Quotessence
Home / Authors / Julian Baggini
Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleThinkingPhilosophyReasonShouldBelieveKindWorldTryingAcceptingFeelsGivingMoralSometimesArgumentChoicesDifferentFailingHumans

Famous Julian Baggini Quotes

“To a certain extent all philosophers have been involved in a systematic questioning that undermines confidence and certainty. Philosophy as a whole unleashed skeptical forces which, outside of the tightly controlled environment of a rigorous philosophical debate, led a lot of people to throw their hands up in despair and think 'what's the point?'. A lot of the public perception of philosophy is that it leaves you with no answers, and more confused than you were at the beginning.”

PeopleThinkingPhilosophyEnvironmentDespairPerceptionPhilosophicalPhilosopherDebateCertaintyConfusedQuestioningSkeptical
Author:Julian Baggini
Create image

“There have been a number of philosophers who have reveled in the dismantling of truth. I think they did so with good ethical motives, and for good philosophical reasons. I can see the sense in what they were talking about; the idea that truth is often claimed by elites in order to further certain agendas. They crowd-out alternative perspectives - particularly those of the powerless. But the undermining of truth contributed - in the weird, indirect way that philosophy contributes to the culture - to a rejection of the idea of truth as having any kind of proper meaning at all.”

ThinkingKindReasonPhilosophyCulturePerspectiveTruth IsPhilosophicalPhilosopherMotiveRejectionEthicalPowerlessIndirect
Author:Julian Baggini
Create image

“I don't think there is ever a direct connection between the philosophical community and the wider populus. I'm very aware of this because I've been working on a book on ideas in global philosophy and you always find some kind of relation between the dominant philosophies in a culture and the folk philosophy but it's not a straight-down dissemination. It's partly bottom-up. Thinkers are the products of the cultures they grew-up in. They aspire to thinking purely objectively and universally, but they are often reflecting ways of thought that are embedded in a culture.”

ThinkingKindBookPhilosophyCultureCommunityDirectRelationPhilosophicalThinkerEmbedded
Author:Julian Baggini
Create image

“Talking about creating truth tends to alarm people, because truth is meant to be 'just out there'. It doesn't take much thinking to appreciate that we sometimes change truths on the ground - sometimes just by words. A new law will change what is possible. I think - perhaps because the paradigm we follow tends to be scientific, and all about discovery - the creative element of truth is one upon which we don't focus so much attention. This is particularly so in anglophone philosophy, perhaps because we associate it too much with those 'pernicious' continental trends.”

PeopleThinkingSometimesPhilosophyAttentionCreativeFocusTruth IsAppreciateMeant To BeParadigm
Author:Julian Baggini
Create image

“I'm not one of these people who is sour about academia. I'm very lucky not to be in academia, but I am an absolute parasite. While I was writing my book on comparative philosophy I was drawing on some fantastic scholars - university based people. The academy is absolutely necessary, but there should also be a role for those bringing it together. It's such a frustration sometimes.”

PeopleWritingBookSometimesPhilosophyTogetherLuckyFantasticFrustrationScholar
Author:Julian Baggini
Create image

“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
Create image