The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
Interpretation
The beginning of philosophical thought arises from questioning and doubting established beliefs.
Denis Diderot suggests that philosophy begins when an individual becomes skeptical and questions the validity of accepted truths. This attitude of incredulity propels the pursuit of knowledge and deeper understanding, prompting individuals to explore ideas beyond surface-level acceptance and to seek out their own interpretations of reality.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussion on the importance of questioning beliefs, this quote can illustrate a foundational concept.
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?
Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.
There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are as sand, as dust - or less than dust - in the enormity of the space in which there is nothing.
And if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.
What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or the existence of, God?
Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves.
It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with.
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