Rebecca Goldstein Professions : Novelist Born : February 23, 1950 Browse All Authors Top 92 quotes by Rebecca Goldstein I would say to anybody who thinks that all the problems in philosophy can be translated into empirically verifiable answers - whether it be a Lawrence Krauss thinking that physics is rendering philosophy obsolete or a Sam Harris thinking that neuroscience is rendering moral philosophy obsolete - that it takes an awful lot of philosophy - philosophy of science in the first case, moral philosophy in the second - even to demonstrate the relevance of these empirical sciences. Rebecca Goldstein answers philosophy thinking I like that there are so many different ways of looking at the world and I like all of the particular narratives. In any case we will never all see the same way on these [religious] issues. It's the way liberals and conservatives will never see the same way on individuals whereas it’s different orientations and they go too deep down and when we're dealing with questions that can't be definitively answered by science that's where you're sort of... your orientation swells in to fill up the gaps and so we're never always going to agree. Rebecca Goldstein issues different religious I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household and I wouldn't say so much it's informed my views, but it's informed my interest, so I think as a child I was often very baffled by knowledge claims. Rebecca Goldstein views children thinking Philosophy addresses, in a systematic and progress-making way, questions of deep concern to everyone. Rebecca Goldstein systematic progress philosophy 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. Rebecca Goldstein rights views philosophy It's very important to remember that the philosophers were social dissidents. They were social critics. The man in the street or woman in the street did not particularly cherish what they said. Socrates was killed. Rebecca Goldstein philosopher important men It's something that's very often said that philosophy, as opposed to science, never makes any progress. Rebecca Goldstein progress said philosophy Are there experts, ethical experts, that's very offensive to all of us? Because it's part of our humanity to have a stake in these questions to feel that we ourselves know the difference between right and wrong. And then along come these experts, philosophers, claiming, you know, an expertise, a special training, a special skill, a special talent. Rebecca Goldstein differences skills humanity One of the interesting things about the ancient Greeks is that they really didn't have our conception of individual rights. They didn't have our conception of all lives matters. And it was really was true for them, that certain lives matter a lot more than others. It didn't dawn on them that all lives, although different, can be lives of equal mattering. And that is actually something a huge ethical lesson. Rebecca Goldstein greek rights interesting Philosophy is this amazing technique we've devised for getting reality to answer us back when we're getting it wrong. Science itself can't make those arguments. You actually have to rely on philosophy, on philosophy of science. Rebecca Goldstein technique philosophy reality So dogma, doctrine, unexamined assumptions, that's what it is to be sharing that, the hippies shadow, no way of grounding it to reality. It's where we're just cut off from reality unless we can argue, we can substantiate, we can justify, we can convince each other. Rebecca Goldstein cutting hippie reality The essence of ethics is that, to the extent that any one of us matters, every single person matters in exactly the same way, those lives( the crash victims) mattered just as much as yours does. Rebecca Goldstein top-news Similar Authors Adam Johnson novelist Ivan Goncharov novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum novelist Bruce Jay Friedman novelist Buchi Emecheta novelist Bryce Courtenay novelist All Authors