“There are many critics whose work I greatly admire. Even though I diverge from T.J. Reed in several important ways, I've learned greatly from his writings on Mann.” WayWritingImportantCriticsAdmireI've LearnedReeds Author:Philip Kitcher
“One of the things I want to do in the book is to explore how philosophy can be done in literature. I start doing that in the first chapter, by introducing the idea of "philosophy by showing". What literature/philosophy shows is how to look at some important facets of life in a new way, thus changing the frame in which subsequent philosophical argument proceeds.” WayWantFirstsLooksImportantBookIdeasDonePhilosophyShowsLiteratureArgumentPhilosophicalIntroducingChaptersNew WaysFacets Author:Philip Kitcher
“There's a disciplined erotic component to it, so that the height of sexual contact is the embrace, the modest touch, a relatively chaste kiss. An important passage from the surviving 1942 diary (one I quote in the book) relates this mode of sexual expression to his own life. Mann had returned to his diary for 1927 (one of those he burned) and to his parting from the young man, Klaus Heuser, whom the family had met on holiday and invited to Munich.” MenImportantBookYoungExpressionMetsKissingEmbraceContactRelateHeightYoung ManHolidayPassagesBurnedModestInvitedComponentsEroticSurvivingDiariesPartingChasteMunich Author:Philip Kitcher
“For anyone who conceives literature in terms of plurality of perspectives, Finnegans Wake has to be the apogee. For, as we are told, every word in it has three score and ten "toptypsical" meanings - an exaggeration, of course, but an important reminder to readers who like their fiction definite.” ImportantThreeCoursesLiteratureTermFictionPerspectiveReaderTenScoreDefiniteRemindersExaggerationFinnegans Wake Author:Philip Kitcher
“For a pragmatist like me, the important issues concern the words we might deploy to achieve our purposes, rather than the language we actually use.” ImportantUseMightPurposeLanguageIssuesAchieveConcernLike MeImportant IssuesPragmatists Author:Philip Kitcher
“When I try to outline the history of ethical life, it's sometimes possible to find evidence for a hypothesis about how important transitions actually went. Often, however, that isn't so. There are many facts about human life in the Paleolithic we're never likely to know.” KnowsTryingHumansImportantSometimesFactsEvidenceHuman LifeEthicalTransitionHypothesisOutlines Author:Philip Kitcher
“I don't deny that scientific investigation is capable of delivering important truths about nature, but that doesn't stop questions about whether, as it is practiced, science today lives up to its potential for benefiting humanity.” ImportantTodayHumanityCapableDenyInvestigationDeliveringToday Life Author:Philip Kitcher
“It's not at all a bad idea for scientific questions to be chosen because a democratic deliberation would identify them as important for people's lives.” PeopleImportantIdeasDemocraticChosenBad IdeasDeliberation Author:Philip Kitcher
