Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
Interpretation
Philosophical problems often dissolve under scrutiny or reveal themselves as logical issues.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell asserts that many problems we deem philosophical are either not genuinely philosophical upon deeper analysis or they boil down to logical matters. This highlights the importance of critical thinking and the analytical approach in philosophy, suggesting that philosophical inquiries should be rigorously examined to clarify their true nature.
In practice
During a university lecture on philosophy, you could use the quote to illustrate the importance of critical analysis in philosophical discussions.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
The law speaks too softly to be heard amidst the din of arms.
Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.
I wonder if people who asked for God to intervene in our world, really know what they are asking. Will they want to be there when God really does intervene?
Because the twentieth century was a century of violence, let us make the twenty-first a century of dialogue.
But Gregor understood easily that it was not only consideration for him which prevented their moving, for he could easily have been transported in a suitable crate with a few air holes; what mainly prevented the family from moving was their complete hopelessness and the thought that they had been struck by a misfortune as none of their relatives and acquaintances had ever been hit.
Our greatest human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain.
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