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Simon Critchley Biography

Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960) is an English philosopher and Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He writes on a wide variety of topics including: history of philosophy, political theory, religion, ethics, aesthetics, literature, theatre, David Bowie, Hamlet, Suicide, and most recently, Football.

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Simon Critchley Quotes

It's complicated. On the one hand we're killer apes, and on the other hand we have this metaphysical longing.

Hands, Killers, Apes, Longing, Metaphysical

I think that when people are at their best, when they are thinking, reflecting, cogitating, then they are doing philosophy. So I don't see philosophy as an academic enterprise.

Academic, Cogitating, Enterprise, People, Philosophy, Thinking

I guess what happens to a lot of people as they get older is that they get more conservative, but with me, the opposite is the case.

Case, Conservative, Opposites, People

That is to say, politics is essentially about the management of fear, an economy of fear, continually adjusting the level of fear to produce the right level of affect in the citizenry.

Levels, Adjusting, Management, Essentially, Politics, Level

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 live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice?

Disappointment, Philosophy, Thinking, Level, Live, Begins

There are lots of stories about how philosophy begins. Some people claim it begins in wonder; some people claim it begins in worry. I claim it begins in disappointment.

Disappointment, Philosophy, People, Begins, Wonder

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 in the mirror which is false - that would be the super-ego. Super-ego is what generates depression and it is what has to be dealt with in psychoanalysis.

Mirrors, Perspective, Psychoanalysis, Relationship, Takes, Thinking

So yes, I'm trying to think about the connections between politics and poetry. There's an awful lot you could say here. Poetics is a form of poesis, a form of production-construction, but there might be ways of conceiving of that in a much more interesting manner. That's what I'm thinking about at the moment.

Thinking, Interesting, Trying, Manner, Think

It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth.

Limits, Oneself, Ridiculous, Version

For authoritarians such as Lenin and Žižek, the dichotomy in politics is state power or no power, but I refuse to concede that these are the only options. Genuine politics is about the movement between these poles, and it takes place through the creation of what I call "interstitial distance" within the state.

Call, Creation, Distance, Movement, Politics, Power

The philosopher is someone who doesn't know, but who wants to find out.

Want, Philosopher, Knows, Know

For me, philosophy is an activity of thought that is common to human beings. Human beings at their best.

Being Human, Common, Human, Philosophy

I am opposing it with an idea of the history of philosophy as a history of philosophers, that is, a history of mortal, fragile and limited creatures like you and I. I am against the idea of clean, clearly distinct epochs in the history of philosophy or indeed in anything else. I think that history is always messy, contingent, plural and material. I am against the constant revenge of idealism in how we think about history.

Against, Clean, Philosophers, Philosophy, Revenge, Thinking

Shore up the mean with reverence and terror. But never banish terror from the gates of the state. The stronger the fear, the stronger the reverence for the just, the stronger your country's wall and the city's safety.

Country, Gates, Mean, Safety, Stronger, Wall

Christianity in the West, opens up a perspective of depth into what it means to be a self. And that depth of the self is something that is experienced in the sight of God. So that the great thinkers of self and subjectivity are Paul and Augustine. They look at the self from the perspective of God and they find themselves wretched and interesting. Constituted by conflictual desires.

Experienced, Interesting, Mean, Paul, Self, Sight

Being anthropologically respectful of all faiths means being committed to none, and being left to drift without an anchor for one's most deeply held beliefs. To have such an anchor means being committed to a specific community. The only way Obama can overcome his sense of detachment and resolve his mother's dilemma is through a commitment to Christianity.

Christianity, Commitment, Mean, Mother, Sense, Way

The culture of irony is the culture of postmodernism, which I would furiously want to denounce. We have to act ethically and politically. Irony is a defensive position, against reality. It always knows what to think about reality. The idea of commitment and engagement is central to me, which is not ironic.

Commitment, Reality, Thinking, Politically, Act, Central

When the animal becomes human, the effect is pleasingly benign and we laugh outloud, "Okay come clean now. This isn't really about hunting, is it?" But when the human becomes animal, the effect is disgusting, and if we laugh at all, then it is what Beckett calls the "mirthless laugh", which laughs at that which is unhappy.

Animal, Beckett, Clean, Hunting, Laughing, Unhappy

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 religiously in the pre-modern period.

Atheism, Atheistic, Modern, Philosophy, Religiously

If I had a religious experience, what I know for sure is that I would stop doing philosophy and would start doing religion, teaching classes in religion, preaching in a local church. That is fine and noble activity. But I do not feel entitled to engage in it. So for me philosophy is my fate.

Classes, Engage, Philosophy, Religious, Stop, Teaching

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