Philosophers are after all like poets.
They are pathfinders.
What everyone can feel, what everyone can know in the bone and marrow of him, they sometimes can find words for and express. The words and thoughts of the philosophers are not exactly the words and thoughts of the poet--worse luck. But both alike have the same function. They are, if I may use a simile, so many spots, or blazes, blazes made by the ax of the human intellect on the trees of the otherwise trackless forest of human experience. They give to you somewhere to go from. They give us a direction and a place to reach... The blazes give a sort of ownership. We can now use the forest, wind across it with companions, and enjoy its quality. It is no longer a place merely to get lost in and never return.
--William James
Pragmatism, 1907
They are pathfinders.
What everyone can feel, what everyone can know in the bone and marrow of him, they sometimes can find words for and express. The words and thoughts of the philosophers are not exactly the words and thoughts of the poet--worse luck. But both alike have the same function. They are, if I may use a simile, so many spots, or blazes, blazes made by the ax of the human intellect on the trees of the otherwise trackless forest of human experience. They give to you somewhere to go from. They give us a direction and a place to reach... The blazes give a sort of ownership. We can now use the forest, wind across it with companions, and enjoy its quality. It is no longer a place merely to get lost in and never return.
--William James
Pragmatism, 1907
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