Quotes from Dave Robinson

politics was a necessarily dirty game of treachery and deceit.

Kierkegaard's analysis of this "fear of freedom" is an intriguing one, pursued and expanded on by philosophers as different as Jean-Paul Sartre and Erich Fromm (1900–80). It can make individuals and whole societies "inauthentic". People, as individuals or en masse, are too often happy to "escape" this fear by retreating into an obedience to ideologies dictated by others.

Human beings seem reluctant to accept that morality is something invented by themselves and so tend to legitimize moral rules by mythologizing their origins:

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind

Those who wish to preserve political power structures are often very keen on genetic determinism.

Theocratic societies governed by priestly castes are usually static and monopolize thought. They insist on orthodox explanations and actively discourage independent and unconventional ideas. Today's beliefs must always be like yesterday's.

He didn't accept that material objects were just inferior copies of eternal "Forms". For Aristotle, everything is made of unique "substances" which have "essential" or "accidental" properties. Essential properties define something.

For Marx, history is the story of a constant dialectical struggle, not between abstract Hegelian ideas but between all too real classes and economic forces. This is why his philosophy is sometimes called Dialectical Materialism

Hobbes encouraged a new interest in human nature and a belief that governments only have the right to rule through contract.

IF A MAJORITY IN EVERY CIVILIZED COUNTRY SO DESIRED, WE COULD, WITHIN 20 YEARS, ABOLISH ALL ABJECT POVERTY, QUITE HALF THE ILLNESS IN THE WORLD, THE WHOLE ECONOMIC SLAVERY WHICH BINDS DOWN NINE TENTHS OF OUR POPULATION; WE COULD FILL THE WORLD WITH BEAUTY AND JOY, AND SECURE THE REIGN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE.

Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) suggested that the individual just needed tranquillity and peace of mind to be happy. As a follower of Democritus, he maintained that death was nothing to fear – it was simply the inevitable melting of our souls and bodies into atoms.

Knowledge is a dynamic cultural and historical process, not some timeless product waiting to be discovered "out there".

All human beings are pain-pleasure organisms. Moral and political philosophy should therefore seek to increase pleasure and minimize pain. It should be democratic.

if a friendship exists only because it benefits us personally, then perhaps it's a lesser kind of relationship. Kant would say that friends have to be ends in themselves, not means. Friendship has 'intrinsic', not mere 'instrumental' worth.