Your favourite philosopher

[Zostrianos]

I didn't see a thread for this yet, so I was wondering what everyone's favourite philosopher(s) were?
In my case I'd pick Plato (and Neoplatonists, like Plotinus, Proclus, and Iamblichus). As a religious person, I think his contributions to spiritual thought and Neoplatonism were brilliant. It was thanks to Platonic philosophy that the Roman empire experienced its amazing religious golden age in the first centuries AD. Plato's contributions to secular philosophy are also noteworthy.
Epicurus and the Stoics were also great thinkers, centuries ahead of their time, and Buddha was a genius I think.

[Book O'Dead]

Is there not one woman on your list?

[Book O'Dead]

Sorry, I missed Rosa. But, really, who ever said she was a philosopher?

[Zostrianos]

Is there not one woman on your list?

Rosa Luxemburg is a woman, no?

EDIT: Ninja'd....


Sorry, I missed Rosa. But, really, who ever said she was a philosopher?

Political philosopher. Now that I think o it, I should have put Ayn Rand in there too, damnit :(

[Red Rabbit]

Buddha, Confucius, Marx (Duh) and Lao-Tzu.

[Railyon]

R.A. Wilson and Timothy Leary, and obviously Marx (like Rabbit says, DUH)

[Book O'Dead]

Rosa Luxemburg is a woman, no?

EDIT: Ninja'd....



Political philosopher. Now that I think o it, I should have put Ayn Rand in there too, damnit :(

I think Rosa was a political theorist and organizer, not a philosopher, whereas Rand was a phony and anyone who ascribes her the title of "philosopher" doesn't really understand Rand or philosophy.

[Caj]

Marx and Stirner

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I said Marx.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Well, d'Holbach, a man that is not on that list, was the one that got me interested in materialism and atheism. Marx and Engles introduced me to communism. After I read some of the major works of Marx and Engles, I turned to Hegel to learn more about the dialectic and his influence on Marx. Lenin introduced me to Leninism. Rousseau is just a nice guy to read, even though he had his head up his ass in my opinion.

[The Jay]

I think Rosa was a political theorist and organizer, not a philosopher, whereas Rand was a phony and anyone who ascribes her the title of "philosopher" doesn't really understand Rand or philosophy.

A political theorist is a political philosopher silly.

[Deicide]

Hegel, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Pythagorus, Aristotle, Socrates, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, A.J. Ayer, Bertrand Russel, Derrida, and obviously Marx. I tried, but I couldn't choose one. Hegel is probably my ''favourite'', if I exclude Marx.

This thread should of been ''your favourite philosopher, excluding Marx'', we all know Marx will top the poll. I would be surprised if he didn't.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

My favorite philosopher other than Marx would have to be Lenin, because I am a Leninist reptilian who is part of the Leninist Illuminati. Caj blew my cover. :)

[Deicide]

If there was a poll for ''most arrogant philosopher'' who would you choose?

[o well this is ok I guess]

If there was a poll for ''most arrogant philosopher'' who would you choose? Schopenhauer.

[Caj]

If there was a poll for ''most arrogant philosopher'' who would you choose?

Nietzsche

[Zostrianos]

If there was a poll for ''most arrogant philosopher'' who would you choose?

Augustine of Hippo

[Ostrinski]

Voltaire

[Book O'Dead]

A political theorist is a political philosopher silly.

You could be right but...

I've always thought of a political philosopher as someone who studies and expounds on the origins and nature of political thought in general and a theorist as someone who proposes definite courses of political action and organization. From what I've read by Luxemburg, I see her as a theorist who emphasized certain organizational forms and practices.

[Book O'Dead]

Also, why isn't Machiavelli on the list, or did I miss that as well?

[The Jay]

You could be right but...

I've always thought of a political philosopher as someone who studies and expounds on the origins and nature of political thought in general and a theorist as someone who proposes definite courses of political action and organization. From what I've read by Luxemburg, I see her as a theorist who emphasized certain organizational forms and practices.

