I had abandoned Catholicism, but even during my short militant atheist period I maintained an interest in western religious art and music. — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
Science will always raise philosophical questions like, is any scientific theory or model correct? How do we know? Are unobserved things real? etc. and it seems to me of great importance that these questions are not just left to scientists, but that there are thinkers who make it their business to think as clearly and slowly about these questions as… — Tim Crane Copy Share
The wine itself has aesthetic value; but what it is for a wine to have aesthetic value cannot be understood without making reference to… — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
One odd thing about the current debate between religious people and atheists is that the participants don't seem to care that they entirely fail to communicate with the other side. They therefore have no account of why the religious or the atheists believe what they do, except that they are stupid or deluded. I think philosophers should try and make… — Tim Crane Copy Share
I do think that if you are trying to think empirically about the relationship between conscious experience and the underlying physical reality, wine provides an excellent practical example. Winemakers manipulate the chemicals they are dealing with in a way that is very sensitive to the kinds of effects it will have on the subjective experience of tasters - this is… — Tim Crane Copy Share
I'm not a militant atheist, just an atheist. In fact, in a largely atheist country like the UK I think it's a bit silly… — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
I think you can have a science of the taste of chicken soup, or the taste of Chateau Latour. My point is only that… — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
Naturalism is a methodological rather than a metaphysical view. It's because I am a naturalist, actually, that I am sceptical about physicalism. — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
Music is one of my big interests - I once had a rather fanciful ambition to be a singer - and of course music is philosophically fascinating. What it is for music to express emotion strikes me as one of the most difficult questions - it's hard to say what it precisely means, although it plainly does mean something. But… — Tim Crane Copy Share
Although a lot of my work on the mind has been rather abstract and philosophical, I'm interested in psychology and neuroscience and I don't… — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
A real naturalistic approach, I would claim, should take the reality of mental representation as a natural fact. A lot can be said about this fact, but there is no need to say it all in terms of necessary and/or sufficient conditions which are stated in non-intentional terms. The idea that naturalism might require that all the truths should be… — Tim Crane Copy Share
I have a general moral: great philosophers may be great, but that is not a reason to follow them. Don't be a follower. Work… — Tim Crane Copy Share Image
We have no proper understanding of the relationship between conscious thought and conscious sensation. The various forms of thought and sensation are underpinned by very different neural mechanisms; so how can the neural correlate of their conscious natures be the same? I don't think we are yet in a position to make such speculations. To make progress, we have to… — Tim Crane Copy Share
