To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.
Thomas NagelRead
Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
Interpretation
Philosophy is essential for intellectual growth; ignoring it stunts cultural development.
Thomas Nagel's quote emphasizes the importance of philosophy as a foundational aspect of intellectual development. He suggests that just as childhood is a crucial stage for personal growth, philosophy is necessary for a culture's maturity and understanding. Neglecting this discipline can lead to a stagnant society that fails to evolve or comprehend deeper truths about existence and governance.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture about the importance of philosophical education.
To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.
It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are supposed to abandon this naΓ―ve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.
There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.
Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.
The external view [of agency] forces itself on us at the same time that we resist it. One way this occurs is through the gradual erosion of what we do by the subtraction of what happens.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
Movement is my medicine, my meditation, my metaphor and my method, a living language we can rely upon to tell us the truth about who we are, who we are with, and where we are going. There is no dogma in the dance.
It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights; at a fair that your front pocket can be picked by a trotting horse looking for sugar, and your hind pocket by a thief looking for his fortune.
Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of.
When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.
Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description.
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