“Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives that open up new possibilities. They show us how we might start in different places, and not buy into the assumptions tacitly made on the first pages of the philosophical works that have influenced us.” FirstsMadeDifferentPhilosophyShowsSeemsMightPossibilityPerspectiveOffersPagesArgumentPhilosophicalValuableAssumptionDifferent PlaceNew Possibilities Author:Philip Kitcher
“Mann was profoundly influenced by two philosophers, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, who returned to the most ancient of all philosophical questions - "How to live?" - and whose writings offered novel perspectives for considering that question (much more perspective-offering than rigorous argument!)” WritingTwoNovelPerspectiveArgumentPhilosophicalAncientPhilosopherOfferingConsideringPhilosophical Questions Author:Philip Kitcher
“In working towards ways of reading Mann, so that his own advances in suggesting new perspectives will become more vivid, I do some fairly standard philosophical analysis of ideas in Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.” WayIdeasReadingPerspectiveStandardsPhilosophicalAnalysisVividSuggestingNew Perspective Author:Philip Kitcher
“I'm a pluralist about perspectives on literature. There seem to me to be all sorts of illuminating ways of responding to major literary works, some of them paying considerable attention to context, others applying various theoretical ideas, yet others focusing on details of language, or linking the work to the author's life, or connecting it with other works.” WayIdeasSeemsLiteratureLanguageAttentionPerspectiveMajorsDetailsVariousConnectingTheoreticalRespondingIlluminatingLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“Philosophy by showing - including philosophy in literature - does truly valuable work in leading us to new perspectives from which our arguments can then begin. It does so by introducing new synthetic complexes, which we then reflect on from various points of view. When the complexes survive and grow, that initial showing has been philosophically decisive.” DoeHas BeensPhilosophyLiteratureGrowsViewsPerspectiveArgumentComplexesIncludingVariousValuablePoint Of ViewIntroducingInitialsSyntheticNew PerspectiveIntroducing New Author:Philip Kitcher
“Both Proust and Joyce record the ways in which human perspectives can be transformed. In Portrait, Stephen Dedalus is constantly undergoing epiphanies, but their effects are transitory: the new synthetic complex quickly falls apart. Proust's characters, by contrast, often achieve lasting changes of perspective.” WayHumansCharacterFallRecordsAchieveEffectsPerspectiveComplexesLastingTransformedContrastPortraitsFalling ApartEpiphanyTransitoryJoyceSyntheticProustLasting Change Author:Philip Kitcher
“The moment in which the narrator, reaching for his boots, becomes vividly and lastingly aware of the finality of his grandmother's death is another such moment. It would be interesting to explore Proust's great novel from the perspective of seeing how stable synthetic complexes are formed and modified.” MomentsWould BeInterestingNovelSeeingPerspectiveComplexesReachingGrandmotherBootsStableFinalityNarratorsSyntheticProustGreat Novels Author:Philip Kitcher
“I think the tone of mockery Heller finds is a part of Mann's irony, but only a part - a brilliant further touch consists in juxtaposing perspectives so that we're led to wonder whether the mockery itself is the last word.” ThinkingLastsWonderPerspectiveBrilliantIronyToneLast WordsMockery Author:Philip Kitcher
“Mann was conscious of adopting different perspectives in different parts of the novella, but my guess is that there are plenty of passages in which the resonance of the words he chose struck him as exactly right (even though he didn't probe to discover exactly what tone or narrative device gave them that effect).” DifferentEffectsPerspectiveConsciousPlentyNarrativeToneDevicesPassagesResonanceDifferent PerspectiveAdopting Author:Philip Kitcher
“Mann was less interested, I think, in constructing any kind of "portrait of an age" than he was in delineating an individual consciousness in which profound struggles about identity and direction arise - struggles that Mann himself had not only reflected on but felt keenly. Visconti takes up this central focus of the novella, but he couples it with a more social perspective.” ThinkingKindAgeIndividualSocialFeltConsciousnessStruggleFocusIdentityPerspectiveCoupleProfoundArisePortraits 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
“Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives.” KnowsDifferentPerspectiveOughtPhilosopherDifferent ThingsAspireSynthetic Author:Philip Kitcher
“My ideal of conversation that includes wide representation of perspectives, informed by the consensus view of current experts, pursued with an attempt to find a position with which all can live, brings the expert and the public dimensions together.” TogetherViewsPositionPerspectiveConversationIdealsCurrentsWideExpertsDimensionsRepresentationConsensusPursued Author:Philip Kitcher
“I'm often quite gloomy about the prospects for the human future. But, although I have no competence to intervene directly in a political movement, I hope that what I write may, in combination with the suggestions of others, cause a shift in perspective that will inspire a world-wide movement to accept the only solution to climate change. And before it's too late.” WorldWritingHumansMayPoliticalCausesAcceptingMovementInspirePerspectiveLateSolutionsClimateClimate ChangeWideCombinationToo LateSuggestionsCompetenceGloomyProspectsPolitical MovementsBefore It's Too Late Author:Philip Kitcher
