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“There is at least one philosophical problem in which all thinking men are interested: the problem of understanding the world in which we live; and thus ourselves (who are part of that world) and our knowledge of it. All science is cosmology, I believe, and for me the interest of philosophy, no less than of science, lies solely in its bold attempt to add to our knowledge of the world, and to theory of our knowledge of the world. I am interested in Wittgenstein, for example, not because of his linguistic philosophy, but because his Tractatus was a cosmological treatise (although a crude one), and because his theory of knowledge was closely linked with his cosmology.
For me, both philosophy and science lose all their attraction when they give up that pursuit - when they become specialisms and cease to see, and to wonder at, the riddles of our world. Specialization may be a great temptation for the scientist. For the philosopher it is the mortal sin.”
For me, both philosophy and science lose all their attraction when they give up that pursuit - when they become specialisms and cease to see, and to wonder at, the riddles of our world. Specialization may be a great temptation for the scientist. For the philosopher it is the mortal sin.”
— Karl Popper, Austro-British philosopher and professor at the London School of Economics (1902-1994), The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment, Routledge, 2012, p. 8.