A political philosopher can do both of those things. Technically, scientists are philosophers too, and mathematicians for that matter.

[Book O'Dead]

A political philosopher can do both of those things. Technically, scientists are philosophers too, and mathematicians for that matter.

What you say may be correct for some people but I still don't see what actually makes Rosa Luxemburg a political philosopher.

Mind you, I admire and respect RL for her invaluable contribution to Marxism but I fail to see what exactly she wrote that makes her a philosopher.

[Zostrianos]

Also, why isn't Machiavelli on the list, or did I miss that as well?

I couldn't put every prominent philosopher on the list, seeing as it's limited to 20 choices

[Book O'Dead]

I couldn't put every prominent philosopher on the list, seeing as it's limited to 20 choices

IMHO, you could have safely and without dishonoring their memories omitted Engels, Lenin & Luxemburg from the list as they were not philosophers in the sense of Marx, Plato, etc.

[Anarpest]

I'm not sure I have a 'favourite' philosopher, I think that most great philosophers have contributed quite a bit and made the work possible for the others who follow, so that it's hard to choose one to the exclusion of the other. I'm sure that some of the earlier anarchists would be up there, as would Marx, and some of the earlier Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, who set the ball rolling in a way, and still read quite differently, and perhaps more appealingly, than more modern philosophers.
IMHO, you could have safely and without dishonoring their memories omitted Engels, Lenin & Luxemburg from the list as they were not philosophers in the sense of Marx, Plato, etc.

I'm not sure how Engels was any less of a philosopher than Marx?

I don't disagree about Lenin and Luxemburg, though. If you were going to go back to the (somewhat archaic) wider usage of the word philosopher to characterize investigations into truth in general, it would probably make more sense to put Newton and Einstein in place before those two.

[L.A.P.]

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles, Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Peter Wessel Zapffe, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong.

[Anarpest]

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles, Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Peter Wessel Zapffe, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong.

This would make a great tendency name.

[o well this is ok I guess]

IMHO, you could have safely and without dishonoring their memories omitted Engels, Lenin & Luxemburg from the list as they were not philosophers in the sense of Marx, Plato, etc. But Lenin really did write on the topic of philosophy.

[Anarpest]

But Lenin really did write on the topic of philosophy.

Perhaps, but then so did almost every major thinker in every field, from Shelley to Newton, as well as countless major and minor socialists. The thing is that Lenin didn't necessarily take this up as a primary field of his work, and rather mainly seems to focused on polemics and personal note-taking (which is practically just a part of reading), while not being renowned for any innovations in the field either. At least Marx had The German Ideology, the Grundrisse, and a bunch more arcane texts which I probably don't know about, while Engels had Anti-Duhring and Dialectics of Nature. Bakunin had quite a few texts which are more philosophical in nature than, say, 'God and the State,' and had a fairly unique take on matters of philosophy, whether you think him right or wrong. In Lenin's case there just doesn't seem to be that much to qualify him as a 'philosopher' per se, except for a polemic and some notes taken while reading Hegel (which has probably been done by everybody who has read Hegel.) I mean, maybe if he had had the time to channel this into a more systematic work, but as it is he didn't seem to.

[Book O'Dead]

[...]

I'm not sure how Engels was any less of a philosopher than Marx? I don't disagree about Lenin and Luxemburg, if you were going to go back to the wider, somewhat archaic usage of the word philosopher to characterize investigations into truth in general, it would probably make more sense to put Newton and Einstein in place before those two.

In the case of Engels v. Marx, just the volume and quality of work and the substance of their respective contributions places one in a completely different category from the other.

It was Marx, not Engels, who worked out the nature of modern industrial capitalism; it was Marx, not Engels, who placed the theory of the class struggle on a solid empirico-historical basis; Marx, not Engels, who worked out the psychological implications of human alienation, etc.

Granted, Engels helped Marx in many practical ways and wrote several important works of his own but, except for certain prefaces, you cannot find the hand of Engels in "Capital", and "Capital' is the work of an extraordinarily brilliant mind.

