List of Robert Nozick Quotes

Evolutionary Cosmology Formulates Theories In Which A Universe Is Capable Of Giving Rise To And Generating Future Universes Out Of Itself, Within Black Holes Or Whatever.

I Think Philosophers Can Do Things Akin To Theoretical Scientists, In That, Having Read About Empirical Data, They Too Can Think Of What Hypotheses And Theories Might Account For That Data. So There's A Continuity Between Philosophy And Science In That Way.

It Is, From Another Angle, An Attack On Requiring Proof In Philosophy. And It's Also The Case, I Guess, That My Temperament Is To Like Interesting, New, Bold Ideas, And To Try And Generate Them.

Whatever The Practical Origins Of Aesthetic Discernment May Have Been, It Has Been Used To Create Great Works Of Art. When The Very Loftiest Human Creations Are Seen To Derive From Humble Origins And Functions, What Needs Revision Is Not Our Esteem For These Creations But Our Notion Of Nobility.

I Guess My Tendency Is To Think Essentially That The New Wrinkles Won't Do The Job If The Old Major Idea Didn't, And So You Have To Try Something Different. Then Maybe They Can All Be Combined In Some Coherent Piece.

Examples One Finds In The Philosophical Literature Are Somebody Who's Seen The Trial Of A Child Of Theirs, Where They're Being Proved Guilty Of Some Crime That Would Drive The Parent Into A Depression, Maybe A Suicidal Depression.

One Way To Determine If A View Is Inadequate Is To Check Its Consequences In Particular Cases, Sometimes Extreme Ones, But If Someone Always Decided What The Result Should Be In Any Case By Applying The Given View Itself, This Would Preclude Discovering It Did Not Correctly Fit The Case. Readers Who Hold They Would Plug In To The Machine Should Notice Whether Their First Impulse Was Not To Do So, Followed Later By The Thought That Since Only Experiences Could Matter, The Machine Would Be All Right After All.

And Although It Might Be Best Of All To Be Socrates Satisfied, Having Both Happiness And Depth, We Would Give Up Some Happiness In Order To Gain The Depth.

What Hadn't Been Realized In The Literature Until Now Is That Merely To Describe How Severely Something Has Been Tested In The Past Itself Embodies Inductive Assumptions, Even As A Statement About The Past.

Whoever Makes Something Having Bought Or Contracted For All Other Held Resources Used In The Process (transferring Some Of His Holdings For These Cooperating Factors), Is Entitled To It. The Situation Is Not One Of Something's Getting Made, And There Being An Open Question Of Who Is To Get It. Things Come Into The World Already Attached To People Having Entitlements Over Them.

There Is Room For Words On Subjects Other Than Last Words.

Our Principles Fix What Our Life Stands For, Our Aims Create The Light Our Life Is Bathed In, And Our Rationality, Both Individual And Coordinate, Defines And Symbolizes The Distance We Have Come From Mere Animality. It Is By These Means That Our Lives Come To More Than What They Instrumentally Yield. And By Meaning More, Our Lives Yield More.