Top 6 Quotes & Sayings by Galen Strawson

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British philosopher Galen Strawson.

Last updated on November 8, 2024.

Galen John Strawson is a British analytic philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche. He has been a consultant editor at The Times Literary Supplement for many years, and a regular book reviewer for The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Independent, the Financial Times and The Guardian. He is the son of philosopher P. F. Strawson. He holds a chair in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, and taught for many years prior to that at the University of Reading, City University of New York, and Oxford University.

British - Philosopher | Born: 1952

Source: Wikipedia

It is true that 'I seem to see a table' does not entail 'I see a table'; but 'I seem to feel a pain' does entail 'I feel a pain'. So scepticism loses its force - cannot open up its characteristic gap - with regard to that which ultimately most concerns us, pleasure and pain.

Galen Strawson

Free will is the thing you have to have if you're going to be responsible in this all-or-nothing way. That's what I mean by free will. That's what I think we haven't got and can't have.

Galen Strawson

It is an insult to God to believe in God. For on the one hand it is to suppose that he has perpetrated acts of incalculable cruelty. On the other, it is to suppose that he has perversely given his human creatures an instrument - their intellect - which must inevitably lead them, if they are dispassionate and honest, to deny his existence. It is tempting to conclude that if he exists, it is the atheists and agnostics that he loves best, among those with any pretensions to education. For they are the ones who have taken him most seriously.

Galen Strawson

You do what you do - in the circumstances in which you find yourself - because of the way you are. So if you're going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you're going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are - at least in certain mental respects. But you can't be ultimately responsible for the way you are (for the reasons just given). So you can't be ultimately responsible for what you do.

Galen Strawson

Sometimes we need to speak oddly to see clearly.

Galen Strawson

If someone harmed or tortured or killed one of my children I'd feel everything almost anyone else would feel. I'd probably have intense feelings of revenge. But these feelings would fade. In the end they're small and self-concerned. Only the grief would last.

Galen Strawson

Top 6 Quotes & Sayings by Galen Strawson

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