Engels was a great man, sure, but Marx was the greatest of the two. Didn't Engels remark that where he and others were merely talented, Marx was a genius?

[Book O'Dead]

But Lenin really did write on the topic of philosophy.

Yes, Lenin wrote "on the topic of philosophy". Badly, though.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Perhaps, but then so did almost every major thinker in every field, from Shelley to Newton, as well as countless major and minor socialists. The thing is that Lenin didn't necessarily take this up as a primary field of his work, and rather mainly seems to focused on polemics and personal note-taking (which is practically just a part of reading), while not being renowned for any innovations in the field either. At least Marx had The German Ideology, the Grundrisse, and a bunch more arcane texts which I probably don't know about, while Engels had Anti-Duhring and Dialectics of Nature. Bakunin had quite a few texts which are more philosophical in nature than, say, 'God and the State,' and had a fairly unique take on matters of philosophy, whether you think him right or wrong. In Lenin's case there just doesn't seem to be that much to qualify him as a 'philosopher' per se, except for a polemic and some notes taken while reading Hegel (which has probably been done by everybody who has read Hegel.) I mean, maybe if he had had the time to channel this into a more systematic work, but as it is he didn't seem to. Bro Lenin did publish a complete book on pure philosophy.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/

Yes, Lenin wrote "on the topic of philosophy". Badly, though.
I wasn't saiyan he did good at it. I was saiyan he did it.

[Anarpest]

I alluded to that. It is a polemic, not a philosophical work proper, quite apart from the fact that it's generally said not so much to be an advance on Marx as to go some distance behind him. Either way, he is attacking people essentially for diverting from Marxism, rather than developing his own philosophy through critique.

[Ocean Seal]

If there was a poll for ''most arrogant philosopher'' who would you choose?
Many philosophers throughout history have been arrogant. I think its a difficult contest.

We should burn all the books which don't have ideas based upon impressions
-Hume

The world won't be fair until every country is ruled by a philosopher
-Plato

[o well this is ok I guess]

I alluded to that. It is a polemic, not a philosophical work proper, quite apart from the fact that it's generally said not so much to be an advance on Marx as to go some distance behind him. Either way, he is attacking people essentially for diverting from Marxism, rather than developing his own philosophy through critique. City of God was pretty polemical for the most part, though I'm fairly sure it is regarded as a "philosophical work proper".
I'm not saying it was a good work of philosophy, simply that it was a work of philosophy in that it dealt with the topic of pure philosophy.

[lombas]

Rousseau is just a nice guy

Rousseau apparently wasn't such a nice guy...

;)

[lombas]

I voted Epictetus, Epicurus, Locke, Nietzsche and Other.

Other:

- Machiavelli
- Kierkegaard
- Camus
- Cioran

I would also consider some English poets like Pope and Milton to be quite philosophical.

[L.A.P.]

This would make a great tendency name.

Marxist-Nietzschean-Kierkegaardian-Sartrean-Lacanian-Foucauldian-Leninist-Maoist

[NewLeft]

I voted Chomsky for lol

I don't really have a favourite..

[Yuppie Grinder]

Lil B "TheBasedGod"

[L.A.P.]

Marxist-Nietzschean-Kierkegaardian-Sartrean-Lacanian-Foucauldian-Leninist-Maoist

Also known as psychoanalytic post-structural existential Maoism.:D

[Yefim Zverev]

Nietzsche is for crybabies

[Revolution starts with U]

Other; George Carlin.

[Yefim Zverev]

Bertrand Russell ! hell of a good philosopher.

[ColonelCossack]

Confucius

Wasn't he reactionary, what withe the traditional family values etc, or am I wrong?

[human strike]

I am my favourite philosopher. Are you not your favourite?

[MarxSchmarx]

David Hume was the first philosopher, at least who wrote in a European language, to have basically "gotten it right". Hume was wrong about quite a few things, but IMO Hume constructed a framework that magnificently handles all but a handful of of remaining philosophical problems that were left over from the removal of physics (natural philosophy) from traditional philosophy. Since reading and studying his works systematically as a second year university student, I am yet to find a convincing refutation of his analyses, including Kant's.

