your favorite philosopher(s)?

[Last Roman]

I think Aristotle is my favorite philosopher.

Logic based on deduction and experience, what we know as empiricism, makes the most sense to me. I also approve of his rejection of Socrates' "forms"

Though his argument justifying inequality between men and slaves/women is a little disappointing, using the amount of soul one had to do so. though I suppose it is understandable given the day and age he lived in.


so, which genius do you follow?

[Armfelt]

Probably the existentialists and Nietzsche to a certain degree. Aristoteles and Kant are my least favourite philosophers.

Kant is a friggin moralist.

[wilpuri]

Nietzsche for the win, all the way.

I'm not big on philosophy for philosophy's sake, though.

[Spart]

I don't actually follow anyone, but the ones that seem the most interesting and
suitable to follow, are Socrates and the whole gang from the age of enlightenment (well, I'm too lazy to start separating them right now). I tried to learn Kant's philosophy just a while ago, but it's beyond my understanding. Or maybe I'm just tired..
Nietzsche also seems interesting, but I'll have to go deeper before I say anything about him. Nah, back to my studies.

[Felix]

I am. Keeps me in a job

I love Hume's conversational style, Descartes' Zen methodology, and Schopenhauer's hilarious neuroses. I like Kant's impenetrability - you can use it as a litmus test, since mostly only the people who've had to read Kant have actually read him - and I like Duchamp's mischievousness. I like Nietzsche's hatred and Sartre's overblown existentialist morality plays, Les Mains Sales in particular. I find Baudrillard's meaningless drivel highly mockable, and people who mock it much more so, as they obviously haven't read it and don't know he has some really good points hidden beneath the highly stylised surface (cf. Simulacra and Simulation (1981)). Similarly, I like the forthrightness of a few lesser-known philosophers like Michael Ruse, Larry Hauser (who's very funny if you like philosophy jokes) and William Lycan. Simon Blackburn writes extremely well but is a populist; Peter Singer argues extremely well but is a fanatic, as is Richard Dawkins, and I do not approve of fanatics. John Searle is an empty rhetor and a cheat in addition to being a fanatic; as such he officially earns the title of "least favourite" and Does Not Get A Cookie.

If I had to pick one, though? It goes for cultural effect to Descartes, whose Meditations on First Philosophy provide the starting point for a great many teenagers' first bouts of existentialist confusion/angst. This forces them to crystallise world-views for themselves or risk losing everything they know; moreover, it forces them to accept that which is not supported by logic, and to thereby learn the difference between that which is invalid but acceptable to believe and that which is just invalid.

[Last Roman]

Kant is a friggin moralist.

To be honest, it's been a long time since I've read Kant, so I forget much of the details.

[Armfelt]

To be honest, it's been a long time since I've read Kant, so I forget much of the details.

If I recall correctly he introduced was of the opinion that there should be inflexible and common moral laws in an ideal society. The problem that I have with this belief is that it would never work in a world based on white lies (since obviously lying is wrong and there should be a moral law that lying is wrong), it has no utilitarian aspects whatsoever and that there would have to be an authority to set the moral laws.

[Odovacar]

Thomas Hobbes
G. W. F. Hegel
Herbert Marcuse

[Felix]

Damn, I forgot Hobbes. He rocks! I love his terror! "Oh noes! The system must work or There Will Be Warr!" Always with the civil war! He was so... poor sod... so always horribly afraid of it. Can't blame him, living when he did, but still, if anything ever goes wrong in the Hobbesian project it leads to Warr.

[Perikles]

Kant was the first philosopher I was introduced to. While it is quite obvious I don't have a vast knowledge of different philosophers due to my age I have always liked Kant's logic and ideas such as the 'universalisability test'. That was the first philosophical idea I learnt and it always sticks in my mind for that reason.

[TheKwas]

I'm not a huge fan of the Old Greeks, although my first real interest in philosophy arose from the Stoics. The English and French enlighted schools are not too appealing for me either. Especially Decartes. Largely I think my tastes lie more with the modern era than most.
I do like:
Bertrand Russel on most things
Karl Marx's Political Economics and historical materialism for the most part
Bits and pieces of Foucault's work on discourse
Proudhon's take on rights and the social contract.
Chomsky's take on behaviourlism, although I'm not nearly knowledgabe in this regard to have set view.

