“I loved the opportunity to think about the big questions philosophy asks, and the rigorous way in which philosophy trains the mind to answer them. What is ultimately real? Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there a necessary being or are all beings contingent? What is knowledge and what can we know? Is there something which is objectively right or wrong, or is everything relative? Most people, at some point, will be confronted with some of these questions and will try to answer them in a more or less informal way. Philosophy has been tackling them over the centuries in a formal, rigorous way, engaging in a deep, fascinating, and exciting conversation which continues nowadays.”

—  Maria Rosa Antognazza

On the question "When and what was responsible for you becoming interested in your academic discipline?" http://www.kcl.ac.uk/aboutkings/governance/equality/meettheprofessors/artshums/mantognazza.aspx, at kcl.ac.uk, 2015.

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 "I loved the opportunity to think about the big questions philosophy asks, and the rigorous way in which philosophy trai…" by Maria Rosa Antognazza?
Maria Rosa Antognazza photo
Maria Rosa Antognazza1
professor, author 1964–2023

Related quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

““We in the Handdara don’t want answers. It’s hard to avoid them, but we try to.”
“Faxe, I don’t think I understand.”
“Well, we come here to the Fastnesses mostly to learn what questions not to ask.”
“But you’re the Answerers!”
“You don’t see, Genry, why we perfected and practice Foretelling?”
“No—”
“To exhibit the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question.””

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 5 “The Domestication of Hunch” (pp. 69-70)

Frank Wilczek photo

“The answer to the ancient question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" would then be that ‘nothing’ is unstable.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Quoted in an article, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/why_is_there_something_rather_than_nothing, by Victor Stenger (June 2006).

“When the physicist poses the question, "What does it mean to do physics?" or "What is research in physics?" — his question is a preliminary question. Clearly, when you ask a question like that, and try to answer it, you are not "doing physics." Or rather you are no longer doing physics. But when you ask yourself, "What does it mean to do philosophy?" then you actually are "doing philosophy" — this is not at all a "preliminary" question but a truly philosophical one: you are right at the heart of the business.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 63

Markus Zusak photo

“for some reason, dying men always ask the question they know the answer to. perhaps it's so they can die being right.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Joseph E. Stiglitz photo

“The best teachers still taught in a Socratic style, asking questions, responding to the answers with still another question. And in all of our courses, we were taught that what mattered most was asking the right question — having posed the question well, answering the question was often a relatively easy matter.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz (1943) American economist and professor, born 1943.

Autobiographical Essay (2001)

Kim Stanley Robinson photo

“You conceive of science as nothing more than answers to questions?
As a system for generating answers.
And what is the purpose of that?
...To know.
And what will you do with your knowledge?
...Find out more.
But why?
I don’t know. It’s the way I am.”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Green Mars

Source: Green Mars (1993), Chapter 8, “Social Engineering” (p. 401)

Bob Dylan photo

“I had no answers to any of those questions any more than any other performer did, really. But, you know, that didn't stop the press or people or whoever they were from asking these questions. They, for some reason the press thought that performers had the answers to all these problems in the society and you know, like what can… What can you say to something like that? I mean, it's just kind of absurd.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

No Direction Home (2005)

“A theory of knowledge is an answer to the question "What is knowledge?" This question, like many which are asked by philosophers, sounds very simple. We all know, at least roughly, what knowledge is. But difficulties appear the moment that we begin to fill in the details.”

David Pears

What is Knowledge? (1971)

Howard S. Becker photo

“For any picture, ask yourself what question or questions it might be answering. Since the picture could answer many, questions, we can decide what question we are interested in. The picture will, of course, suggest that some questions are likely to find answers in it. For instance, Owens's pictures of pantries and refrigerators clearly suggest that they will answer questions about what kinds of food the inhabitants of the houses store and presumably eat, while other pictures in Suburbia suggest that they will answer other questions about the housekeeping arrangements of these people.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

Howard Becker (1974). "Art as Collective Action." American Sociological Review 39:767-76.

Paul Tillich photo

“Philosophy asks the question of reality as a whole; it asks the question of the structure of being. And it answers in terms of categories, structural laws, and universal concepts.”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Systematic Theology (1951–63)

Related topics