My ethical naturalism sees us as facing the predicament of being social animals without evolved adaptations that make social life easy. The… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I use biography, I use literary connections (as with Platen - this seems to me extremely helpful for appreciating the nuances of… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Aschenbach is not only a projection of Mann in the obvious ways - same daily routines, author of the works Mann had… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Finally, this is one way to reconcile the delight in beauty with the bourgeois life. Aschenbach, on one reading, has spent virtually… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Even though I want to expand the number of ways in which skilful ironic play happens, I suspect I'm probably guilty of… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
There are many critics whose work I greatly admire. Even though I diverge from T.J. Reed in several important ways, I've learned… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
In working towards ways of reading Mann, so that his own advances in suggesting new perspectives will become more vivid, I do… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
When we read a literary work (or, in some instances, listen to music) our imagination is stimulated, we feel various emotions, and… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I'm a pluralist about perspectives on literature. There seem to me to be all sorts of illuminating ways of responding to major… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I intend Deaths in Venice to contribute both to literary criticism and to philosophy. But it's not "strict philosophy" in the sense… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I found a deep kinship between Mahler's recurrent attempts to confront all sides of life and to affirm himself in the face… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Sometime during the 1990s, when I was teaching philosophy at UCSD, my friend, colleague, and music teacher, Carol Plantamura, discussed the possibility… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Part of my methodological approach is made explicit when I discuss ways in which literature can have philosophical significance. Literature doesn't typically… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I suspect that any worthwhile exploration of these deep questions about living requires going beyond abstract discussions to the vivid presentation of… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Both Proust and Joyce record the ways in which human perspectives can be transformed. In Portrait, Stephen Dedalus is constantly undergoing epiphanies,… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
In the end, we learn about the most basic philosophical questions - like "How to live?" - from a broad mixture of… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
One of the things I want to do in the book is to explore how philosophy can be done in literature. I… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
We know that he gave Aschenbach Mahler's first name, and also his facial features. So Visconti picks up on something interesting. That… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
I didn't know that Mahler would come to play so large a role, nor that music and literature and philosophy can interinanimate… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
The variety within Mann's fiction is impressive and fascinating. But Joyce is even more various and many-sided. He begins his career with… — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Those citizens are distracted by the toys technology has supplied, and fail to recognize the ways in which what they most deeply… — 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 Image
Refined religion is aimed at realizing ethical values, including the fostering of human lives and human communities. — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
In my view, we ought to replace the notion of analytic philosophy by that of synthetic philosophy. — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
Philosophers ought to aspire to know lots of different things and to forge useful synthetic perspectives. — Philip Kitcher Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
