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I don't think readers of Mann have overlooked the fact that he was a great ironist, but they have tended to see the irony in particular parts of the novella, and to miss it in others.
Philip Kitcher
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Philip Kitcher
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: February 20
Philosopher
University Teacher
London
England
Philip Stuart Kitcher
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More quotes by Philip Kitcher
The point of philosophy, as I see it, is to change thinking, and thereby to change the conversation.
Philip Kitcher
The amalgam of psychological attitudes we form is the synthetic complex. It may fall apart quite quickly as further reflection or further experience bears on it, and we may revert to our former judgments, feelings and tendencies.
Philip Kitcher
I'm very suspicious of the idea of a final theory in natural science, and the thought of a complete system of ethical rules seems even more dubious.
Philip Kitcher
So is fighting incompleteness the source of artistic neurosis? I doubt it. At most, this would apply to artists who deal with particular kinds of problems. I don't think we should think of Haydn or Mozart or Dickens or George Eliot in these terms.
Philip Kitcher
We know that he gave Aschenbach Mahler's first name, and also his facial features. So Visconti picks up on something interesting. That led me to think about ways of developing further the Aschenbach-Mahler connection.
Philip Kitcher
Sometimes, however, the new synthetic complex proves stable, and even serves as the beginning of a much larger cluster of attitudes that displace some we've previously considered to be fixed parts of ourselves.
Philip Kitcher
Any writer who could handle all these different voices would deserve high praise, but to do so without any sense of jarring or incoherence is an extraordinary accomplishment.
Philip Kitcher
For a pragmatist like me, the important issues concern the words we might deploy to achieve our purposes, rather than the language we actually use.
Philip Kitcher
Think about Mann's own daily routine (ascribed to Aschenbach), read the extant diaries and the letters in which he discusses the novella's themes, and it won't be so obvious that the attraction to Tadzio is completely unprecedented it also won't be obvious that what Aschenbach wants is full sexual contact.
Philip Kitcher
I argue against literal interpretation of religious doctrines. Religions make progress when they emancipate themselves from literalism, and take their doctrinal statements to be metaphors or allegories.
Philip Kitcher
The hardest problem of all is to appreciate the facts that the poor nations are - quite reasonably - not going to forgo their development, and that they can only afford to develop by consuming fossil fuels.
Philip Kitcher
Ethical inquiry has always been motivated by the aim of improving human conduct. It doesn't follow from that that the goal is to produce a complete rule book that would be applicable to all cases.
Philip Kitcher
The theory of evolution explains to us what our ancestry has been. It does not explain away our worth. Why should we be afraid to learn more about what we are?
Philip Kitcher
Using the Adagietto of Mahler's Fifth is one of the touches of pure genius in Visconti's film (even though Mahlerians complain very loudly that the piece has been ruined), since it corresponds perfectly to Aschenbach's yearnings and to his circling walks around Venice.
Philip Kitcher
Experiments work when, and only when, they call into action cognitive capacities that might reliably deliver the conclusions drawn.
Philip Kitcher
Those citizens are distracted by the toys technology has supplied, and fail to recognize the ways in which what they most deeply want is made vulnerable by the coming disruptions of human relations on an over-heated planet.
Philip Kitcher
Britten's opera tends to see things in simpler terms. It portrays an Aschenbach who wants a richer form of sexual fulfillment, and who is hemmed in by the social conventions to which he subscribes. But Visconti's use of the Mahler Adagietto is perfect for what I take to be Aschenbach's sexual desire.
Philip Kitcher
To my mind, Death in Venice represents an enormous advance in Mann's literary development, not simply for the commonly appreciated reason that he crafted a superbly supple and elegant style, apparently well suited to the kind of prose Aschenbach is supposed to write.
Philip Kitcher
It's a very bad idea for scientific conclusions to be accepted because they fit with the political values of a group of researchers.
Philip Kitcher
It is hard to hide our genes completely. However devoted someone may be to the privacy of his genotype, others with enough curiosity and knowledge can draw conclusions from the phenotype he presents and from the traits of his relatives.
Philip Kitcher
