Walking with Diogenes: Cosmopolitan Accents in Philosophy and Education

It is sometimes said, either irritably or with a certain satisfaction, that philosophy makes no progress. It is certainly true, and I think this is an abiding and not a regrettable characteristic of the discipline, that philosophy has in a sense to keep trying to return to the beginning: a thing which it is not at all easy to do. There is a two-way movement in philosophy, a movement toward the building of elaborate theories, and a move back again toward the consideration of simple and obvious facts. [J.M.E.] McTaggart says that time is unreal, [G.E.] Moore replies that he has just had his breakfast. Both these aspects of philosophy are necessary to it.