Quotes from Simon Blackburn

Epicurus old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? Cleanthes

An argument is valid when there is no way—meaning no possible way—that the premises, or starting points, could be true without the conclusion being true

An ethic gone wrong is an essential preliminary to the sweat-shop or the concentration camp and the death march.

Myself, I have never seen a bumper sticker saying " Hate if you Love Jesus ", but I sometimes wonder why not. It would be a good slogan for the religious Right.

Contemporary culture is not very good on responsibility.

It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart.

We can grieve over lost powers and memories, or rejoice over gained knowledge and maturity, according to taste.

But it is logically impossible that there could exist an 'unowned' dent, a dent without a surface that is dented.

In Michigan recently a man won a lawsuit for substantial damages because, he claimed, a rear-end collision in his car had made him a homosexual.

Chance is as relentless as necessity.

A signpost doesn't in and of itself represent the way to the village. We have to learn how to take it.

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.

The scientific world is to be less threatening than was feared. It is to made safe for human beings. And the way to make it safe is to reflect on the foundation of knowledge.

Since there is no telling in advance where it may lead, reflection can be seen as dangerous.

The word 'philosophy' carries unfortunate connotations: impractical, unworldly, weird.

We think about what to do, and muster considerations and arguments in favor of one course or another. How are we to think about that?

Motion however will not help unless we have things moving.

Paradigms can be asked to show their worth, an some of them do not stand up.

Finding a mechanism does not bypass the problem of induction.

People who have cut their teeth on philosophical problems of rationality, knowledge, perception, free will and other minds are well placed to think better about problems of evidence, decision making, responsibility and ethics that life throws up.

How you think about what you are doing affects how you do it, or whether you do it at all.

Someone sitting on a completely unreasonable belief is sitting on a time bomb. The apparently harmless, idiosyncratic belief of the Catholic Church that one thing may have the substance of another, although it displays absolutely none of its empirical qualities, prepares people for the view that some people are agents of Satan in disguise, which in turn makes it reasonable to destroy them.

There are always people telling us what we want, how they will provide it, and what we should believe. Convictions are infectious, and people can make others convinced of almost anything.

like any human practices, those of religions are not exempt from ethical questioning. Rituals and rites in groups change behavior, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. For the madness of crowds is a very close cousin to the fervor or congregations and the martial spirit of armies.