturer 1962

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“For scholars and laymen alike it is not philosophy but active experience in mathematics itself that can alone answer the question: What is mathematics?”

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“Another reason for studying philosophy is that it provides a good way of learning to think more clearly about a wide range of issues.”

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“Philosophy unravels the knots in our thinking; hence its results must be simple, but its activity is as complicated as the knots that it unravels.”

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Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 183

“One important reason for studying philosophy is that it deals with fundamental questions about the meaning of our existence.”

Nigel Warburton (1962) British author and lecturer

Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction

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“Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Variant translation: Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of "philosophical propositions." but to make propositions clear.
Original German: Der Zweck der Philosophie ist die logische Klärung der Gedanken. Die Philosophie ist keine Lehre, sondern eine Tätigkeit. Ein philosophisches Werk besteht wesentlich aus Erläuterungen. Das Resultat der Philosophie sind nicht „philosophische Sätze“, sondern das Klarwerden von Sätzen. Die Philosophie soll die Gedanken, die sonst, gleichsam, trübe und verschwommen sind, klar machen und scharf abgrenzen.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Context: Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. (4.112)

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