Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We can't coherently deny, or even decline to affirm, that we are free.
Allen W. Wood
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
Coherently
Affirm
Decline
Deny
Free
Even
More quotes by Allen W. Wood
Freedom is an unprovable but unavoidable presupposition, not an article of faith.
Allen W. Wood
I do not know how much my own work has achieved, and I must not pretend it has done more than it has.
Allen W. Wood
Marx is thought of as an implacable foe of capitalism. But go back and read the first section of the Communist Manifesto. Notice how it contains a paean of praise for the way capitalism and the bourgeoisie have both enriched the human powers of production and also enabled us to see with clear vision the nature of human society and human history.
Allen W. Wood
The species of anti-Enlightenment religion we find among evangelical protestants is far more impoverished, anti-intellectual and downright wretched.
Allen W. Wood
What is central to morality is rational self-constraint (acting from duty), in cease where there is no other incentive to do your duty except that the moral law commands it.
Allen W. Wood
Consequentialist theories begin with a very simple and undoubtedly valid point: Every action aims at a future end, and is seen as a means to it.
Allen W. Wood
Descartes recommended that we distrust the senses and rely on the ... use of our intellect.
Allen W. Wood
Adam Smith saw the greed of modern capitalism for what it was - a form of destructive ambition that may have favorable effects on the productive capacities of society, but which is of no direct benefit to anyone - not even to the greedy themselves, whose illusory chase after a will-o-the-wisp leaves them morally bankrupt and unhappy.
Allen W. Wood
Kant certainly was sympathetic with the metaphysical tradition of rational theology that he criticized.
Allen W. Wood
As Kant says, the contribution of any common laborer would be greater than that of the greatest philosopher unless the philosopher makes some contribution to establishing the rights of humanity.
Allen W. Wood
I could identify for virtually every important figure in the history of modern continental philosophy an idea (or more than one) absolutely central to that philosopher's thought, whose original author was Fichte.
Allen W. Wood
We can treat human responses to cognitions as involving law-like connections grounded on free choices which show themselves in our character.
Allen W. Wood
Being aware of truths about what is good or right or about what we ought to do is not the same as deciding what to do. Nor can the former truths be derived from decisions about what to do, or about procedures for making such decisions, unless these procedures themselves rest in some way on the apprehension of truths about what we ought to do.
Allen W. Wood
We can make mistakes about what we ought to do, and these are not the same as making bad decisions about what to do.
Allen W. Wood
Utilitarians are usually empiricists who think they can solve every problem by accumulating enough empirical facts. They do not realize that thinking as well as experience is necessary to know anything or get anything right.
Allen W. Wood
Fichte is a necessary step to both Hegel and Marx.
Allen W. Wood
I don't think Kant's theory looks bad to people except insofar as they have misunderstood it (for instance, as heartless and ironheaded, or as committed to an absurd metaphysical conception of freedom that violates Kant's own philosophy).
Allen W. Wood
Kant's system of duties constitutes a Doctrine of Virtue because the duties also indicate what kinds of attitudes, dispositions and feelings are morally virtuous or vicious.
Allen W. Wood
Not only in order to act morally, but even to formulate theoretical questions, devise experiments, choose which ones to perform and what conclusions to draw from then - we must presuppose that we are free. That's the sense in which it is true that for Kant we must assume we are free.
Allen W. Wood
It is probably not a good idea to ask someone to expound a position they do not accept and do not feel they even fully understand.
Allen W. Wood