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It seems to me self-evident that it is worthwhile to understand the best thoughts of the past, to appropriate them, to criticize them.

Allen W. Wood

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Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
Appropriate
Thoughts
Understand
Past
Seems
Evident
Best
Worthwhile
Self
Criticize

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

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It is a cause of shame to any member of the human race to be a member of the same species some of whose members could vote for any candidate for president that has been offered by the Republican party. Such people seem to be motivated only by short-sighted greed, ignorance, fear and hatred.
Allen W. Wood
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Our procedures of deliberation are not ways of finding out independent moral truths but instead ways of constructing these truths, in the process of deciding what to do.
Allen W. Wood
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As long as the Republican party exists in its present form, our nation cannot endure as a free society. Still worse, under their policies the human race is being rapidly propelled toward its extinction.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant does not regard freedom as an item of faith because it is too basic to our agency to be related to any end.
Allen W. Wood
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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
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The picture of Kant as the 'theological Robespierre' or the world-crusher was first suggested by someone with whom Kant stood in a relation of philosophical disagreement but also great mutual respect: namely, Moses Mendelssohn.
Allen W. Wood
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We usually can't know how, and we probably should not even ask, how our lives contribute to a better world.
Allen W. Wood
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Descartes recommended that we distrust the senses and rely on the ... use of our intellect.
Allen W. Wood
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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
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Surely the world will be a better place, at least marginally, if people have a better understanding of Kant and Hegel, if Marx's thought its studied and appreciated, if people gain a better understanding of Fichte, whose philosophy is far more important than people realize.
Allen W. Wood
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Sometimes when a philosopher's views are widely rejected by the world, the fault is not with the philosopher but with the world.
Allen W. Wood
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There is a lot in Adam Smith that reflects the insights of Rousseau and anticipates those of Marx.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant does not think that the silly commandment universalize your maxims is the be-all and end-all of ethics or that it provides us with some sort of general decision procedure that is supposed to tell us what to do under all circumstances.
Allen W. Wood
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Adam Smith was aware of the way that economic interests could have a distorting and destructive effect both on the market and on politics.
Allen W. Wood
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The relation of the law to the self is only a helpful way of thinking about the law, that helps us better understand its validity for us.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant thinks we can show that there is no contradiction in supposing we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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It would be nice, wouldn't it? if we could get comfortable about the problem of freedom. Kant thinks that we can't.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant was a rational theologian. He did not pretend to be a biblical or revealed theologian.
Allen W. Wood
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In any matter of moral importance, our first task, before we plunge ahead and decide what to do, is to figure out what we ought to do.
Allen W. Wood
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It is both theoretically mistaken and morally wrong to regard others as objects of investigation rather than partners in free rational communication.
Allen W. Wood