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Quote by David Papineau

“I realize that I won't have quite enough time to understand everything - but that hasn't stopped me wanting to understand as much as I can.”

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David Papineau

David Papineau is a British philosopher known for his contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. His research spans across various fields, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and moral philosophy. more

“Nearly everybody nowadays accepts the 'causal completeness of physics' - every physical event (or at least its probability) has a full physical cause. This leaves no room for non-physical things to make a causal difference to physical effects. But it would be absurd to deny that thoughts and feelings (and population movements and economic depressions . . .) cause physical effects. So they must be physical things.”

“The years 1781 to 1793 are crucial for many reasons, but chiefly because they pose in an especially clear way the main problem of German philosophy for the next century. This is the old conflict between reason and faith which recurred during the pantheism controversy between Jacobi and Mendelssohn.”

Way Years Reason Philosophy Problem Next Clear Century Conflict Crucial Controversy Pantheism Mendelssohn German Philosophy

Author:Frederick C. Beiser

“There is no comfortable middle path where we get to provide a rational justification for our basic moral, religious and common sense beliefs.”

Belief Religious Common Moral Path Middle Comfortable Common Sense Rational Justification Middle Path

Author:Frederick C. Beiser

“If there is such a simple argument for physicalism, how come everybody hasn't always been a physicalist? That's a good question, and there is a good answer. The 'causal completeness of physics' wasn't widely accepted until recently.”

Ifs Simple Answers Argument Accepted Physics Completeness Good Questions

Author:David Papineau

“There was no Prussian bastion to stop the Scotsman's swift conquest of the territory once claimed by reason.”

Reason Territory Conquest Scotsmen

Author:Frederick C. Beiser

“The connection between romantic politics and aesthetics is plain in Schiller's and Novalis's concept of the aesthetic or poetic state.”

States Concepts Connections Poetic Aesthetic Aesthetics

Author:Frederick C. Beiser

“The aesthetic dimension of the ideal state comes out in the idea of harmony, which is the classical idea of beauty as "concinnitas" or "unity-in-variety".”

Ideas States Ideals Harmony Unity Variety Dimensions Aesthetic

Author:Frederick C. Beiser

“A century ago mainstream science was still quite happy to countenance vital and mental powers which had a 'downwards' causal influence on the physical realm in a straightforwardly interactionist way. It was only in the middle of the last century that science finally concluded that there are no such non-physical forces. At which point a whole pile of smart philosophers (Feigl, Smart, Putnam, Davidson, Lewis) quickly pointed out that mental, biological and social phenomena must themselves be physical, in order to produce the physical effects that they do.”

Way Stills Whole Lasts Order Force Social Influence Middle Effects Century Produce Smart Philosopher Realms Mainstream Countenance Mental Power Physical Force

Author:David Papineau

“There is a sinister anachronistic interpretation of the aesthetic state as some kind of totalitarian regime that puts aesthetic over moral standards; one associates it with national-socialism. But this has nothing to do with the romantics, whose ideal of the aesthetic state has much more to do with the republican tradition.”

Kind States Moral Republican Standards Ideals Tradition Socialism Interpretation Aesthetic Regimes Associates Sinister Totalitarian Regimes

Author:Frederick C. Beiser

“Philosophers sometimes also use 'reductionist' more strictly, to mean 'type-identities' between mental and physical categories, and to exclude 'non-reductive physicalisms' like metaphysical functionalism.”

Mean Sometimes Use Identity Type Philosopher Categories Metaphysical

Author:David Papineau

Quote by David Papineau

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