Plato worried that philosophical writing would take the place of living conversations for which, in philosophy, there is no substitute. Rebecca Goldstein More Quotes by Rebecca Goldstein More Quotes From Rebecca Goldstein Math . . . music .. . starry nights . . . These are secular ways of achieving transcendence, of feeling lifted into a grand perspective. It's a sense of being awed by existence that almost obliterates the self. Religious people think of it as an essentially religious experience but it's not. It's an essentially human experience. Rebecca Goldstein atheist religious math What is remarkable about the Greeks - even pre-philosophically - is that despite the salience of religious rituals in their lives, when it came to the question of what it is that makes an individual human life worth living they didn't look to the immortals but rather approached the question in mortal terms. Their approaching the question of human mattering in human terms is the singularity that creates the conditions for philosophy in ancient Greece, most especially as these conditions were realized in the city-state of Athens. Rebecca Goldstein cities religious philosophy I'm a Spinozist. I believe in reason. I think all the progress that we've made making this a better world have been because of reason and not religion. I think religion has been pulled along by reason and that's why we read The Bible now so differently, even believers. Rebecca Goldstein progress believe thinking Philosophical thinking that doesn't do violence to one's settled mind is no philosophical thinking at all. Rebecca Goldstein philosophical mind thinking Participation in the collective life of the polis both restrains the extraordinary individual and enlarges the ordinary individual, allowing him to participate in the extraordinary. An individual can achieve participatory excellence via the accomplishments of the polis and need not always be caught up in the agnostic struggle to outdo his peers. Rebecca Goldstein accomplishment excellence struggle Everybody is struggling to refine their views in opposition to the other people. And that's one of the most important things that philosophy actually has to teach us that you have to air your views and bring them to the table with people - with whom you disagree very much. Rebecca Goldstein struggle air philosophy Answers? Forget answers. The spectacle is all in the questions. Rebecca Goldstein answers forget I don't only act out of my character; my character reacts to my actions. Each time I why, even if I'm not caught, I become a little bit more of this ugly thing: a liar. Character is always in the making, with each morally valenced action, whether right or wrong, affecting our characters, the people who we are. Rebecca Goldstein ugly-things liars character Having your husband at a party is like adding anchovies to a salad. I love anchovies, but you can't taste anything else. Rebecca Goldstein salad party husband It was while I was studying philosophy that I came to understand. . . that it is no sign of moral or spiritual strength to believe that for which one has no evidence, neither a priori evidence as in math, nor a posteriori evidence as in science. . . . It's a violation almost immoral in its transgressiveness to shirk the responsibilities of rationality. Rebecca Goldstein spiritual philosophy believe What was tortuously secured by complex argument becomes widely shared intuition, so obvious that we forget its provenance. We don’t see it, because we see with it. Rebecca Goldstein argument intuition forget I was trained as a philosopher never to put philosophers and their ideas into historical contexts, since historical context has nothing to do with the validity of the philosopher's positions. I agree that assessing validity and contextualizing historically are two entirely distinct matters and not to be confused with one another. And yet that firm distinction doesn't lead me to endorse the usual way in which history of philosophy is presented. Rebecca Goldstein confused philosophy ideas And then there is Pythagoras. The legend is that the founder of theoretical mathematics was so outraged when one of his students, the haplessly gifted Hippasus, discovered irrational numbers that he sent the poor fellow out on a raft to drown, initiating a venerable tradition of professors mistreating their graduate students. Rebecca Goldstein irrational-numbers legends students God doesn't help. I think that's a knockdown argument. I think that it really shows that whatever moral knowledge we have and whatever moral progress we make in our knowledge or whatever progress we make in our moral knowledge is not coming really from religion. It's coming from the very hard work really of moral philosophy, of trying to ground our moral reasonings. Rebecca Goldstein hard-work philosophy thinking I think one reason is that philosophers are more insecure to speak accessibly because non-philosophers are skeptical that philosophers have any special expertise. After all, all people - not just philosophers - have attitudes and points of view on various philosophical questions, and they rather resent being told that there are professionals who can think about these things better. Rebecca Goldstein insecure philosophical attitude The philosophers talk across the centuries exclusively to one another, hermetically sealed from any influences derived from non-philosophical discourse. Rebecca Goldstein philosopher philosophical influence I've got access to your mysterious body but not your mysterious soul. Souls seem to me the loneliest possibility of all. Rebecca Goldstein mysterious body soul When the first people started to argue against slavery, for example, this was a new idea. If you crowd-source, you'd never come up with this. And so the - exactly the kind of progress we've made couldn't be made if we depend it on crowd-sourcing. Rebecca Goldstein progress people ideas Our humanist community should be thinking more about demonstrating the fundamental truth that goodness requires neither God nor the belief in God by organizing together as a community to do good. Less money spent on billboards that just make us feel good about ourselves and more on soup kitchens and organized visits to the sick and dying. Rebecca Goldstein soup-kitchens compassion thinking Plato dramatically puts the detachment of the philosopher from his time this way: to philosophize is to prepare to die. Rebecca Goldstein philosopher plato way
