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Catherine Rowett Quotes

Catherine Joanna Rowett is a British former Member of the European Parliament representing the Green Party of England and Wales, and academic. She is Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. She is known in particular for her work on Greek Philosophy, especially the Pre-Socratic philosophers. She was a Green Party Member of the European Parliament for the East of England from 2019 until 31 January 2020, when the United Kingdom left the European Union. Wikipedia  

✵ 29. December 1956
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Catherine Rowett: 10 quotes0 likes

Famous Catherine Rowett Quotes

“Sophistry is one of the methods by which politicians dress up their policies in alien clothing, to pass them off as more desirable than they really are. Spin doctors thrive best where ‘democracy’ is the slogan.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 7 : Spin doctors of the 5th century

“Much of the content of so-called Pythagorean teaching appears to be a mix of mystical gobble-de-gook and adulatory veneration of the genius of the founder.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 6 : Pythagoras and other mysteries

“For Heraclitus, the logos is something that we need to learn to notice if we are to understand the true significance of the world. It manifests itself all around us but, Heraclitus suggests, only a few intelligent people ever realize what is going on.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 5 : Heraclitus

“Plato’s metaphysics grew out of that of Parmenides, together with a strong feel for Heraclitus’s account of the physical world as a world of incessant change. His ethics were deeply inspired by Socrates, but his views on the soul also pick up on motifs that emerge in Pythagoras.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 4 : Reality and appearance: more adventures in metaphysics

“Xenophanes might be saying that we have only superficial understanding, and we never get to knowledge of the clear truth.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 4 : Reality and appearance: more adventures in metaphysics

“By taking us on a cumulative sequence from our own familiar gods, through those of other ethnic groups, to those of animals, Xenophanes shows that our own images have no more authority than those of animals.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 4 : Reality and appearance: more adventures in metaphysics

Catherine Rowett Quotes

“Philosophy asks for a reason, not just a scientific fact.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 1 : Lost words, forgotten worlds

“Besides the ‘how many?’ question, Empedocles seems to be answering two other ancient questions: ‘How did the world come to be as it now is?’ and ‘How did it come to have the creatures that it now has?’. [...] His answers are subtle and intricate.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 1 : Lost words, forgotten worlds

“If we are to understand what is going on in Empedocles’s writings, we need to think about the philosophical motives that drive him, and we need to make use of the bits of text we already had before the papyrus turned up.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 1 : Lost words, forgotten worlds

“Often, when thinking about Socrates (or about Plato’s depiction of Socrates), we need to remember that he is reacting to the Presocratics, but the reverse is never true.”

Catherine Rowett

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Introduction

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