Philosophy is this amazing technique we've devised for getting reality to answer us back when we're getting it wrong. Science itself can't make those arguments. You actually have to rely on philosophy, on philosophy of science.

In Greek, our word for play is paidia and the word for education is paideia, and it is very natural and right that these words should be entangled at the root, together with our word for children, paides, which gave you your words pedagogy and pediatrician.

Plato's concern is not just an intellectual issue, but it is knitted with emotional life as well.

I like that there are so many different ways of looking at the world and I like all of the particular narratives. In any case we will never all see the same way on these [religious] issues. It's the way liberals and conservatives will never see the same way on individuals whereas it’s different orientations and they go too deep down and when we're dealing with questions that can't be definitively answered by science that's where you're sort of... your orientation swells in to fill up the gaps and so we're never always going to agree.

What one tries to force into a child against its own nature will never come to good.

I was trained as a philosopher never to put philosophers and their ideas into historical contexts, since historical context has nothing to do with the validity of the philosopher's positions. I agree that assessing validity and contextualizing historically are two entirely distinct matters and not to be confused with one another. And yet that firm distinction doesn't lead me to endorse the usual way in which history of philosophy is presented.

If we don't understand our tools, then there is a danger we will become the tool of our tools. We think of ourselves as Google's customers, but really we're its products.