“Darwin’s point about variation often goes unappreciated today in philosophical discussions, even though it has been uncontroversial for well over a century. Recent discussions of natural kinds, prompted by the seminal ideas of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam, often assume that one can revive essentialism. Yet if species are natural kinds no such revival is in prospect. Kripke and Putnam largely restricted their discussions to the cases of elements and compounds, and with good reason. For, given the insights of neo-Darwinism, it’s clear that the search for some analogue of the microstructural essences can’t be found. No genetic or karyotypic property will play for species the role that atomic number does for the elements.” PhilosophyDarwinismEssentialism Author:Philip Kitcher
“Sometime during the 1990s, when I was teaching philosophy at UCSD, my friend, colleague, and music teacher, Carol Plantamura, discussed the possibility of teaching a course together looking at ways in which various literary works (plays, stories, novels) had been treated as operas, and how different themes emerged in the opera and in its original. One of the pairings we planned to use was Mann's great novella and Britten's opera. Unfortunately, the course was never taught, but the idea remained with me.” WayIdeasDifferentPhilosophyPlayStoriesUseTogetherCoursesNovelTeacherTeachingPossibilityTaughtMy FriendsOriginalsVariousTreatedThemeOperaColleaguesCarolsLiterary WorksMusic TeacherWork Play Author:Philip Kitcher
“I didn't know that Mahler would come to play so large a role, nor that music and literature and philosophy can interinanimate one another in the way I've come to think they do in this case.” ThinkingKnowsWayPhilosophyPlayLiteratureRolesCasesMahler Author:Philip Kitcher
“I intend Deaths in Venice to contribute both to literary criticism and to philosophy. But it's not "strict philosophy" in the sense of arguing for specific theses. As I remark, there's a style of philosophy - present in writers from Plato to Rawls - that invites readers to consider a certain class of phenomena in a new way. In the book, I associate this, in particular, with my good friend, the eminent philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, who practices it extremely skilfully.” WayBookPhilosophyCertainClassPracticeStyleParticularReaderCriticismPhilosopherArguingInvitesNew WaysGood FriendStrictAssociatesPlatoRemarksVeniceThesisNancyLiterary CriticismDeath In Venice Author:Philip Kitcher
“I would like to undermine the stereotype of "strict philosophy." J.L. Austin remarked that, when philosophy is done well, it's all over by the bottom of the first page. I take him to have meant that the real work comes in setting up the problem with which you are dealing, and thus getting your reader to take particular things for granted.” FirstsWellsRealDonePhilosophyProblemParticularReaderPagesBottomSettingSettingsGrantedStrictStereotypeAustinReal Work Author:Philip Kitcher
“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
“In elaborating how "philosophy by showing" works, and in defending the idea that literature and music can contribute to philosophical "showing", I am also doing something more standardly philosophical. But I view most of the book as an interweaving of philosophy and literary criticism. If that entails a broadening of a standard idea of philosophy, it's a broadening I'd like to see happen.” IfsBookIdeasPhilosophyHappensLiteratureViewsStandardsCriticismPhilosophicalLiterary CriticismLiterature And Music 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
“So this is my attempt to give a preliminary - probably far too crude - account of how philosophy by showing can really teach us. The attempts we make to work through problems by reasoning always presuppose starting points, and even the most self-critical philosophers adopt some of those starting points simply by picking them up from the social environments in which they grow up.” GivingSelfPhilosophyProblemSocialGrowsTeachGrowing UpEnvironmentAccountsStartingPhilosopherCriticalReasoningCrudeStarting PointSocial Environment 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
“There are actually two separate issues here. The first is whether (as ancient philosophers and Nietzsche assume) only the privileged elite can live a worthwhile life. The second is whether it's possible to fulfill the roles of both serious artist and upstanding citizen. It seems to me that philosophy can dissect both questions, by delineating clearly the anatomy of the good life and the structural conditions of the roles.” FirstsTwoPhilosophySeemsArtistRolesIssuesConditionsSeriousCitizensAssumingAncientPhilosopherGood LifeWorthwhileElitesPrivilegedAnatomy Author:Philip Kitcher
“Mann's Death in Venice actually contains a snippet of philosophy about the second question, when Aschenbach, collapsed in the plaza, engages in his quasi-Socratic, anti-Socratic, ruminations.” PhilosophyVeniceSocraticRuminationDeath In Venice Author:Philip Kitcher
“The balance between literature and philosophy in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche is different from that struck in the novella, but, as Mann clearly pointed out in his writings about both thinkers, both modes are present.” WritingDifferentPhilosophyLiteratureBalanceThinker Author:Philip Kitcher
“In the end, we learn about the most basic philosophical questions - like "How to live?" - from a broad mixture of sources, including literature and philosophy, history and anthropology. These sources can guide our reflections on our own experiences, as we explore and reconsider. Mann contributed to such explorations in a distinctive way, and I hope my book brings that out.” WayBookEndsPhilosophyLiteratureSourceReflectionPhilosophicalIncludingGuidesExplorationBroadsMixturesAnthropologyDistinctivePhilosophical Questions Author:Philip Kitcher
“I rather stumbled into philosophy. When I began my undergraduate career at Cambridge, I studied mathematics.” PhilosophyCareersMathematicsCambridgeUndergraduate Author:Philip Kitcher
“After two years of undergraduate study, it was clear that I was bored by the regime of problem-solving required by the Cambridge mathematical tripos. A very sensitive mathematics don recommended that I talk to the historian of astronomy, Michael Hoskin, and the conversation led me to enroll in the History and Philosophy of Science for my final undergraduate year.” YearsTwoPhilosophyProblemStudyClearConversationMathematicsFinalsAstronomyMathematicalBoredSensitiveTwo YearsHistorianRegimesProblem SolvingPhilosophy Of ScienceCambridgeUndergraduate Author:Philip Kitcher
“I was occupied by a range of questions, often different from those fashionable in the professional philosophy of the past half century, that have sometimes troubled philosophers in the past. It's taken me several decades to work out my own philosophical agenda, and it is wide.” DifferentSometimesPhilosophyPastMy OwnHalfTakenCenturyPhilosophicalPhilosopherWork OutWideDecadesRangeAgendasFashionable Author:Philip Kitcher
“If the intuition-mongering were abandoned, would that be the end of philosophy? It would be the end of a certain style of philosophy - a style that has cut philosophy off, not only from the humanities but from every other branch of inquiry and culture.” IfsEndsPhilosophyWould BeCertainHumanityCultureCuttingStyleIntuitionBranchesAbandonedInquiry Author:Philip Kitcher
“In my view, we ought to replace the notion of analytic philosophy by that of synthetic philosophy.” PhilosophyViewsOughtNotionAnalyticsSynthetic Author:Philip Kitcher
“The point of philosophy, as I see it, is to change thinking, and thereby to change the conversation.” ThinkingPhilosophyConversation Author:Philip Kitcher