Also, I might be in the minority, but I think Dawkin's take on atheism is probably the best take on the issue in the modern era.

[Real]

D. Duarte, a king of Portugal and myself.

I have a theory that comproves the absence of God, but it may be considered an offence to most religious users, so I will not post it.

[jankren]

Averroes
Avicenna

[Sadreddine]

Humm..

It´s got to be Ibn Rushd - Averroes (guess why?) in the first place, the climax of Muslim classic philosophy.

Next to him I´m tempted to say al-Farabi or Ibn Sina -Avicena. But I´ll pick Ibn Khaldun instead; even though he didn´t even consider himself a philosopher, I like much his ideas about metaphisics and logic.

[Tom Paine]

Russel for his style if nothing else (eeh! Accessible but still good!)
Camus, to some extent, because he makes an enjoyable read, has a modern air, and held a pretty interesting philosophy.
Descartes for the revolution he triggered from ontology onto epistemology, though Meditations is full of crap philosophy (Cartesian circle, anyone?)
Popper for the falsification principle (though according to my grandfather, the man himself was a bastard...) and his accessibility.

The probably covers it, really.

EDIT: No it doesn't! How did I miss the Bentham-Mill utilitarianism combination, which puts both of them on the list too...

[Odovacar]

Popper for the falsification principle (though according to my grandfather, the man himself was a bastard...) and his accessibility

Looks like your grandfather knew him really. Popper was a cold war ideologist and a miserable liar. He blamed Hegel for nazism, even though he clearly havent read one page from Hegels works. (One example of popperism: accoding to Sir Raymund the Liar, Hegel never criticised openly Kant. Well, then what was he doing in Logic I-II, Reason and Faith, Philosophy of Right, Differenzschrift, etc.?
Popper said he discovered the connection between Hegel and Aristotle, too bad Nicolai Hartmann wrote a briliant book about it in 1924 already, besides it was known since long... )

Even his own associate, Feyerabend had the opinion that his an unoriginal and shallow man. He achieved accesibility through simplicity.
Collingwood hated both Russel and him. Too bad, Russel is the 'english philosopher' today,

Marx should be studied reading the Economical-philosophical manuscript of 1844, that is he best work in my opinion. But only for someone who knows Hegel.
Kant isnt dull and overrated, he is the founder of a philosophical period which stretches till our days.
Descartes as well.

[Ummon]

Looks like your grandfather knew him really. Popper was a cold war ideologist and a miserable liar. He blamed Hegel for nazism, even though he clearly havent read one page from Hegels works. (One example of popperism: accoding to Sir Raymund the Liar, Hegel never criticised openly Kant. Well, then what was he doing in Logic I-II, Reason and Faith, Philosophy of Right, Differenzschrift, etc.? )

Even his own associate, Feyerabend had the opinion that his an unoriginal and shallow man. He achieved accesibility through simplicity.
Collingwood hated both Russel and him. Too bad, Russel is the 'english philosopher' today,

Marx should be studied reading the Economical-philosophical manuscript of 1844, that is he best work in my opinion. But only for someone who knows Hegel.
Kant isnt dull and overrated, he is the founder of a philosophical period which stretches till our days.
Descartes as well.

All nice and dandy. Sadly Popper's epistemology is the only worthwile.

[Odovacar]

All nice and dandy. Sadly Popper's epistemology is the only worthwile.

What about Imre Lakatos? What about Hartmann?
To me Hartmann is the best along with Husserls phemoneology.

[Tom Paine]

Looks like your grandfather knew him really.

Ooh, anecdote time... every time he entered the RKP (Routledge and Kegan Paul) offices, everyone became... suddenly busy because no one wanted to deal with him.


His accessibility, and his massive contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of science and metaphilosophy, however, mean he still ranks as an amazing philosopher.

[Odovacar]

Ooh, anecdote time... every time he entered the RKP (Routledge and Kegan Paul) offices, everyone became... suddenly busy because no one wanted to deal with him.

There is a story about Wittgenstein attacking him with an iron rod

His accessibility, and his massive contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of science and metaphilosophy, however, mean he still ranks as an amazing philosopher.

I agree with his statement that philosophy must be accessible. But we must know for what price. Sometimes when I tried to be super-accesible in writing a paper, I became just idiotic and simplicistic.