Derek Parfit on Truth
Browse 5 quotations attributed to Derek Parfit, catalogued under truth, with dates where available.
This page displays 5 quotations attributed to Derek Parfit and filed under "truth" in QuoteLineage. The selection is ordered by stored importance and quality scores, not citation counts. A topic label describes how an entry is catalogued; it does not establish the theme's importance in the author's work.
Attributed to Derek Parfit, entry #160354: "To think about reality we must use concepts, and certain truths about concepts may reveal, or reflect, truths about reality."
Attributed to Derek Parfit, entry #59073: "Even if moral truths cannot affect people, they can still be truths."
5 Quotes by Derek Parfit on Truth
"To think about reality we must use concepts, and certain truths about concepts may reveal, or reflect, truths about reality."
"Even if moral truths cannot affect people, they can still be truths."
"It has been widely believed that there are such deep disagreements between Kantians, Contractualists, and Consequentialists. That, I have argued, is not true. These people are climbing the same mountain on different sides."
"If we believe that there are some irreducibly normative truths, we might be believing what we ought to believe. If there are such truths, one of these truths would be that we ought to believe that there are such truths. If instead we believe that there are no such truths, we could not be believing what we ought to believe. If there were no such truths, there would be nothing that we ought to believe."
"Nagel once claimed that it is psychologically impossible to believe the Reductionist View. Buddha claimed that, though it is very hard, it is possible. I find Buddha’s claim to be true. After reviewing my arguments, I find that, at the reflective or intellectual level, though it is very hard to believe the Reductionist View, this is possible. My remaining doubts or fears seem to me irrational. Since I can believe this view, I assume that others can do so too. We can believe the truth about ourselves."