Best argument & views Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Philip Kitcher has composed the most formidable defense of the secular view of life since Dewey. Unlike almost all of contemporary atheism, Life After Faith is utterly devoid of cartoons and caricatures of religion. It is, instead, a sober and soulful book, an exemplary practice of philosophical reflection. Scrupulous in its argument, elegant in its style, humane in its spirit, it is animated by a stirring aspiration to wisdom. Even as I quarrel with it I admire it.”

“Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.”

“Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against opponents. There is little satisfaction in gaining an easy triumph over a weak opponent while ignoring better arguments against your views.”

Humans Littles Philosophy Easy Views Argument Weak Satisfaction Limitation Triumph Opponents Score

Author:Peter Singer

“A new danger now beset him [Grotius], the danger of becoming simply a venal pleader, a creature who grinds out arguments on this or that side, for this or that client: a mere legal beast of prey. Fortunately for himself and for the world he took a higher view of his life-work: his determination clearly was to make himself a thoroughly equipped jurist, and then, as he rose more and more in his profession, to use his powers for the good of his country and of mankind.”

World Country Use Sides Views Mankind Danger Becoming Higher Creatures Determination Argument Rose Mere Profession Beast Clients Prey Grind Jurists

Author:Andrew Dickson White

“We should pass the U.N.'s Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. At least it will clearly establish whom you view as a terrorist and whom you don't. We need to delink terrorism from religion - to isolate terrorists who use this interchange of arguments between terrorism and religion.”

Needs Should Use Views Argument International Terrorism Terrorist Conventions Comprehensive Interchange International Terrorism

Author:Narendra Modi

“It is also naïve empiricism to provide, in support of some argument, series of eloquent confirmatory quotes by dead authorities. By searching, you can always find someone who made a well-sounding statement that confirms your point of view and, on every topic, it is possible to find another dead thinker who said the exact opposite.”

Wells Made Said Views Support Authority Argument Opposites Series Point Of View Statements Thinker Topics Eloquent Empiricism

Book:The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly ImprobableFragility

Source: The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly ImprobableFragility

“Some conservatives have expressed outrage that the views of professors are at odds with the views of students, as if ideas were entitled to be represented in proportion to their popularity and students were entitled to professors who share their political or social values. One of the more important functions of college that it exposes young people to ideas and arguments they have not encountered at home is redefined as a problem.”

People Ifs Important Ideas Problem Home Young Political Values Social Views Share Students College Argument Function Proportion Professors Odds Popularity Entitled Outrage Social Values

Author:Ellen Willis

“When we would show any one that he is mistaken, our best course is to observe on what side he considers the subject,--for his view of if is generally right on this side,--and admit to him that he is right so far. He will be satisfied with this acknowledgment, that he was not wrong in his judgment, but only inadvertent in not looking at the whole case.”

Ifs Whole Shows Courses Sides Views Cases Subjects Judgment Argument Satisfied Mistaken Acknowledgment

Author:Blaise Pascal

“The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.”

Character Life Is Views Conditions Argument Point Of View Strongest Tolerate Materialistic American Life

Book:On the contrary

Source: On the contrary

“Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.”

Fighting Views Argument Point Of View Discourse Public Discourse

Book:The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue

Source: The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue

“The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.”

“He must be able to hear them [the counter arguments] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty.”

Knows Feels Believe Persons Whole Able Form Force Views Atheism Subjects Argument Difficulty Positive Atheism Encounters Remove Portions Earnest Plausible Persuasive

Author:John Stuart Mill

“Everybody have equal rights to a life of full flourishing. Philosophy slowly, slowly has given us arguments saying, look, you already committed to your own life flourishing, and you're being inconsistent if you don't expand it. So philosophy often works in trying to show us that there's an inner incoherence in our points of view. We're all committed to one thing when it comes to us and our own kind, but we're not willing to expand it and we're guilty of inconsistency.”

“Your views are now my own.”

My Own Views Argument

Author:Marvin L. Cohen

“There's no point in arguing with partisan supporters. Their views are their identity. Nothing you can tell the most phlegmatic follower.”

Art Views Identity Conflict Argument Arguing Followers Supporter No Point Partisans

Author:Michael Lewis

“The whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed from the inorganic to the organic from blind force to conscious intellect and will.”

“It is not for nothing that Skaldin in one part of his book quotes Adam Smith: we have seen that both his views and the character of his arguments in many respects repeat the theses of that great ideologist of the progressive bourgeoisie.”

Book Character Views Argument Repeats Progressive Adam Bourgeoisie Thesis

Author:Vladimir Lenin

“The next time you find yourself in an argument, rather than defend your position, see if you can see the other point of view first.”

Ifs Firsts Funny Next Views Position Argument Stress Witty Point Of View Finding Yourself Next Time

Book:The Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Workbook: Exercises, Questions, and Self-Tests to Help You Keep the Little Things From Taking Over Your Life

Source: The Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Workbook: Exercises, Questions, and Self-Tests to Help You Keep the Little Things From Taking Over Your Life

“There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters. I don't mean to imply that they're all in that category at all. There are also those who are also not motivated by ideological resistance for any role of government. But I don't know of any arguments or any presenters of arguments that overturn the consensus that I think have gained any legitimacy.”

Thinking Knows Mean Government Views Roles Source Argument Income Resistance Motivated Categories Carbon Consensus Ideological Skeptic Legitimacy Presenter Role Of Government

Author:Al Gore

“My belief in free competitive economic enterprise does not rest solely or even mainly on arguments of economic efficiency, though, heaven knows, these are cogent enough. It rests essentially on the view that the free market is the only safe way of ensuring that productive effort is directed towards supplying what individuals actually want, and in a way which secures the dignity and independence of the worker.”

