“[This approach] displays the characteristic philosophical lust to vanquish the skeptic by arguing him out of his skepticism, without appeal to moral and political considerations or to the facts of everyday life. [...] But more often than not, if you give the skeptic everything he wants, then he will be successful in repulsing your attacks and terrorizing your position.” IfsWantGivingFactsPoliticalMoralSuccessfulPositionApproachPhilosophicalEverydayArguingLustAppealsCharacteristicsBeing SuccessfulConsiderationDisplaySkepticismEveryday LifeSkepticVanquish Author:Dale Jamieson
“If we're interested in the continuation of the human experiment we need to focus on resilience and coping with change (whether natural or anthropogenic) rather than living as if God or nature has given us a nice, orderly, calm, Babbit-like existence.” IfsNeedsHumansGivenNaturalExistenceFocusNiceCalmResilienceExperimentsCopingOrderlyContinuation Author:Dale Jamieson
“Aristotle thought that humans are rational animals and Hobbes thought that we act on the basis of rational self-interest. If only! It's not that we never do these things, it's that they are hardly constituative of who and what we are.” IfsHumansSelfInterestAnimalBasesRationalSelf InterestHobbes Author:Dale Jamieson
“We live in a world in which everyone wants solutions. But we can't find solutions if we don't understand the problems, and we can't understand the problems without knowing how we got here.” IfsWorldWantProblemKnowingSolutions Author:Dale Jamieson
“Even those who specialize in the history of philosophy often ignore the political and cultural context, and the natural world in which their philosophers were philosophizing. This has consequences both trivial and important. If you systematically read the last fifty years of the major journals in our discipline you would be amazed at the amount of redundancy. Most of this is unacknowledged because most of us know so little about the history of our discipline and even the subfields in which we work.” IfsKnowsWorldYearsLittlesImportantPhilosophyWould BeLastsPoliticalNaturalAmountDisciplineMajorsConsequencePhilosopherFiftyAmazedJournalNatural WorldRedundancy Author:Dale Jamieson
“If we don't have historical consciousness we can't really understand problems in all their dimensions, and if we can't understand problems than we can't find solutions.” IfsProblemConsciousnessSolutionsHistoricalDimensions Author:Dale Jamieson
“If you have a flat, fixed view of state interest then it is difficult to understand why some states adopt aggressive climate change policies, even when that risks economically disadvantaging them, and other states do not even when it would be in their economic interests to do so.” IfsStatesWould BeDifficultInterestViewsRiskEconomicPolicyClimateClimate ChangeFixedFlatsAggressive Author:Dale Jamieson
“If you look globally you see a patchwork of jurisdictions (nations, states, provinces, cities) that have taken aggressive action on climate change, and a patchwork of jurisdictions that have not. These various policies reflect the politics of each jurisdiction and the values of its citizens.” IfsLooksStatesActionValuesNationsCitiesTakenPolicyCitizensClimateClimate ChangeVariousAggressiveProvincesJurisdictionPatchwork Author:Dale Jamieson
“Even if Bill McKibben were to become dictator, future generations would suffer because of the carbon we had already emitted.” IfsSufferingGenerationsBillsDictatorCarbonFuture Generation Author:Dale Jamieson
“Many environmental questions are in a deep way philosophical, despite our penchant for treating them as if they were only technological, economic, or whatever.” IfsWayEconomicPhilosophicalEnvironmentalDespiteTechnological Author:Dale Jamieson
“Environmental problems provoke challenges about what kind of world we want, how important we think it is if something is brought about by human action or by brute nature, what we think of the value of human life compared to that of other living things.” IfsThinkingWorldWantHumansKindImportantProblemActionValuesChallengesEnvironmentalHuman LifeProvokingLiving ThingsBrutesHuman ActionsEnvironmental ProblemsValue Of Human Life Author:Dale Jamieson
