I can usually find my own way out of whatever dicey literary or linguistic situations I wander into, but I have to work much harder at the science.

doubt is a skill. credulity ,by contrast, appears to be something very like an instinct

The miracle of your mind isn't that you can see the world as it is. It's that you can see the world as it isn't.

First, philosophy concerns itself with all kinds of issues that don't get much airtime in day-to-day life. What's the nature of reality? Can we ever truly know anything, and if so, how? What does it mean to be a moral agent? And while we're at it, is there any such thing as agency anyway?

I can usually find my own way out of whatever dicey literary or linguistic situations I wander into, but I have to work much harder at the science.

Wow. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

We're terrified of not having the answers, and we would sometimes rather assert an incorrect answer than make our peace with the fact that we really don't know.