Every hypothesis must derive indubitable results from mechanically well-defined assumptions by mathematically correct methods. If the results agree w… - Ludwig Boltzmann

Let us now tum to the second matter in dispute between us [about the rejection of philosophy in virtually all senses]. That the majority of students don't understand philosophy doesn't bother me. But can any two people understand philosophical [i.e. metaphysical] questions [and agree upon what it is that they understand]? Is there any sense at all in breaking one's head over such questions? Shouldn't the irresistible pressure [Drang] to philosophize be compared with the nausea caused by migraine headaches? As if something could still struggle its strangled way out, even though nothing is actually there at all? My opinion about the high, majestic task of philosophy is to make things clear, in order to finally heal mankind from these terrible migraine headaches. Now, I am one who hopes not to make you angry by my forthrightness, but the first duty of philosophy as love of wisdom is complete frankness. Through my study of Schopenhauer, I am learning Greek ways of thinking again, but piecemeal.

The most ordinary things are to philosophy a source of insoluble puzzles. With infinite ingenuity it constructs a concept of space or time and then finds it absolutely impossible that there be objects in this space or that processes occur during this time.... the source of this kind of logic lies in excessive confidence in the so-called laws of thought.

But this theory agrees in so many respects with the facts, that we can hardly doubt that in es certain entities, the number and size of which can roughly be determined, fly about pell-mell. Can it be seriously expected that they will behave exactly as aggregates of Newtonian centres of force, or as the rigid bodies of our Mechanics? And how awkward is the human mind in divining the nature of things, when forsaken by the analogy of what we see and touch directly?