Illogic Primer Quotes Clippings Books and Bibliography Paper Trails Links Film

Bertrand Russell on Questions and Philosophy

The Problems of Philosophy (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1988; orig. 1912), p. 161.

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.