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Richard P. Feynman Quotes about Philosophy

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Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophy, Science, Technology

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophy, Science, Engineering

I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty. [...] There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

Richard P. Feynman
Beautiful, Philosophy, Flower
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?". Book by Richard P. Feynman, "The Making of a Scientist," p. 11, 1988.

It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

Richard P. Feynman
Freedom, Philosophy, Responsibility
"The Value of Science". Public address at the National Academy of Sciences, published in "What Do You Care What Other People Think" (1988), Autumn 1955.

Some people say, "How can you live without knowing?" I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophy, Mean, Knowing
Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.23, Princeton University Press

A person talks in such generalities that everyone can understand him and it's considered to be some deep philosophy. However, I would like to be very rather more special and I would like to be understood in an honest way, rather than in a vague way.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophy, Special, Way
"The Character of Physical Law". Richard P. Feynman's Messenger Lectures at Cornell University (November 1964), later quoted in his book "The Character of Physical Law" (Chapter 1 "The Law of Gravitation", p. 13), www.youtube.com. 1965.

What is the fundamental hypothesis of science, the fundamental philosophy? We stated it in the first chapter: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment. ... If we are told that the same experiment will always produce the same result, that is all very well, but if when we try it, it does not, then it does not. We just have to take what we see, and then formulate all the rest of our ideas in terms of our actual experience.

Richard P. Feynman
Philosophy, Math, Ideas

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