I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer.
Interpretation
Philosophers often challenge conventional wisdom and do not accept common answers without question.
In this quote, Richard Dawkins highlights the essence of philosophical inquiry, which is to question and critically examine what is often taken for granted in everyday thinking. He argues that philosophers are characterized by their reluctance to accept common sense as the ultimate answer, suggesting that true understanding requires deeper investigation and skepticism about widely held beliefs.
In practice
A professor might use this quote to illustrate the nature of philosophical thought in a class discussion.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
Any system which says, This is a rotten world, wait for the next, give up, do nothing, succumb--that may be the basic Lie and if we participate in believing it and acting (or rather not acting) on it we involve ourselves in the Lie and suffer dreadfully... which only reinforces that particular Lie.
Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified.
We from every religion feel comfortable in Britain because there is a host. The Church of England is a good host, it has been a major force in shaping England into such a tolerant society.
And every stone and every star a tongue, And every gale of wind a curious song. The Heavens were an oracle, and spoke Divinity: the Earth did undertake The office of a priest; and I being dumb (Nothing besides was dumb) all things did come With voices and instructions.
To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living
Human nature is so constituted, that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.
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