For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we… — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
The only answer to the question of the meaning of life has to begin from the fact of our human finitude, of our vulnerability and our fallibility. — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
If I had a religious experience, what I know for sure is that I would stop doing philosophy and would start doing religion, teaching… — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
We live in a world that is dominated by science. And that's not a bad thing - not at all. But one of the problems with the scientific worldview is that it leads human beings to have an overwhelmingly theoretical relationship to the world. For example, I no longer accept my being in the world practically and then try to… — Simon Critchley Copy Share
The current situation with regard to theory is odd and maybe defined by a paradox. — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
There are two forms of disappointment that interest me: religious and political disappointment. Religious disappointment flows from the realization that religious belief is not an option for us. Political disappointment flows from the fact that there is injustice - that we live in a world that is radically unjust and violent, where might seems to equal right, where the poor… — Simon Critchley Copy Share
If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to… — Simon Critchley Copy Share
Philosophy for me is essentially atheistic. Now that's an anxious atheism. It's an atheism that is anxious because it inhabits questions that were resolved… — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that,… — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
Obama dreams of a society without power relations, without the agonism that constitutes political life. Against such a position one might assert that justice… — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
The influence of being in New York, made me realize a lot of the ethical and political ideas I want to push or promote… — Simon Critchley Copy Share Image
The other side of my work is political disappointment - the realization that we are living in an unjust world. "Blood is being spilled in the merriest way, as if it was champagne," Dostoevsky says. That raises the problem of justice, what it might mean in an unjust world and whether there can be an ethics and a political practice… — Simon Critchley Copy Share
Melancholia for Freud is the relationship that the subject takes up with respect to itself from the position of what he calls conscience or what he later calls the super-ego. And that can be lacerated - if you think of the anorexic who sees themselves from the perspective of the image they have, of the image they have of themselves… — Simon Critchley Copy Share
