“What were they thinking?' we ask about our ancestors, but we know that, a century hence, our descendents will ask the same thing about us. Who knows what will strike them as strangest? The United States incarcerates 1 percent of… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
There are many people of cosmopolitan temperament who are not from the elites of their societies or the world; and while, for a variety… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
Cosmopolitans begin, I think, with a sense of one thing we all certainly share, which is our fallibility. Nobody has reason to be confident… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
In life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
“It's important to understand that while honor is an entitlement to respect--and shame comes when you lose that title--a person of honor cares first… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
A value is like a fax machine: it’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one. — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
I've long had the idea that the factors that are most important in determining what we believe, how we live, and what we accomplish are matters of accident. That is, we did not choose where to be born, who our parents would be, or what we would look like. Yet those factors play an enormous role in almost everything about… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share
When philosophers talk about reason they often have in mind Having been in the business of philosophy more than half my life, I have learned that reason doesn't change many minds. But there's a more ordinary sense of resonableness, which involves not just logic but a sensitivity to other peoples real concerns, a desire to understand, even when you don't… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share
I started philosophy looking for answers. But along the way I came to prize exploring the questions. Progress in philosophy consists, I think, in… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
“This is, of course, an easy Berlinian riposte. Start with some graceful hand waving about incommensurability; declare that nothing could reconcile these great goods;… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share Image
Conversations...begin with the sort of imaginative engagement you get when you read a novel or watch a movie or attend to a work of art that speaks from some place other than your own. So I'm using the word 'conversation' not only for literal talk but also as a metaphor for engagement with the experience and ideas of others. And… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share
I favor a form of cosmopolitanism that takes nations very seriously, particularly because of the role of national law in sustaining or, unfortunately, undermining human rights. Some cosmopolitans take the metaphor of global citizenship - the etymology of the word, after all, just comes from a Greek phrase meaning citizen of the world - to rule out taking national citizenship… — Kwame Anthony Appiah Copy Share
