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Quote by Simon Critchley

“I am opposing it with an idea of the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers, that is, a history of mortal, fragile and limited creatures like you and I. I am against the idea of clean, clearly distinct epochs in the history of philosophy or indeed in anything else. I think that history is always messy, contingent, plural and material. I am against the constant revenge of idealism in how we think about history.”

Quote by Simon Critchley

Author

Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley is a British philosopher known for his contributions to existentialism and ethics. His work covers a wide range of topics, including political philosophy, aesthetics, and moral philosophy. Critchley's research interests include the ideas of philosophers such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Foucault. more

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“The current situation with regard to theory is odd and maybe defined by a paradox.”

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Author:Simon Critchley

“That is to say, politics is essentially about the management of fear, an economy of fear, continually adjusting the level of fear to produce the right level of affect in the citizenry.”

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Book:Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

Source: Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

“Shore up the mean with reverence and terror. But never banish terror from the gates of the state. The stronger the fear, the stronger the reverence for the just, the stronger your country's wall and the city's safety.”

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Book:Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

Source: Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

“Peace is nothing more than the regulation of the psycho-political economy of awe and reverential fear, of using the threat of terror in order to bind citizens to the circuit of their subjection.”

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Book:Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

Source: Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance

“In the US, what passes for Christianity - and it is, to say the least, a highly perverse, possessive individualist and capitalist version of what I would see as Christ's messianic ethical communism, to say the least - is a new civil religion, a civil religion of freedom.”

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Author:Simon Critchley

“Poetry is difficult, I mean interesting poetry, not confessional babble or emotive propaganda. Reading a new poet is discovering an entire world, what Stevens called a 'mundo' and it takes a lot of time to orientate oneself in such a world. What we have to learn to do then, as teachers and militants of a poetic insurgency, is to encourage people to learn to love the difficulty of poetry. I simply do not understand much of the poetry that I love.”

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Author:Simon Critchley

“My favourite writer is Beckett and I keep going back to wallow in his work like a deep pool of dark humour or like an oxygen tank when you can't breath in a world consumed by piety, hypocrisy and self-satisfaction.”

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“Humour is human. Why? Well, because the Philosopher, Aristotle, says so.”

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Book:On Humour

Source: On Humour

“Now, if laughter is proper to the human being, then the human being who does not laugh invites the charge of inhumanity, or at least makes us somewhat suspicious.”

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Book:On Humour

Source: On Humour

“Any philosophical and theoretical assurance that laughter is unique to the human being becomes somewhat unsure when one turns to the anthropological literature.”

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Author:Simon Critchley