"Philosophical Investigations" by Ludwig Wittgenstein,1953

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Language is best conceived as an activity involving the uses of words as tools.
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Words are used in a multiplicity of ways and are to be understood by engaging in the language "games" in which they are employed ; words are not labels for things.
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For a large number of cases in which the word "meaning" is used,
the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
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Discourse about sensations is understandable because there is a grammar of the word "sensations",and of such words as "pain" and "remember",which can be grasped by anyone acquainted with the relevant language games ;
no reference to what one has in mind or feels privately makes sense unless it makes in this way.
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Expecting,intending,remembering
-these are ways of life made possible by the use of language ;
and language is itself a way of life.
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"Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis" by John Wisdom,1953

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Philosophical questions are verbal in the sense that
they turn upon unconventional uses of language ;
but they are not merely verbal for,in virtue of their oddity,
in the process of justifying their use,
one's attention is called to matters obscured by conventional language.
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Metaphysical paradoxes and platitudes function as penetrating suggestions as to how language might be used to reveal what is hidden by the actual use of language.
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In philosophical analysis penumbral facts
-matters to which certain conversational sentences call attention-
are compared to non-penumbral facts
-matters to which the penumbral are presumably reducible-
in order to determine whether the switch from one kind of statement to another is advisable and illuminating.
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The goal of philosophy is the clarification of the structure of facts.
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Philosophers do not uncover new facts,
but they show us old facts in a new way.
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"Nature,Mind and Death" by Curt John Ducasse,1951

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Philosophy can proceed scientifically from data statements in which terms crucial to philosophical problems are used to theorize concerning the meanings of such terms ;
the terms central to the philosophic enterprise are value-terms.
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Causation is understandable in terms of a single change -the cause-
prior to another event -the effect- in a specific environment.
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Sensations are not objects of acts of sensing,
but kinds of sensing,ways of responding sensibly.
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Mind is a substance capable of receiving impressions,
causing bodily action,and causing events in consciousness.
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Although life after death,cannot proved,it is possible ;
what could survive is not personality,but individuality.
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"Language,Truth and Logic" by Alfred Jules Ayer,1936

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Metaphysics is impossible because metaphysical statements are meaningless.
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A sentence is factually significant if and only if there is a method of verification an observer could adopt to determine the truth or falsity of the sentence ;
when experience cannot settle an issue,the issue has no factual meaning.
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The propositions of philosophy are not factual,but linguistic ;
they are not factual reports,but either definitions of words in use or expressions of the logical implications of such definitions.
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Value statements and statements declaring duties are neither true nor false ;
they express the feelings of the speaker.
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"Philosophy and Logical Syntax" by Rudolf Carnap,1935

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Philosophy is the logical analysis of meaningful language.
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Meaningful language is either the language of logic and mathematics
-involving analytic sentences-
or the language of science
-involving empirically verifiable synthetic sentences-.
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Metaphysics and ethics are not legitimate parts of philosophy for their language is meaningless.
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Logical analysis is logical syntax,
and logical syntax is the study of the manipulation of signs in accordance with the rules of a language.
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"Philosophical studies" by George Edward Moore,1922

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If the language by the use of which philosophical problems and theories are formulated is clarified,the problems often disappear.
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There is usually,some good reason why the language of common sense is insisted upon,and philosophers would do well to take common sense seriously.
For example,the idealists argues that to be -to exist- is to be perceived,
but he fails to distinguish between the awareness of something,
on the one hand,and the content of awareness on the other.
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Again,the pragmatists claim that true ideas are simply ideas which work ;
but this claim is ambiguous,and by a clarification of language it can be shown to what extent it is true and to what extent false.
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"Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" by Ludwig Wittgenstein,1921

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The world is made up of atomic facts ;
atomic facts are facts which are incapable of analysis into more elemental facts.
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Propositions are logical pictures of -possible- facts ;
what is common to a proposition and the fact it pictures is logical structure.
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A proposition does not express the form of a possible fact ; it shows it.
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To give the general form of proposition is to give the essence of all description and of the world ; any proposition whatsoever can be formed by drawing from the class of elementary propositions and using various logical operations.
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Philosophy is a process of clarification ;
the propositions of natural science are meaningful,
but the attempt to say something meaningful in ethics,aesthetics,
or metaphysics is bound to fail,
for any such attempt involves the impossible task of talking about the world from the outside.
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'Pragmatism" by William James,1907

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Pragmatism is both a philosophical method and a theory of truth.
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As a method,it resolves metaphysical disputes by asking for the practical consequences of alternative resolutions.
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Once a distinction of practice is made,theoretical difficulties disappear.
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As a theory of truth,Pragmatism claims that ideas are true insofar as they are satisfactory ; to be satisfactory,ideas must be consistent with other ideas,conformable to facts,and subject to the practical tests of experience.
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"Discourse on method'' by Rene' Descartes

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The proper method for philosophy is as follows :
Never accept any ideas as true which is not clearly and distinctly beyond doubt ;
Divide each complex question into simple,basic questions ;
Proceed from the simple to the complex ;
Review all steps in reasoning.
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If this method is put into practice,there seems to be no proposition that cannot be doubted except the following :
''COGITO EGO SUM''
''I THINK,THEREFOR I AM''
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As thinking substance,I have the idea of God ;
and since the idea of a perfect being could not have been derived from my own experience or being,God must excist as the source of my idea.
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Furthermore,imperfect and dependent being could not exist unless there were a perfect being,God who made their existence possible ;
in addition,God by his very nature exists,for if he did not exist of necessity,he would not be perfect.
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Since God exists,he provides the ground for our knowledge about the external world provided that we are carreful to accept as true only those ideas which are clearly and distinctly beyond doubt once the reliability of the senses and of the reason can be seen to be derived fron GOD.
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De Corpore,Elementa Philosophiae

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The subject matter of philosophy is bodies in motion.
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Philosophy is the knowledge of effects acquired by ratiocination
from the knowledge of causes,and of causes from the knowledge of effects.
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Ratiocination is a kind of computation,
the adding and subtracting of motions.
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Our knowledge is derived from our definitions and theorems
or from our sense experience.
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Bodies have no depedence upon thought.
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