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.
Moreover he saw a skull floating on the surface of the water and he said unto it: Because you drowned others they drowned you; and those that drowned you will eventually be drowned.
Since the world has existed, there has been injustice. But it is one world, the more so as it becomes smaller, more accessible. There is just no question that there is more obligation that those who have should give to those who have nothing.
A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.
People often ask me whether I prefer theater or film, and the answer is that I prefer the one I'm not doing: The grass is always greener.
We always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want and not as they are.
Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
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