Latest Simon Critchley Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Philosophy isn't programmed into us, and a lot of the forces of our culture steadfastly work against it. Philosophy, for me, is a way of resisting the nihilism of the present by making, creating, affirming. By going on.

  Simon Critchley

  Philosophy, Creating, Nihilism

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.46, Polity

• Philosophy teaches us to look at the world again. It brings out at a theoretical level what all plain, common, ordinary people, in a sense, know already.

  Simon Critchley

  Philosophy, People, Ordinary

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.44, Polity

• We live in a world that is dominated by science. And that's not a bad thing - not at all. But one of the problems with the scientific worldview is that it leads human beings to have an overwhelmingly theoretical relationship to the world. For example, I no longer accept my being in the world practically and then try to describe that or elucidate that; rather, I see the world theoretically as colors and objects and representations which are fed through my retina into the brain.

  Simon Critchley

  Color, Brain, Trying

  Interview with Jill Stauffer, believermag.com. August 1, 2003.

• For me, philosophy is an activity of thought that is common to human beings. Human beings at their best.

  Simon Critchley

  Philosophy, Common, Being Human

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederstr?m, Todd Kesselman (2013). “Impossible Objects”, p.33, John Wiley & Sons

• I think that when people are at their best, when they are thinking, reflecting, cogitating, then they are doing philosophy. So I don't see philosophy as an academic enterprise.

  Simon Critchley

  Philosophy, Thinking, People

  Source: www.believermag.com

• If I had a religious experience, what I know for sure is that I would stop doing philosophy and would start doing religion, teaching classes in religion, preaching in a local church. That is fine and noble activity. But I do not feel entitled to engage in it. So for me philosophy is my fate.

  Simon Critchley

  Religious, Philosophy, Teaching

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.37, Polity

• Philosophy, for me, is a way of relearning to look at the world, a world that is familiar to us, that we know, that is shared by all human beings and also by nonhuman beings.

  Simon Critchley

  Philosophy, Looks, World

  Source: www.believermag.com

• In relation to the question of hope, I think the only hope we have is hope against hope. We hope for a better world. But of course we can do better than just hope.

  Simon Critchley

  Thinking, World, Relation

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.35, Polity

• The philosopher is someone who doesn't know, but who wants to find out.

  Simon Critchley

  Want, Philosopher, Knows

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederstr?m, Todd Kesselman (2013). “Impossible Objects”, p.32, John Wiley & Sons

• The only answer to the question of the meaning of life has to begin from the fact of our human finitude, of our vulnerability and our fallibility.

  Simon Critchley

  Meaning Of Life, Answers, Facts

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.33, Polity

• There are two forms of disappointment that interest me: religious and political disappointment. Religious disappointment flows from the realization that religious belief is not an option for us. Political disappointment flows from the fact that there is injustice - that we live in a world that is radically unjust and violent, where might seems to equal right, where the poor are exploited by the rich, etc.

  Simon Critchley

  Religious, Disappointment, Two

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.31, Polity

• For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice?

  Simon Critchley

  Disappointment, Philosophy, Thinking

  Interview with Jill Stauffer, believermag.com. August 2003.

• There are lots of stories about how philosophy begins. Some people claim it begins in wonder; some people claim it begins in worry. I claim it begins in disappointment.

  Simon Critchley

  Disappointment, Philosophy, People

  Simon Critchley, Carl Cederström, Todd Kesselman (2011). “Impossible Objects”, p.31, Polity