A Quote by Stephen Batchelor

Without a rigorous, self-critical discourse, one risks lapsing into pious platitudes and unexamined generalizations.

Stephen Batchelor

Quote Topics

Critical Discourse Generalizations Pious Platitudes Rigorous Risks Self Self-Critical Without

Quote Author

Stephen Batchelor
Scottish - Author
Born: April 7, 1953

Remaining a pop phenomenon for 20 years without dying or lapsing into self-parody is quite a feat.

Jennifer Egan

Civilized discourse demands critical thinking, self-reflexiveness, sober-headed analysis.

Daniel Lubetzky

To turn Karl [Popper]'s view on its head, it is precisely the abandonment of critical discourse that marks the transition of science. Once a field has made the transition, critical discourse recurs only at moments of crisis when the bases of the field are again in jeopardy. Only when they must choose between competing theories do scientists behave like philosophers.

Thomas Kuhn

Architecture is a discourse; everything is a discourse. Fashion discourse is actually a micro-discourse, because it's centered around the body. It is the most rapidly developing form of discourse.

Nate Lowman

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

Margaret Thatcher

Except for those who think in terms of pious platitudes or dogma or narrow prejudice (and those thoughts we aren't interested in), people don't speak their beliefs easily, or publicly.

Edward R. Murrow

Health education emphasizing risks is a form of pedagogy, which, like other forms, serves to legitimize ideologies and social practices. Risk discourse in the public health sphere allows the state, as the owner of knowledge, to exert power of the bodies of its citizens. Risk discourse, therefore, especially when it emphasizes lifestyle risks, serves as an effective Foucauldian agent of surveillance and control that is difficult to challenge because of its manifest benevolent goal of maintaining standards of health. In doing so, it draws attention away from the structural causes of ill-health.

Deborah Lupton

The culture of rigorous questioning and open discourse at the University of Chicago has opened minds to ideas that have changed the world.

Kenneth C. Griffin

Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?

Elizabeth Gilbert

One way that whites protect their positions when challenged on race is to invoke the discourse of self-defense. Through this discourse, whites characterize themselves as victimized, slammed, blamed, and attacked.

Robin DiAngelo

Arrogant or critical people are often people with low self-esteem who are afraid of taking risks. That's because, if you learn something new, you are then required to make mistakes in order to fully understand what you have learned.

Robert Kiyosaki

Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

Pawan Kalyan

Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

Che Guevara

One must search diligently to find laudatory comments on education (other than those pious platitudes which are fodder for commencement speeches). It appears that most persons who have achieved fame and success in the world of ideas are cynical about formal education. These people are a select few, who often achieved success in spite of their education, or even without it. As has been said, the clever largely educate themselves, those less able aren't sufficiently clever or imaginative to benefit much from education.

Edward Gibbon

Most corporate mission statements are worthless. They consist largely of pious platitudes such as: "We will hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism and ethical behavior." They often formulate necessities as objectives; for example, "to achieve sufficient profit." This is like a person saying his mission is to breathe sufficiently.