Being a good neighbour is about compassion, which is as warm-blooded as justice is cool-headed.
Julian BagginiWhen you try to cool down hot emotions, what tends to happen is that you end up either repressing them or losing them altogether. Neither is desirable. Without emotion, much social interaction loses its meaning, or changes for the worse.
Julian BagginiTo a certain extent all philosophers have been involved in a systematic questioning that undermines confidence and certainty. Philosophy as a whole unleashed skeptical forces which, outside of the tightly controlled environment of a rigorous philosophical debate, led a lot of people to throw their hands up in despair and think 'what's the point?'. A lot of the public perception of philosophy is that it leaves you with no answers, and more confused than you were at the beginning.
Julian BagginiYou don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.
Julian BagginiIf we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.
Julian BagginiWhen you try to translate any kind of real-life problem into a neat logical form, you're almost always simplifying it. We need a kind of blend - we need to use not just tools of logic, which are important and valuable - I'm not denying that, but also tools of judgement, and of inductive and abductive reasoning which can also inform.
Julian Baggini