…[P]hilosophy is not a senseless parade of abstractions created to fill out the ritual at cocktail parties or in Sunday morning services. It is not a ponderous Continental wail of futility resonating with Oriental overtones. It is not a chess game divorced from reality designed by British professors for otherwise unemployable colleagues. …[P]hilosophy is the fundamental factor in human life; it is the basic force that shapes the mind and character of men and the destiny of nations. It shapes them for good or for evil, depending on the kind of philosophy men accept.
A man’s choice …is not whether to have a philosophy, but only which philosophy to have. His choice is whether his philosophy will be conscious, explicit, logical, and therefore practical—or random, unidentified, contradictory, and therefore lethal.
— Peikoff, Leonard. 1982. Philosophy: Who Needs It, Introduction, viii.
Via http://andrew.antlechrist.org/philosophy/
DLH
