Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know

Philosophy is not a matter of knowledge; it is a matter of understanding, that is to say, of organizing what is known.

Philosophy has come to include, for us, a wide range of theoretical questions that typically look beyond what we can answer by experimental enquiries. While science asks how matter behaves, and tests its theories with observation, philosophy asks what matter is, or how observation can teach us anything. While mathematics asks what the sum of 2 and 7 is, philosophy asks what the number 2 is, and whether 2 plus 7 could ever make anything but 9.

What we find in philosophy is trivial; it does not teach us new facts, only science does that. But the proper synopsis of these trivialities is enormously difficult, and has immense importance. Philosophy is in fact the synopsis of trivialities.

The pursuit of philosophy is founded on the belief that knowledge is good, even if what is known is painful. A man imbued with the philosophic spirit, whether a professional philosopher or not, will wish his beliefs to be as true as he can make them, and will, in equal measure, love to know and hate to be in error. This principle has a wider scope than may be apparent at first sight.

Philosophy can take us no further than enabling us to command a clear view of the concepts by means of which we think about the world, and, by so doing, to attain a firmer grasp of the way we represent the world in our thought. It is for this reason and in this sense that philosophy is about the world.

For philosophy, it is supposed by vast numbers of students and teachers of the subject, has for its goal philosophical knowledge, and indeed, even certain knowledge. It is presupposed, therefore, that there is such a thing as philosophical knowledge, and there are even men who think themselves the possessors of at least some of it.

I have not attempted in these papers to put forward any grand view of the nature of philosophy; nor do I have any such grand view to put forward if I would. It will be obvious that I do not agree with those who see philosophy as the history of 'howlers', and progress in philosophy as the debunking of howlers. It will also be obvious that I do not agree with those who see philosophy as the enterprise of putting forward a priori truths about the real world (since, for one thing, there are no a priori truths, in my view). I see philosophy as a field which has certain central questions, for example, the relation between thought and reality, and, to mention some questions about which I have not written, the relation between freedom and responsibility, and the nature of the good life. It seems obvious that in dealing with these questions philosophers have formulated rival research programs, that they have put forward general hypotheses, and that philosophers within each major research program have modified their hypotheses by trial and error, even if they sometimes refuse to admit that that is what they are doing. To that extent philosophy is a 'science'. To argue about whether philosophy is a science in any more serious sense seems to me to be hardly a useful occupation. The important thing is that in spite of the stereotypes of science and philosophy that have become blinkers inhibiting the view of laymen, scientists, and philosophers, science and philosophy are interdependent activities; philosophers have always found it essential to draw upon the scientific knowledge of the time, and scientists have always found it essential to do a certain amount of philosophy in their very scientific work, even if they denied that that was what they were doing. It does not seem to me important to decide whether science is philosophy or philosophy is science as long as one has a conception of both that makes both essential to a responsible view of the real world and of man's place in it.

philosophy can never reconcile itself with science. Science aims at self-evident truths and finds in them that "natural necessity" which, after having proclaimed itself for ever eternal, claims to serve as the foundation of all knowledge and strives to rule over all wanton "suddenly". But philosophy has always been, and will always be, a fight with and a conquest of self-evident truths; philosophy is not looking for any "natural necessity", it sees in naturalness and in necessity alike an evil magic, which, if one cannot quite shake it off (for in this no mortal has ever yet succeeded), yet one must at least call by its right name; and even this is an important step! p. 342

Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.

Science rushes headlong, without selectivity, without “taste,” at whatever is knowable, in the blind desire to know all at any cost. Philosophical thinking, on the other hand, is ever on the scent of those things which are most worth knowing, the great and the important insights.

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

Philosophy... is that activity by which the meaning of propositions is established or discovered. Philosophy elucidates propositions, science verifies them. In the latter we are concerned with the truth of statements, but in the former with what they actually mean.