“Some of my understanding of what philosophy and ethics is has changed very slowly. One thing that has changed is this for quite a long time I bought-into the idea that philosophy is basically about arguments. I'm increasingly of the view that it isn't. The most interesting things in philosophy aren't arguments. The thing that I think is underestimated is what I call a form of attending. I think that philosophy is at least as much about carefully attending to things as it is about the structure of arguments.” ThinkingLongPhilosophyUnderstandingInterestingChangedEthicsArgumentMost InterestingUnderestimated Author:Julian Baggini
“Philosophy has to be enquiring; it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.” ReasonPhilosophyAcceptanceAuthorityArgumentMethodBlindBlind Acceptance Author:Julian Baggini
“The modern believer is not suspicious enough, which is perhaps why when they try to construct arguments in their defence, the convictions are left doing all the work and reason, debilitated by neglect, weakly fails to prop them up.” TryingReasonEnoughLeftFailingModernArgumentConvictionBelieverNeglectConstructsSuspiciousDefenceProps Author:Julian Baggini
“I don't believe in God because certain reasons and arguments weigh more heavily in my mind than others, not because I have willfully decided to reject my creator, as many religious people seem to think. I could no more simply decide to believe in God than I could decide to like beetroot, just like that.” PeopleThinkingMindBelieveReasonSeemsCertainReligiousArgumentDecidedDon't BelieveCreatorRejectsBelieve In God Author:Julian Baggini
“The capacity to make free choices is not something we either have entirely or not at all. Rather, choices become freer the more they are the result of our own capacity to reflect on and assess facts and arguments.” FactsChoicesResultsCapacityArgumentFree Choice Author:Julian Baggini
“Traditional arguments for the existence of God and contemporary attempts to use fine-tuning and cosmology to back up the case for his existence always strike me as kinds of games, since hardly anyone believes on the basis of these arguments at all.” BelieveKindUseGamesExistenceCasesFineArgumentBasesStrikesContemporaryTraditionalCosmologyExistence Of GodTuningFine Tuning Author:Julian Baggini
