“When you try to cool down hot emotions, what tends to happen is that you end up either repressing them or losing them altogether. Neither is desirable. Without emotion, much social interaction loses its meaning, or changes for the worse.” TryingEndsHappensSocialLosesEmotionLosingHotInteractionDesirableSocial InteractionCool Down Author:Julian Baggini
“When you try to translate any kind of real-life problem into a neat logical form, you're almost always simplifying it. We need a kind of blend - we need to use not just tools of logic, which are important and valuable - I'm not denying that, but also tools of judgement, and of inductive and abductive reasoning which can also inform.” TryingKindImportantProblemLogicValuableJudgementLogicalTranslateNeat Author:Julian Baggini
“If I'm a CEO and I say, 'Misogyny will not be tolerated', that's a more powerful statement than 'It is my sincere hope and our intention to eradicate misogyny from this company'. Sometimes saying things in that more categorical form, has a real function. Although, if you dig beneath it, it is actually one of J.L. Austin's illocutionary acts; you're trying to make something happen rather than describing something already happened. The fact that it has the grammatical form of a description is fine.” TryingRealSometimesPowerfulIntentionThings HappenSincereMisogynyCeo Author:Julian Baggini
“Once Steve Fuller said that there is this idea that your responsibility as an intellectual is just to speak the truth as you see it. But actually, you should be more appreciative of what needs to be said. I don't think that's ever an excuse to say something you don't believe is true - but sometimes the emphasis has to be different. Well, if I'm talking to an audience of hardline atheists, I'll be trying to unsettle them a bit more, whereas, if I'm speaking to an audience of believers, I'll be giving them more of the pros of atheism. It's about having a sensitivity to context.” ThinkingGivingTryingBelieveDifferentSometimesSpeakResponsibilityAudienceAtheismIntellectualAtheistExcuseBelieverSensitivitySpeak The TruthAppreciative Author:Julian Baggini
“I think that internet technologies are making everything so transparent. The arms race of deception and spin against the public trying to keep up with it - I think the forces of spin have to lose. In the corporate world people are finding this. Corporate social responsibility has been on the agenda for a very long time - and a lot of people say it's a kind of green-wash or white-wash - but because there's nowhere to hide anymore, people are coming around to the realization that the only way to be seen to be good is to be good. You can't fake it.” PeopleThinkingWorldTryingKindLongResponsibilityTechnologyInternetBe GoodRealizationDeceptionFakeSocial Responsibility Author:Julian Baggini
“You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow.” PeopleShouldTryingViewsSilenceMoralIssuesSpeechMajorsArguingBitterProtestDisagreeFree SpeechPillsMoral Issues 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
“Trying to keep up with health advice can feel like surfing the Net for weather forecasts: what you find is always changing, often contradictory and rarely encouraging.” FeelsTryingAdviceWeatherSurfingContradictoryForecastsSurfing The Web Author:Julian Baggini
“There are many things you shouldn't measure. Don't, for example, try to measure how much you love your wife!” TryingWifeLove YouExampleLove Your Wife Author:Julian Baggini
