The World Is Out There, But Descriptions

Nowadays, To Say That We Are Clever Animals Is Not To Say Something Philosophical And Pessimistic But Something Political And Hopeful - Namely, If We Can Work Together, We Can Make Ourselves Into Whatever We Are Clever And Courageous Enough To Imagine Ourselves Becoming. This Is To Set Aside Kant's Question "what Is Man?" And To Substitute The Question "what Sort Of World Can We Prepare For Our Great Grandchildren?

Philosophy Makes Progress Not By Becoming More Rigorous But By Becoming More Imaginative.

[walt] Whitman And [humanist Educator John] Dewey Tried To Substitute Hope For Knowledge. They Wanted To Put Shared Utopian Dreams - Dreams Of An Ideally Decent And Civilized Society - In The Place Of Knowledge Of God's Will, Moral Law, The Laws Of History, Or The Facts Of Science.... As Long As We Have A Functioning Political Left, We Still Have A Chance To Achieve Our Country, To Make It The Country Of Whitman's And Dewey's Dreams.

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.

At 12, I Knew That The Point Of Being Human Was To Spend One's Life Fighting Social Injustice.