There's a disciplined erotic component to it, so that the height of sexual contact is the embrace, the modest touch, a relatively chaste kiss. An important passage from the surviving 1942 diary (one I quote in the book) relates this… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Wilhelmine Germany was hostile to the expression of same-sex love - and, of course, Mann would have known of the fate of Oscar Wilde. His early reading of Platen's poetry, and, probably when he was in his early twenties, of… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I'm a fan of Hugh Kenner, Richard Ellman, Lionel Trilling and Frank Kermode. All these people have taught me how to read - but… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
Refined religion is aimed at realizing ethical values, including the fostering of human lives and human communities. — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
Many of the greatest works of philosophy seem to me to be valuable not because of their arguments, but because they offer us perspectives… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
As I read Mann in German for the first time, the full achievement - both literary and philosophical - of Death in Venice struck… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
Look at Mann's reading habits, his explicit comments on Nietzsche, and his copy of Birth of Tragedy, and it starts to seem doubtful that… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
My ethical naturalism sees us as facing the predicament of being social animals without evolved adaptations that make social life easy. The fundamental problem… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
So my methodological approach is to draw on many different features in highlighting different facets of the novella (and the opera and the film). — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
In my view, we ought to replace the notion of analytic philosophy by that of synthetic philosophy. — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives. — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
The balance between literature and philosophy in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche is different from that struck in the novella, but, as Mann clearly pointed out… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
I don't think that anything of any consequence is known a priori: all our knowledge is built up by modifying the lore passed on… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
Because the problems are objective features of the human situation - social animals without the capacities for making social life come easily - ethics… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
I'm very concerned about the increasing distortion of research by the intrusion of the market. Universities are beginning to see science as a means… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
There's a disciplined erotic component to it, so that the height of sexual contact is the embrace, the modest touch, a relatively chaste kiss.… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
The classical allusions and the Platonic disquisitions on beauty are no longer a form of cover, but integral to Aschenbach's complex sexuality. Moreover, the… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share
