What counts as rational argumentation is as historically determined and as context-dependent, as what counts as good French.

The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.

National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.

Every government, left or right, always engages in moral crusades. What else are they supposed to do? Especially when they make war; any war has to be a moral crusade.

There are credentials for admission to our democratic society [...]. You have to be educated in order to be a participant in our conversation So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours.

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

You read the pragmatists and all you know is: not Descartes, not Kant, not Plato. It's like aspirin. You can't use aspirin to give yourself power, you take it to get rid of headaches. In that way, pragmatism is a philosophical therapy. It helps you stop asking the unhelpful questions.