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In studying a philosopher

 In studying a philosopher the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held.

Contempt interferes with the first part of this process and reverence with the second.

Two things are to be remembered : that a man with whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have some intelligence, but no man is likely to have arrived at complete and final truth on any subject whatever.

When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true. 

This exercise of historical and psychological imagination at once enlarges the scope of our thinking and helps us realize how foolish many of our own cherished prejudices will seem to an age which has a different temper of mind

Bertrand Russel

A history of western philosophy 





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