Galen Strawson Quotes

• It is an insult to God to believe in God. For on the one hand it is to suppose that he has perpetrated acts of incalculable cruelty. On the other, it is to suppose that he has perversely given his human creatures an instrument - their intellect - which must inevitably lead them, if they are dispassionate and honest, to deny his existence. It is tempting to conclude that if he exists, it is the atheists and agnostics that he loves best, among those with any pretensions to education. For they are the ones who have taken him most seriously.

  Galen Strawson

  Atheist, Believe, Taken

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• You do what you do - in the circumstances in which you find yourself - because of the way you are. So if you're going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you're going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are - at least in certain mental respects. But you can't be ultimately responsible for the way you are (for the reasons just given). So you can't be ultimately responsible for what you do.

  Galen Strawson

  Finding Yourself, Way, Reason

  Interview with Tamler Sommers, believermag.com. March 2003.

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• Free will is the thing you have to have if you're going to be responsible in this all-or-nothing way. That's what I mean by free will. That's what I think we haven't got and can't have.

  Galen Strawson

  Mean, Thinking, Way

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• Sometimes we need to speak oddly to see clearly.

  Galen Strawson

  Needs, Sometimes, Speak

  Galen Strawson (2017). “The Subject of Experience”, p.59, Oxford University Press

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• It is true that 'I seem to see a table' does not entail 'I see a table'; but 'I seem to feel a pain' does entail 'I feel a pain'. So scepticism loses its force - cannot open up its characteristic gap - with regard to that which ultimately most concerns us, pleasure and pain.

  Galen Strawson

  Pain, Suffering, Doe

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• If someone harmed or tortured or killed one of my children I'd feel everything almost anyone else would feel. I'd probably have intense feelings of revenge. But these feelings would fade. In the end they're small and self-concerned. Only the grief would last.

  Galen Strawson

  Children, Revenge, Grief

  Interview with Tamler Sommers, believermag.com. March 2003.

  6 Copy quote

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