“Most "process" philosophy is historicist (e.g., Hegel) and not concerned with "deep time." Maybe Whitehead is an exception. He may be a really important philosopher for all I know. I've never been able to read him.” KnowsMayImportantPhilosophyAbleProcessConcernedPhilosopherExceptionHegel 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
“Sometimes I say philosophers should be at the table because they're the only people who know that they're not going to walk away with big money to support their research or to fund their crackpot solutions.” PeopleKnowsShouldSometimesBigsWalksSupportSolutionsResearchTablesPhilosopherFundCrackpots Author:Dale Jamieson
“Philosophers are smart, analytical, and skeptical. For these reasons they are relatively unbiased.” ReasonSmartPhilosopherSkepticalUnbiased Author:Dale Jamieson
“Some philosophers have begun writing sympathetically about predator elimination as a way of reducing animal suffering. From an environmental perspective this is somewhere between naïve and potentially disastrous.” WayWritingSufferingAnimalPerspectiveEnvironmentalPhilosopherReducingPredatorEliminationAnimal Suffering Author:Dale Jamieson
“Philosophers (and probably most intellectuals) are more interested in pursuing what they see as the logical implications of their theories than they are in paying attention to the shlumpy diversity of defensible values that people actually have, and then trying to figure out how these might be negotiated in the life of an agent or community.” PeopleTryingMightValuesCommunityAttentionFiguresTheoryDiversityPhilosopherAgentsPay AttentionLogicalImplications Author:Dale Jamieson
“Philosophers tend to radically underestimate the distance between abstract principles (such as "reduce suffering") and what it might actually mean for people to act on them.” PeopleMeanMightSufferingPrinciplesDistancePhilosopherAbstractUnderestimate Author:Dale Jamieson
“Philosophers are often actively disinterested in what happens between the cup and the lips (after all, that's "non-ideal theory").” HappensTheoryIdealsLipsPhilosopherCupsDisinterested Author:Dale Jamieson
“A common rhetorical strategy of politicians and others is to frame their opponents' views in the worst possible light, tacitly suggesting that all versions of the view must be committed to some particularly deplorable conclusion. Philosophers are not immune to this way of arguing.” WayLightViewsCommonWorstPoliticianStrategyPhilosopherCommittedArguingVersionsConclusionOpponentsImmuneSuggestingRhetoricalRhetorical Strategies Author:Dale Jamieson
“Kantians are saddled with absolutist views, Aristotelians are accused of vagueness, and there is almost no horror to which Consequentialists are innocent of, according to some critics. While all these families of views have been victimized in these ways, Consequentialists have gotten the worst of it. I think this may have something to do with the fact that Kant and Aristotle are acknowledged to be great philosophers, and we tend to read the greats sympathetically, while Consequentialism is a family of views not rooted in the work of a single great man to whom this kind of deference is owed.” ThinkingMenWayKindMayHas BeensFactsViewsWorstHorrorCriticsPhilosopherInnocentGreat MenRootedAccusedDeferenceVaguenessGreat PhilosophersConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“Some philosophers think that the idea of a consequentialist virtue theory is strange, but the real strength of consequentialism is that it can emulate the requirements of other moral theories when it is the case that acting on those theories would improve the world.” ThinkingWorldIdeasRealActingMoralCasesVirtueStrangeTheoryPhilosopherRequirementsEmulateReal StrengthConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
