Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Philip Kitcher
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: February 20
Philosopher
University Teacher
London
England
Philip Stuart Kitcher
Seems
Complete
Ideas
Rules
Even
Theory
System
Dubious
Idea
Suspicious
Natural
Ethical
Science
Final
Thought
Finals

More quotes by Philip Kitcher

Image
A different vision of ethics is that of a collection of resources people can use to act better. The resources might be firm rules that could always be relied on. Or they might be ideals that could often be followed without thinking but that sometimes conflicted with one another.
Philip Kitcher
Image
Look at Mann's reading habits, his explicit comments on Nietzsche, and his copy of Birth of Tragedy, and it starts to seem doubtful that this work of Nietzsche's played much role in the gestation of the novella.
Philip Kitcher
Image
Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us.
Philip Kitcher
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives.
Philip Kitcher
Image
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
Image
Most influential of all is the philosopher Stanley Cavell, and a younger generation of philosophers who have attempted to follow his pioneering work in thinking about literature philosophically.
Philip Kitcher
Image
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
Image
Wilhelmine Germany was hostile to the expression of same-sex love - and, of course, Mann would have known of the fate of Oscar Wilde. His early reading of Platen's poetry, and, probably when he was in his early twenties, of Platen's diaries, introduced him to a form of sexual expression he found profoundly congenial. It's not quite Platonic.
Philip Kitcher
Image
Klaus Mann saw very clearly how different was his own (more liberated) form of homosexuality from the same-sex attractions of his father - and that is reiterated in TM's diary queries about how two men can sleep together.
Philip Kitcher
Image
The point of philosophy, as I see it, is to change thinking, and thereby to change the conversation.
Philip Kitcher
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I didn't know that Mahler would come to play so large a role, nor that music and literature and philosophy can interinanimate one another in the way I've come to think they do in this case.
Philip Kitcher
Image
In ethics, we don't make progress by discovering pre-existent truths we do so by solving problems.
Philip Kitcher
Image
I felt I should also contrast Visconti's treatment of the novella - usually damned by Mann fans (who typically respect Britten's more faithful adaptation). The Visconti film does many quite wonderful things, although there are good reasons for the condemnation.
Philip Kitcher
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Experiments work when, and only when, they call into action cognitive capacities that might reliably deliver the conclusions drawn.
Philip Kitcher