The Problems of Philosophy

Most philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do much more than this—that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the nature of ultimate reality.

But we cannot have reason to reject a belief except on the ground of some other belief.

philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

Descartes (1596-1650), the founder of modern philosophy

perhaps a majority, have held that there is nothing real except minds and their ideas. Such philosophers are called 'idealists'

Cogito, ergo sum

But science habitually assumes, at least as a working hypothesis, that general rules which have exceptions can be replaced by general rules which have no exceptions

Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists

Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753). His Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists, undertake to prove that there is no such thing as matter at all, and that the world consists of nothing but minds and their ideas.