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Simon Blackburn
29 quotes
“We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable... We want to enjoy our lives, and we want to enjoy them with a good conscience ... Ethics is disturbing. We are often vaguely uncomfortable when we think of such things as exploitation of the world's resources, or the way our comforts are provided by the miserable labour conditions of the third world ... Racists and sexists, like antebellum slave owners in America, always have to tell themselves a story that justifies their system.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Simon Blackburn, Being Good (2001)
“An ethic gone wrong is an essential preliminary to the sweat shop or the concentration camp and the death march.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Simon Blackburn, Being Good (2001)
“The word "philosophy" carries unfortunate connotations: impractical, unworldly, weird.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the end, it is ideas for which people kill each other.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since there is no telling in advance where it may lead, reflection can be seen as dangerous.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The scientific world is to be less threatening than was feared. It is to be made safe for human beings. And the way to make it safe is to reflect on the foundation of knowledge.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thoughts are strange things. they have 'representational' powers: a thought typically represents the world as being one way or another. A sensation, by contrast, seems to just sit there.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A signpost doesn't in and of itself represent the way to the village. We have to learn how to take it.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism?”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chance is as relentless as necessity.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Contemporary culture is not very good on responsibility.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Michigan recently a man won a lawsuit for substantial damages because, he claimed, a rear-end collision in his car had made him a homosexual.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If our best efforts come to nothing often enough, we need consolation, and thoughts of unfolding, infinite destiny, or karma, are sometimes consoling.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was content, but no container.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it is logically impossible that there could exist an 'unowned' dent, a dent without a surface that is dented.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can grieve over lost powers and memories, or rejoice over gained knowledge and maturity, according to taste.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A god that created the world and then walked off the site leaving it to its own devices is not a fit object of worship, nor a source of moral authority.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But if nothing does as well as something about which nothing can be said, it vanishes.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why should thinkers mock the simple pieties of the people?”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Myself, I have never seen a bumper sticker saying "Hate if you Love Jesus", but I sometimes wonder why not. It would be a good slogan for the religious Right.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What underlies our assignment of probabilities in the real world?”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Induction is the process of taking things within our experience to be representative of the world outside our experience. It is a process of projection or extrapolation.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Finding a mechanism does not bypass the problem of induction.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Paradigms can be asked to show their worth, an some of them do not stand up.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Motion however will not help unless we have things moving.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We think about what to do, and muster considerations and arguments in favor of one course or another. How are we to think about that?”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to Confucianism, the ideal life contains a large dose of respect for traditional ways. All these ideals can be fleshed out and painted in more or less attractive colours. Yet there is something uncomfortable about them, if only because there is little reason to suppose that there is any such thing as the ideal life. Since different people have different tastes and interests, and different cultures encourage different concerns, it seems unlikely that any 'ideal life' will be heavily contextualized: ideal for this person in these circumstances, perhaps, but not much more.”
Simon Blackburn (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source