Simon Blackburn quotes

The word "philosophy" carries unfortunate connotations: impractical, unworldly, weird. (Simon Blackburn)

We think about what to do, and muster considerations and arguments in favor of one course or another. How are we to think about that?

Simon Blackburn

A god that created the world and then walked off the site leaving it to its own devices is not a fit object of worship, nor a source of moral authority.

Simon Blackburn

A signpost doesn't in and of itself represent the way to the village. We have to learn how to take it.

Simon Blackburn

If our best efforts come to nothing often enough, we need consolation, and thoughts of unfolding, infinite destiny, or karma, are sometimes consoling.

Simon Blackburn

Since there is no telling in advance where it may lead, reflection can be seen as dangerous.

Simon Blackburn

Finding a mechanism does not bypass the problem of induction.

Simon Blackburn

It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart.

Simon Blackburn

We can grieve over lost powers and memories, or rejoice over gained knowledge and maturity, according to taste.

Simon Blackburn

Contemporary culture is not very good on responsibility.

Simon Blackburn

Why should thinkers mock the simple pieties of the people? (Simon Blackburn)

Induction is the process of taking things within our experience to be representative of the world outside our experience. It is a process of projection or extrapolation.

Simon Blackburn

Paradigms can be asked to show their worth, an some of them do not stand up.

Simon Blackburn

Chance is as relentless as necessity.

Simon Blackburn

Perhaps to restore human freedom we should deny determinism?

Simon Blackburn

Thoughts are strange things. they have 'representational' powers: a thought typically represents the world as being one way or another. A sensation, by contrast, seems to just sit there.

Simon Blackburn

The scientific world is to be less threatening than was feared. It is to made safe for human beings. And the way to make it safe is to reflect on the foundation of knowledge.

Simon Blackburn

What underlies our assignment of probabilities in the real world?

Simon Blackburn

In Michigan recently a man won a lawsuit for substantial damages because, he claimed, a rear-end collision in his car had made him a homosexual.

Simon Blackburn

An ethic gone wrong is an essential preliminary to the sweat shop or the concentration camp and the death march.

Simon Blackburn

But if nothing does as well as something about which nothing can be said, it vanishes. (Simon Blackburn)

Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything.

Simon Blackburn

Myself, I have never seen a bumper sticker saying "Hate if you Love Jesus", but I sometimes wonder why not. It would be a good slogan for the religious Right.

Simon Blackburn

There are normal times when it is wholly admirable to be steadfast, resolute, unconflicted, and therefore when integrity is unmistakenly a virtue. The person of integrity knows what to do, and does it. But as we have been exploring, there are also times when certainty and single-mindedness indicate something less admirable: a deafness to voices that should be heard or a blindness to aspects of a situation that need to be considered.

Simon Blackburn

There was content, but no container.

Simon Blackburn

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Simon Blackburn

Occupation: British Academic
Born: July 12, 1944
Quotes count: 30
Wikipedia: Simon Blackburn

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