The History of Philosophy Quotes

“Para lidiar con esto, Platón expone la siguiente tesis.”
― A.C. Grayling, Historia de la filosofía: Un viaje por el pensamiento universal (Ariel)

“He claims that the soul is incorruptible – and that means not susceptible to change – and that its existential independence of the body and therefore separability from it is demonstrated by the fact that its activities are not those of any of the body’s organs. He says the soul is a ‘subsistent’ thing, by which he means that it can operate on its own, either independently or in conjunction with other things. But it is not a substance; substances are more than subsistents because they are in addition ‘complete’.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“Anaximander thought that humans originally came from fish... In any case he said we should not eat fish, on the grounds that they are our kin.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“Morality, accordingly, is about our actions, duties and obligations, whereas ethics is about ‘what sort of person one is’, and although the two are obviously connected, they are equally obviously distinct.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“Plato’s belief that political chaos must inevitably result in tyranny – because a tyrant would step in to restore order, only making matters worse thereby”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“for it is not courage when you are ignorant of the possibilities.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“Human life was once without order, on the level of the beasts, subject to force; there was no reward for the good or punishment for the bad. Then people established laws as punishers, so that justice could be the mighty ruler of all equally, and make violence its slave.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“For sheer size the Summa Theologiae is rarely beaten; it is over two million words long* – and Aquinas did not finish what he had originally intended to cover. It takes the form of questions, proposed answers of competing kinds, and discussions of those answers. This is similar to the form of a university disputation in the Scholastic tradition. The size of the book meant that Aquinas’ ideas developed as he worked on it; for example, the third part of the Summa Theologiae, corresponding to the third part of the Summa Contra Gentiles on how to attain happiness, was written at the same time that he made his commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and the influence shows.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“AQUINAS (1225–1274) By a considerable margin St Thomas Aquinas, as he is known in religious circles, is the greatest philosopher as well as theologian of the medieval period. His combination of theology and philosophy survives today as ‘Thomism’, still taught in Catholic universities and colleges as the official philosophy of the faith.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“The interest some folk take in the oddities of philosophers would be much tickled by McTaggart. He had an odd appearance – a large head and a shuffling sideways walk – and he rode a tricycle around Cambridge and was scrupulous about greeting cats whenever he saw them.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“Los enemigos del progreso son quienes imponen la censura o el conformismo,”
― A.C. Grayling, Historia de la filosofía: Un viaje por el pensamiento universal (Ariel)

“una opinión muy diferente de la creencia actual según la cual la educación sirve casi exclusivamente para encontrar un trabajo.”
― A. C. Grayling, Historia de la filosofía: Un viaje por el pensamiento universal (Ariel)

“Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall be at peace . . . Behave in life as you would at a banquet. A dish is handed round and comes to you; put out your hand and take politely. It passes you; do not stop it. It has not reached you; do not be impatient to get it, but wait until your turn comes . . . Remember that foul words and blows are no outrage in themselves; it is your judgment that they are so that makes them so. When anyone makes you angry, it is your own thought that has angered you. Therefore make sure not to let your impressions carry you away.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“No doubt troubles will come; but they are not a present fact, and might not even happen after all – why run to meet them? . . . More things make us afraid than do us harm . . . Do not be unhappy before the crisis comes . . . Some things torment us more than they ought, some torment us before they even happen; some torment us which should not torment us at all. We exaggerate, or imagine, or anticipate sorrow, unnecessarily.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“Alexander died in 323 BCE, Augustine in 430 CE. Historians divide this long stretch of time into two main periods, the Hellenistic and the Imperial. Alexander’s death marks the end of the classical and the beginning of the Hellenistic period, while the end of the latter is placed at the start of Augustus Caesar’s principate in 27 BCE, which inaugurates the Imperial period. Four hundred years later, in the lifetime of St Augustine, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and for more than the next thousand years philosophy was almost exclusively subordinated to the demands of Christian doctrine and Church authority.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy

“In formal deductive logic the concept of form, as the very name implies, is central. Formal deductive logic studies not individual arguments, but types of arguments, to see which type is so structured or formed that, if the premises are true, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true also, independently of subject matter.”
― A.C. Grayling, The History of Philosophy