Philip Kitcher Quotes

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• 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

  Ideas, Dubious, Finals

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• 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

  Ideas, Political, Groups

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  13 Copy quote

• Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives.

  Philip Kitcher

  Perspective, Different, Philosopher

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Perspective

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• Science literacy consists in the ability and the desire to follow reports of new scientific advances, throughout your whole life.

  Philip Kitcher

  Desire, Literacy, Ability

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• I believe that the arts make indispensable contributions to our understanding.

  Philip Kitcher

  Art, Believe, Understanding

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• I don't think that anything of any consequence is known a priori: all our knowledge is built up by modifying the lore passed on to us by our ancestors in light of our experiences, and the best a philosopher can do is to learn as much about what has been discovered in various empirical fields, and use it to try to craft an improved synthesis.

  Philip Kitcher

  Thinking, Light, Trying

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• The expert is a midwife. The expert is not someone who has the authority to pronounce the last word on the subject.

  Philip Kitcher

  Experts, Lasts, Authority

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• My ethical naturalism sees us as facing the predicament of being social animals without evolved adaptations that make social life easy. The fundamental problem that sparks the ethical project lies in our limited responsiveness to one another. The only way we have to address that problem is through a representative, informed, and engaged conversation.

  Philip Kitcher

  Lying, Animal, Fundamentals

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• It's not at all a bad idea for scientific questions to be chosen because a democratic deliberation would identify them as important for people's lives.

  Philip Kitcher

  Ideas, People, Important

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• 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

  Knowledge, Science, Curiosity

  Philip Kitcher (1997). “The Lives to Come”, p.127, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• The point of philosophy, as I see it, is to change thinking, and thereby to change the conversation.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophy, Thinking, Conversation

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• 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

  Theory Of Evolution, Doe, Ancestry

  Philip Kitcher (1982). “Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism”, p.202, MIT Press

  5 Copy quote

• I take the ethical truths to be the stable elements that emerge out of ethical progress and that are retained under further ethical progress.

  Philip Kitcher

  Progress, Elements, Ethical

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• In ethics, we don't make progress by discovering pre-existent truths; we do so by solving problems.

  Philip Kitcher

  Progress, Ethics, Problem

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Philosophy, Thinking, Play

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• Anxieties about ourselves endure. If our proper study is indeed the study of humankind, then it has seemed-and still seems-to many that the study is dangerous. Perhaps we shall find out that we were not what we took ourselves to be. But if the historical development of science has indeed sometimes pricked our vanity, it has not plunged us into an abyss of immorality. Arguably, it has liberated us from misconceptions, and thereby aided us in our moral progress.

  Philip Kitcher

  Vanity, Anxiety, Historical

  Philip Kitcher (1982). “Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism”, p.202, MIT Press

  6 Copy quote

• Refined religion is aimed at realizing ethical values, including the fostering of human lives and human communities.

  Philip Kitcher

  Community, Realizing, Ethical

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• My ideal of conversation that includes wide representation of perspectives, informed by the consensus view of current experts, pursued with an attempt to find a position with which all can live, brings the expert and the public dimensions together.

  Philip Kitcher

  Views, Perspective, Together

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• Read Mann's notes, which contain precise accounts of cholera and its symptoms, and observe how careful he is throughout his fiction in getting medical details straight - then you might begin to wonder whether cholera is the only candidate for the cause of Aschenbach's death. What results from this, I think, is a deeper appreciation of Mann's brilliance in keeping so many possibilities in play. The ambiguity is even more artful than people have realized.

  Philip Kitcher

  Appreciation, Thinking, Play

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• One goal of ethical inquiry might be to uncover strategies available for use when values conflict or when rules are incomplete.

  Philip Kitcher

  Goal, Inquiry, Use

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• It may be hyperbolic to declare that Shakespeare teaches us more about being human than all the natural scientists combined.

  Philip Kitcher

  May, Being Human, Scientist

  6 Copy quote

• If there are to be appropriate judgments about what questions are significant, you need both the informed views of scientists who know what has been achieved and what future developments are promising and the reflective judgments of representatives of different groups who can identify what kinds of information are most urgently needed.

  Philip Kitcher

  Views, Groups, Different

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  3 Copy quote

• The "little theme" from Vinteuil, heard by Swann as emblematic of his love for Odette, remains a point of reference for him, as the character of that love changes and as the love eventually fades.

  Philip Kitcher

  Character, Littles, His Love

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  6 Copy quote

• I would like to undermine the stereotype of "strict philosophy." J.L. Austin remarked that, when philosophy is done well, it's all over by the bottom of the first page. I take him to have meant that the real work comes in setting up the problem with which you are dealing, and thus getting your reader to take particular things for granted.

  Philip Kitcher

  Philosophy, Real, Austin

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

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