Aristotle, on philosophizing

“If we are to engage in philosophy, we are to engage in philosophy; and if we are not to engage in philosophy, we are to engage in philosophy. In every case, therefore, we are to engage in philosophy. For if philosophy is possible, then we must in every way engage in it, since it exists. And if it is not possible, in this case too we ought to inquire how it is possible for philosophy not to be, and in inquiring we engage in philosophy: for inquiry is the cause of philosophy.”

(Protrepticus, pg 28 of Ross’s Aristotelis Fragmenta Selecta. I came across the passage in Nehamas’s (pretty great) paper “Eristic, Antologic, Sophistic, Dialectic: Plato’s Demarcation of Philosophy from Sophistry”.)