There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
Interpretation
Philosophers are known for their differing viewpoints, often contradicting one another.
In this quote, William James highlights the nature of philosophical discourse, where differing opinions and contradictions are not only common but expected. Philosophers engage in debates and discussions that often lead to opposing arguments, showcasing the complexity of human thought and the subjectivity of understanding truth.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussion, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of critical thinking.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
The world is full of people who are determined to be somebody or to give trouble. They want to get ahead, to stand out. Such ambition has no use for a gung fu man, who rejects all forms of self-assertiveness and competition
After a while I started to think of that as an image of something that went a lot deeper than the dead dog, which is you can't bring back anything to life.
Think of God and not religion, of ecstasy and not mysticism. The difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.
There are powers that can counterfeit almost everything in the Christian life.
Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?
The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.
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