GREATEST PHILOSOPHER

[Ezra]

CAST YOUR VOTE!

[munenori2]

Not a big fan of Eastern philosophy I take it.

[ArchonAlarion]

Thats not philosophy thats "barbarian mysticism" thankyouverymuch.

[Enters Laughing]

I voted for Russell. It was either him or Hume for me.

[Smilingeyes]

I voted Wittgenstein because he was of the general opinion that reading philosophy makes one dull.

[Gilly]

Me.

[munenori2]

I had to give Spinoza some love, but I would have gone Chuang Tzu over anybody else. Second tier picks for me would be Locke/Witty/Nietzsche over Hume simply because of the readibility and style. Of the ones I've read I had the most difficulty with Kant and the most derision for Ayn Rand (she's tied for the lead too lol), although I don't pretend to be that familiar with the work of some of the more contemporary voices like Nozick or Ayer or most any of the Frenchies.

[Christy B]

Can't go wrong with Kant. But that list could be bigger.

HOLY SHIT YOUR AVATAR FREAKS ME OUT!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[munenori2]

o.o

What. The. Fuck. Whatthefuck. Knowledge is power? Yes? No? Maybe? *BRAIN IMPLODES*

You and me, we're going to have to have a talk, Mister.

You'll have to tell me about it sometime.

I've never even heard of any of those. They're not mainstream philosophers, are they? They're even less well-known than philosophers such as Carnap, Putnam, Kuhn, Quine and Frege. They probably rank along side philosophers like Block, Fodor, Jackson and Kripke.

Funnily enough, I've heard of and read something from every one of those fuckers.

Chuang Tzu and Confucius are two great secular Chinese philosophers.

Chuang Tzu and Tao Te Jing are pretty fun, but I only like Lin Yutang translation.

A lot of Taoist concepts are mis-translated and taking a Zen/Buddahist influenced/rational interpretation of Taoism causing a lot of translation mistakes. Taoism is amoral, even hedonistic, irrational, outward looking while Zen is austere, often rational, inward looking.

Spinoza is actually pretty good Taoist, from a philosophical similarity perspective.

From Spinoza comes Einstein, Hegel, Marx, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, among the many he is a revered predecessor.

Oh yeah, I definitely agree on the Spinoza/Tao similarities. I just happened to be taking my modern phil class while I was taking chinese thought and I was all at how connected they seemed to be. A friend of mine has gotten pretty heavy into the Tao Te Jing the last year or two and he's waaaay towards the Zen perspective of it.

Ew, Descartes? Seriously? Are you a Christian solipsist?

This made me lol.






Also, it just occurred to me that no one mentioned Dr. Seuss!

[Errant]

[jason_m]

In my mind, Wittgenstein is, by far, the greatest philosopher. He is the one philosopher to date who seems to have the best understanding of philosophy . How else can you explain so much confusion, so much disagreement, and so little philosophical certainty? I think that his answer that philosophy is an attempt to take language from its everyday use and to (hopelessly) try and find general patterns in it - through this same language - is the best explanation for these problems that I've seen so far. I don't really care for the Tractatus, but Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty blew my mind away.

Jason

[ragnar]

I have to admit I share Paul Graham's view:

Paul Graham

Wittgenstein is popularly credited with the idea that most philosophical controversies are due to confusions over language. I'm not sure how much credit to give him. I suspect a lot of people realized this, but reacted simply by not studying philosophy
...
The most valuable way to approach the current philosophical tradition may be ... to study it as an example of reason gone wrong.

... instead of denouncing philosophy, most people who suspected it was a waste of time just studied other things.
...
Because philosophy's flaws turned away the sort of people who might have corrected them, they tended to be self-perpetuating.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Philosophers all seem angry/jaded/bitter souls. Every single goddamn one of them. I hate them all.

Philosophy sucks. Life is meant to be lived, not analyzed to death.

[Ezra]

"Life is meant to be lived, not analyzed to death." ~Sam philosophising about philosophy in relation to life, or perhaps vice versa.

[strangeling]

If I voted Socrates, would that make me a hypocrite?

Philosophers all seem angry/jaded/bitter souls. Every single goddamn one of them. I hate them all.

Philosophy sucks. Life is meant to be lived, not analyzed to death.

I know it's an old post, but
What you fail to realize in your pool of self-absorbed bullshit is that LIVING LIFE is what made these philosophers angry/jaded/bitter souls. Philosophy is an attempt to change/fix that.

Anyways, what do you think this place is about? Socionics has its foot in philosophy, whether it becomes decree or taboo.
And you're a hypocrite by association then.

[Nevero]

Whoever said: "Tell us what you despise; by this you are truly known."

[Nowisthetime]

The only philosophy book I could ever actually read and understand something of was Wittgenstein "On Certainty". Everything else has basically been incomprehensible to me. I guess I am too stupid. Kant was horrible.

[Absurd]

None on the list - I haven't heard of over 70% of them, anyway.

[Scapegrace]

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN.

[Gilly]

Ew, Descartes? Seriously? Are you a Christian solipsist?

[Jarno]

define greatest...

longest influential: aristotle


I choose Locke, thanks to him we got the scientific revolution. Otherwise we would still use the bible as our book of knowledge.