Simon Blackburn Quotes on Nature
Simon Blackburn is a British philosopher, professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, and one of the leading defenders of expressivism in contemporary metaethics. This page collects quotes attributed to Simon Blackburn on the topic of nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Simon Blackburn:
“Mind is not the mirror of nature; mind is one of nature's accomplishments.”
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Attributed to Simon Blackburn:
“An honest naturalism is enough for ethics.”
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“We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable... We want to enjoy our lives, and we want to enjoy them with a good conscience ... Ethics is disturbing. We are often vaguely uncomfortable when we think of such things as exploitation of the world's resources, or the way our comforts are provided by the miserable labour conditions of the third world ... Racists and sexists, like antebellum slave owners in America, always have to tell themselves a story that justifies their system .”
Simon Blackburn , Being Good (2001) -
“The scientific world is to be less threatening than was feared. It is to be made safe for human beings. And the way to make it safe is to reflect on the foundation of knowledge .”
Chapter One, Knowledge, p. 17 -
“Thoughts are strange things. they have 'representational' powers: a thought typically represents the world as being one way or another. A sensation, by contrast, seems to just sit there.”
Chapter Two, Mind, p. 78