Quotes by Raymond Geuss - Page 1

Asking what the question is, and why the question is asked, is always asking a pertinent question.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Asking
Pertinent
Pertinent Questions
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The idea that all problems either have a solution or can be shown to be pseudo-problems is not one I share.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Ideas
Problem
Pseudo
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One way ... in which a political philosophy can be ideological is by presenting a relatively marginal issue as if it were central and essential.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Issues
Philosophy
Political
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Neither the good nor the true is self-realizing, so it is not generally a sufficient explanation of why people believe that X is true, or of why people do Y that Y is good.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Believe
People
Self
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The Kantian philosophy is no more than at best a half-secularized version of such a theocratic ethics, with "Reason" in the place of God. This does not amount to much more than a change of names.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Doe
Names
Philosophy
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The general point that a political theory is, among other things, a partisan intervention, is well taken. So question about the actual political implication of a theory cannot be excluded as, in principle, irrelevant.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Political
Principles
Taken
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When Catullus expresses his love and hate for Lesbia, he is not obviously voicing a wish to rid himself of one or the other of these two sentiments. Not all contradictions resolve into temporal change of belief or desire.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Hate
Two
Wish
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Can one understand politics without understanding history, especially the history of political thought, and will this distinguish political philosophy from some other kinds of philosophy (such as, perhaps, logic) to which the study of history is not integral?
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Philosophy
Political
Understanding
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A major danger in using highly abstractive methods in political philosophy is that one will succeed merely in generalizing one's own local prejudices and repackaging them as demands of reason. The study of history can help to counteract this natural human bias.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Philosophy
Political
Prejudice
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We do not wish to "judge" or assess out surrounding merely as a kind of expressive activity carelessly projected onto the world, but we wish to evaluate the world "correctly," i.e., in according with that it truly is, and the desire to know is directed at determining what the world truly is.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Desire
Judging
Wish
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Nietzsche seems sometimes to replace the "transcendence" which stands at the center of traditional accounts the existence of a transcendent God, or, failing that, a transcendental viewpoint with that of a continually transcending activity. ... There is no single, final perspective, but given any one perspective, we can always go beyond it.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Finals
Perspective
Viewpoints
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It would be a mistake to believe that one could come to any substantive understanding of politics by discussing abstractly the good, the right, the true, or the rational in complete abstraction from the way in which these items figure in the motivationally active parts of the human psyche, and particularly in abstraction from the way in which they impinge, even if indirectly, on human action.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Believe
Mistake
Understanding
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To the extent to which the pull that moves me really is irresistible, like an invincibly strong addiction, the normal procedures of evaluation, deliberation, choice, decision, etc. that constitute the substance of our political life are not operating. The same is true of overwhelming aversion. The person being tortured who simply wants it to stop, period, is also not a good model for an agent acting politically.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Addiction
Moving
Strong
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In some central and important cases, ... the existence of specific power relations in the society will produce an appearance of a particular kind. Certain features of the society that are merely local and contingent, and maintained in existence only by the continual exercise of power, will come to seem as if they were universal, necessary, invariant, or natural features of all forms of human social life, or as if they arose spontaneously and uncoercedly by free human action.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Action
Exercise
Important
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Humans in modern societies are driven by a perhaps desperate hope that they might find some way of mobilizing their theoretical and empirical knowledge and their evaluative systems so as both to locate themselves and their projects in some larger imaginative structure that makes sense to them. ... Furthermore, many modern agents would like it to be the case that the form of orientation which their life has is, if not true, at least compatible with the best available knowledge.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Agents
Might
Way
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Monotheistic religions in the West have tended to conflate having a general orientation in life, having a specific theory of the world, having a sense of the positive meaningfulness of one's existence, and having a fixed set of rules for behavior, but these elements are in principle separable. ... The "metaphysical need," ... both Marx and Nietzsche held, is a historical phenomenon that arises under determinate circumstances, and could be expected to disappear under other circumstances that we could relatively easily envisage.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Historical
Needs
Principles
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It is an assumption that there is always one single dimension for assessing persons and their actions that has canonical priority. This is the dimension of moral evaluation; "good/evil" is supposed always to trump any other form of evaluation, but that is an assumption, probably the result of the long history of the Christianisation and then gradual de-Christianisation of Europe, which one need not make. Evaluation need not mean moral evaluation, but might include assessments of efficiency, ... simplicity, perspicuousness, aesthetic appeal, and so on.
Raymond Geuss / Philosopher
Assessment
Europe
Mean
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Raymond Geuss Quotes - Page 1

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