Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.

My principal motive is the belief that we can still make admirable sense of our lives even if we cease to have... an ambition of transcendence.

Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister - corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.

Truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths.

What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?