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Philosophy is at its most engaged when it is impure. What is being recovered from the Ancient Greek model is not some lost idea of philosophy's pure essence, but the idea that philosophy is mixed up with everything else.
Julian Baggini
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Julian Baggini
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 9
Author
Philosopher
Writer
Ideas
Ancient
Everything
Models
Essence
Impure
Pure
Recovered
Philosophy
Mixed
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Greek
Lost
Engaged
Else
Model
More quotes by Julian Baggini
If we find it hard to believe that winning millions might not be so lucky after all, we just don't have a good enough imagination. If I fantasise about winning the lottery, it doesn't take long before all sorts of worrisome potential consequences occur to me.
Julian Baggini
Any celebration meal to which guests are invited, be they family or friends, should be an occasion for generous hospitality.
Julian Baggini
The capacity to make free choices is not something we either have entirely or not at all. Rather, choices become freer the more they are the result of our own capacity to reflect on and assess facts and arguments.
Julian Baggini
The only good reason to embrace a philosophical position is that you are convinced it is true or at least makes sense of the world better than the alternatives.
Julian Baggini
True virtue would never liken its rewards to points on a loyalty card, not because it is its own reward, but because it is not something we should practice to accrue future benefits.
Julian Baggini
Philosophy has to be enquiring it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.
Julian Baggini
The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.
Julian Baggini
Daily life is better when it involves interactions with real people who have a personal investment in their labour, like shopkeepers, than it is with someone 'just doing my job' or the infernal self-checkout machine.
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I don't feel proprietorial about the problems of philosophy. History has taught us that many philosophical issues can grow up, leave home and live elsewhere.
Julian Baggini
Stress means something different if it is the result of rewarding work rather than struggling to keep the family out of debt.
Julian Baggini
I think that a lot of social movements, political movements, powerful ones - certainly they form, collectively, an idea of the truth which becomes hard to question. It becomes a dogma, and from the inside it starts to look like common sense.
Julian Baggini
Constructive complaint requires only two things: that what you are complaining about should be different, and that it can be different. It sounds simple, but too often our protests fail this test.
Julian Baggini
The reason to be an atheist is not that it makes us feel better or gives us a more rewarding life. The reason to be an atheist is simply that there is no God and we would prefer to live in full recognition of that, accepting the consequences, even if it makes us less happy.
Julian Baggini
The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it's possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success.
Julian Baggini
Justice can only be dispensed when you have all the facts in front of you.
Julian Baggini
If philosophy is to be a valuable part of life, we have to appreciate it for its own sake, and not just for what it's done for us lately.
Julian Baggini
Seek first what is true and of value, and then whatever happiness follows will be of the appropriate quantity and, more importantly, quality.
Julian Baggini
From time to time, it is worth wandering around the fuzzy border regions of what you do, if only to remind yourself that no human activity is an island.
Julian Baggini
The modern believer is not suspicious enough, which is perhaps why when they try to construct arguments in their defence, the convictions are left doing all the work and reason, debilitated by neglect, weakly fails to prop them up.
Julian Baggini
It is true that legality is not morality, and sticking to the law is necessary for good citizenship, but it is not sufficient.
Julian Baggini