Chapter 2: How Do We Begin to Think About the World? (PDF)
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Véronique Pin-Fat
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Summary
This chapter explores ways of thinking about the world, particularly in the context of international relations. It uses thought experiments to analyze different perspectives on issues such as the Syrian Refugee Crisis, and considers how these ways of thinking shape our understanding of global politics and ethics. The chapter delves into broader issues of how we think about thinking itself.
Full Transcript
# Chapter 2 ## How do we begin to think about the world? - Véronique Pin-Fat ### The question ### Thinking and language ### Illustrative example #### The Syrian Refugee Crisis - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has described Syria as “the biggest refugee crisis of our ti...
# Chapter 2 ## How do we begin to think about the world? - Véronique Pin-Fat ### The question ### Thinking and language ### Illustrative example #### The Syrian Refugee Crisis - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has described Syria as “the biggest refugee crisis of our time” (UN 2016). - Although statistics are highly contestable and can’t express the impact of events on people’s everyday lives, the figures collated by various agencies give some sense of the scale of the crisis. - The UNHCR 2017 statistics are that 12 million, over half the population of Syria, have been displaced by the conflict in the country, of which: 5.5 million are registered refugees, 6.3 million are internally displaced persons (IDPs), and 185,000 are asylum seekers (UNHCR 2017: 6). - The majority (87 per cent) of Syrian refugees have been hosted by neighboring states: Turkey (2.8 million), Lebanon (1 million), Jordan (648,800), Iraq (230,800), and Egypt (116,000). - Further afield, the largest number of Syrian refugees are hosted in Germany (375,100), Sweden (96,900), Austria (31,000), and the Netherlands (28,400) (UNHCR 2017: 16-17). - Such numbers are difficult to comprehend without some sense of the context that has generated them and of people’s lives in Syria and beyond. ### General responses ### Thought experiments as ways of thinking #### Lifeboat ethics #### Skittles #### The original position and veil of ignorance ### Broader issues ### Thinking about thinking ### Questioning thought experiments as pictures ### Conclusion #### Further reading #### Websites