Knows Way Want Doe Enough Individual Belief Heaven Views Effort Economic Safe Argument Dignity Independence Workers Enterprise Productive Efficiency Free Market Economic Efficiency

Author:Margaret Thatcher

“Margaret Thatcher was beyond argument a great Prime Minister. Her tragedy is that she may be remembered less for the brilliance of her many achievements than for the recklessness with which she later sought to impose her own increasingly uncompromising views.”

May Views Achievement Argument Tragedy Ministers Remembered Prime Prime Minister Brilliance Uncompromising Recklessness

Author:Geoffrey Howe

“You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.”

Views Argument Opponents

Author:Milton Friedman

“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.”

Doe Has Beens Philosophy Literature Grows Views Perspective Argument Complexes Including Various Valuable Point Of View Introducing Initials Synthetic New Perspective Introducing New

Author:Philip Kitcher

“I'm afraid, is that there are a number of groups who really don't want a fair-minded judge who has an openness to both sides of the argument. Rather, they want judges who will impose their liberal agenda on the American people; views so liberal that they cannot prevail at the ballot box.”

People Want Sides Views Numbers Groups Judging Fairs Argument Boxes Agendas Openness Both Sides Ballots

Author:John Cornyn

“This willful deafness to religious argument, so new in our history, has had various effects. A principal one is encouragement of the already widespread view that religion doesn't have a lot to do with modern concerns - the way people live, the way they think.”

People Thinking Way Christian Religious Views Modern Effects Concern Argument Encouragement Various Principal Deafness

Author:William Murchison

“The Consequentialist trinity is typically regarded in this way: Bentham is crude, Mill's writings are full of howlers and inconsistencies, and Sidgwick was too smart to fully embrace Consequentialism. All of these great traditions in moral philosophy express strands of our moral consciousness and they should all be treated as research programs rather than as fully determinate views that can be leveled by a counterexample or by a clever argument.”

“There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.”

Views Argument Dear

Author:Rose Kennedy

“If there is such a thing as philosophical progress, then why - unlike scientific progress - is it so invisible? Philosophical progress is invisible because it is incorporated into our points of view. What was torturously secured by complex argument comes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance.”

Ifs Forget Views Progress Argument Philosophical Complexes Obvious Intuition Point Of View Invisible Forget It Secured Scientific Progress

Author:Rebecca Goldstein

“In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all - it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scientiﬁc problem is cornered.”

Ifs Ideas Problem Interesting Views Argument Function Assuming Guides Discussion Good Ideas Cornered Parsimony

Book:Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain

Source: Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain

“The humanities prepare students to be good citizens and help them understand a complicated, interlocking world. The humanities teach us critical thinking, how to analyze arguments, and how to imagine life from the point of view of someone unlike yourself.”

Thinking World Helping Humanity Views Teach Imagine Students Citizens Argument Complicated Critical Point Of View Be Good Critical Thinking Good Citizen

Author:Martha C. Nussbaum

“I do not teach history in my films. I don't have a linear point of view or argument. What I do in my films is to live the human experience; human, whether in Nazareth or anywhere else in the world.”

World Humans Film Views Teach Argument Point Of View Human Experience Linear Nazareth

Author:Elia Suleiman

“A mistake made by many people with great convictions is that they will let nothing stand in the way of their views, not even kindness.”

People Way Made Literature Views Mistake Kindness Argument Conviction

Author:Bryant H. McGill

“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

“Even fairly good students, when they have obtained the solution of the problem and written down neatly the argument, shut their books and look for something else. Doing so, they miss an important and instructive phase of the work. ... A good teacher should understand and impress on his students the view that no problem whatever is completely exhausted.”

“In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and repossession, and suffer his reason and feelings to determine for themselves; and that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of man, and generously enlarge his view beyond the present day.”

Men Reason Character Facts Feelings Science Suffering Simple Views Common Reader Offers Pages Argument Prejudice Determine Following Common Sense Settling Present Day True Character

Author:Thomas Paine

“If you are offended by reading views that disagree with yours, then yes, you will be offended. However, it is not gratuitously offensive, it simply puts an argument, and if your views are strong enough, as I believe they are, you will be able to defend your views. You will not say, "Oh, it's offensive, it's offensive." You will say "No, you are wrong here and you are wrong here," and that's what you should do.”

Ifs Should Believe Enough Able Reading Strong I Believe Fear Views Atheism Argument Rage Disagree Offensive Offended Strong Enough

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley - updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.”

“Paleontologists [fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study.”

Process Natural Views Study Students Evolution Argument Accounts Paid Data Preserves Experts Fancy Selection Fossils Natural Selection Stasis

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“Paul Davies takes us on a logically and rhetorically compelling modern search for human agency. This outstanding analysis, well informed by naturalistic views of our evolved affective nature, is the kind of philosophical work that is essential for a field to move forward when ever-increasing findings from modern science are inconsistent with traditional philosophical arguments. This book is for all who wish to immerse themselves in the modern search for free will. It is steeped in the rich liqueur of current scientific and philosophical perspectives and delusions.”

“The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And it has been wisely said that the man who knows only half of any question is worse off than the man who knows nothing of it. He is not only one-sided but his partisanship soon turns him into an intolerant and a fanatic. In general it is true that nothing which cannot stand up under discussion or criticism is worth defending.”

Knows Men Has Beens Said Turns Views Half Opinion Position He Man Argument Criticism Weak Discussion Fanatics Defenders Partisanship One Sided

Author:James E. Talmage

“When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida's ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held, will again seem an obvious pretext for discrimination.”

Years Looks Seems Sex Views Gay Argument Obvious Discrimination Florida Observers Sincerely Gay Marriage Bans Pretext Interracial Marriage

Author:Robert Lewis Hinkle

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