"A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience." - Doug Larson
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Quotes:
[Me on a Donut: Is this good?] Peanut. [Me: I know. Who had the other half?] XXX. She's in the toilet now. I dont know if thats a good sign.
I don't think I should do this in Singapore. I'll be detained under the Internal Security Act. I'm interested in how much people of different faiths share with each other... I wonder if people share more with people of the same faith... It's related to the group identification issue... They go to the Swiss Army... If you tell people they are playing with people in the same group as them, people share more.
[On Gregory Peck calling up a journalist for coffee while she was about to interview Schweitzer in Sartre's house] For the ladies, imagine Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt wanting to have coffee with you. What would you do? Yes yes yes yes yes!
He mentions me... 'There are people like XX XXX'. Me. 'But that's a good thing'... Naming me as a black sheep, but there is room for black sheep in our pasture.
manage to cox you into buying (coax)
Have you guys seen two girls- [Me and California Girl: *laugh*]
The devils are in the details (devil is)
This is what I said just now in works (words)
Next year, the 'integrated resort' will open... 'Integrated resort' with an attached casino.
In Economics experiments you never lie... For psychologists, no. For psychologists, you lie in all different ways... In Economics experiments you do what you say.
t'ran'sih'vity (transitivity)
t'ran'see'tee'tee'tee (transivitiy)
[On an economics student playing the dictator game and giving nothing] The standard theory has prevailed.
[Instructor: East Asian countries kept saving a lot.] *sotto voce* But I don't save.
[On environmental problems according to eco-feminists or social ecologists] How I as a man relate to women. Or how I, as an Asian, relate to white people, or people of other races.
What the socialists say, or what the social philosophers say, constitutes social ecology.
Where's the argument?... Well, feminists say: "Look, there is a connection between nature and women... They're connected in the way we talk... Nature is always a woman. You refer to nature as 'she'. 'Mother Earth'. No one talks about 'Father Earth'... Derogatory terms we use to describe women all come from nature. 'She's a cow', a 'bitch', a 'chick'"... [Student: That's stupid.] [Student 2: 'Dumb ass']... You want to abuse a man, you say 'You're a bastard'. You don't call him a dog. In English. I don't speak any other language... I'm not endorsing anything. Most ecofeminists are American women, and they speak English.
[On eco-feminism] Look at the word 'gynecology'. It comes from two words: 'gyn' and 'ecology'. At this point I will put my foot down and say 'Hold on a moment, this is stupid'... It comes from 'gyneco' and 'logy'... So anyway, that's their proof.
If the raping of women stops, the raping of nature will stop as well.
Just as Australians have been at the forefront of Environmental Philosophy, Australians have been at the forefront of eco-feminism.
[Female student] You stop raping women, you stop raping nature. I just don't get it.
[On social philosophy] The cause is social hierarchy... The rich oppress the poor. And typically - typically, white people oppress non-white people. It is this hierarchy and not so much the sexual and gender hierarchy. Incidentally, Murray Bookchin is very critical of eco-feminism. And of course, Murray Bookchin is a bit of a socialist... Multinational Corporations and corrupt and greedy world leaders.
[On returning essays] I'll give you five minutes to get over the shock
[On Tvergastein and Deep Ecology] Let's say you stay in Tampines, so you can also call it 'Ecosophy T'
premisses (written ) (premises)
[On disciplinary consistency and Arne Naess] [He believes conformity is] a sign of stagnation... He brings up the example of physics.
A lot of philosophers think that philosophy deals with truth, and for truth to have the kind of status that it has, for it to have the kind of conviction it has, for it to have the authority that it has... It's got to be absolutely true... To be called truth, it has to be... unchangeable, immutable, absolutely certain.
Arne Naess is part of Western Philosophy, even though he tries to go into Buddhism, Taoism, that sorta thing.
[On Descartes and teaching in class] What if I'm dreaming that I'm here talking to you? I do dream of that, occasionally. When I'm tired the dream is especially vivid.
[On conceptual and cultural relativism] It's true here, it's not true there - what is truth worth?
[Instructor on the will to life: What about a blade of grass makes it spring up when it is trampled on?] *sotto voce* Physics.
David Hume. A very very big name in philosophy. Right up there among the stars.
[Me: If this is an environmental philosophy class, why do at least half the people we study have such major problems?] That's why I put them in the tutorials... This is supposed to be interdisciplinary... That's why I put in a lot of people who are not philosophers, or who are very bad philosophers. Literature... Literary people... Bad science. Rachel Carson is a bad scientist.