There are, to be sure, some problems which Hume struggles with magnificently and realizes the boundaries of our knowledge. His treatment of the self is profound in its incompleteness and it's clear how Hume stuggled immensely with the issue. And his jostlings remain ours.

Moreover, not only did Hume I think basically get it right, while it may be true that philosophy is a footnote to Plato, nobody framed the central problems or indeed sentiment of post-enlightenment philosophy more stupendously than David Hume. Hume thus is a trully transformative figure in philosophy, having closed a chapter begun by Descartes. Indeed, the parallel to another seminal figure of about the same era, Beethoven is instructive. Kant saw the bulk of his project as a response to Hume, and Hegel, Marx, Husserel, even the analytic school etc... all responded to Hegel, and this is quite reminiscent of Beethoven's subsequent influence.

Indeed it was Hume who framed the debate terms of debate and provided IMO quite sensible answers. This is perhaps why he speaks uniquely to us, because like Beethoven Hume was the midwife of our contemporary sensibilities.

[Avocado]

I like and don't like bits from all of their stuff.

Rousseau resonates with me on many points - like in positive freedom (in the Isaiah Berlin notion of liberty) but don't like too much his idea of a civil religion, though that is better than 'religion' in general.

Kant's Categorical Imperative is unrealistic, but I like his ideas on animal cruelty - that it dehumanises folk.

et cetera

[eyeheartlenin]

Buddha, Confucius, Marx (Duh) and Lao-Tzu.

I once read the Tao te Ching (sp?), which, they tell me, means, "The way and its power." I was in a group led by a Professor of comparative religion, and Lao-tse's book was really very interesting. If I remember correctly, Lao-tse's idea of the Deity was of an impersonal force, which I think is somewhat attractive, because it gives us one way to explain the distressing problem of innocent suffering. I may have misunderstood what I read; reading that book was my only experience with Taoism. I have a lot more experience with Episcopalians, my friends and the adherents of another exotic religion :)

* * *

About the poll, I was not aware that Rosa wrote about philosophy. I love her, because she was militantly anti-war, and my first experience with leftists was in the movement against the war in Viet Nam.

[Luís Henrique]

If there was a poll for ''most arrogant philosopher'' who would you choose?

Wittgenstein.

By the way, why isn't he listed in the options? He certainly has sectarians of his own here in Revleft.

I voted Marx, but only because Duns Scottus wasn't there.

And Diogenes the Cynic, where is Diogenes the Cynic? No poll on philosophy is worth a tub if Diogenes the Cynic isn't listed.

Luís Henrique

[MarxSchmarx]

Wittgenstein.

By the way, why isn't he listed in the options? He certainly has sectarians of his own here in Revleft.

I voted Marx, but only because Duns Scottus wasn't there.

And Diogenes the Cynic, where is Diogenes the Cynic? No poll on philosophy is worth a tub if Diogenes the Cynic isn't listed.

Luís Henrique

When asked who his favorite philosopher was, former US president George Bush answered "Jesus". So if we're talking philosophers outside of the list provided, I think the whole "son of god", "messiah" etc... thing is pretty arrogant.

[Avocado]

I should have added that I am a big fan of Bertrand Russell.

[Art Vandelay]

In the case of Engels v. Marx, just the volume and quality of work and the substance of their respective contributions places one in a completely different category from the other.

The only sensible category in my opinion to place them in, is one in which they are together.


It was Marx, not Engels, who worked out the nature of modern industrial capitalism; it was Marx, not Engels, who placed the theory of the class struggle on a solid empirico-historical basis; Marx, not Engels, who worked out the psychological implications of human alienation, etc.

Engels was like the offensive line of a football team. Doing alot of the dirty work, while the QB (Marx) get the glory.


Granted, Engels helped Marx in many practical ways and wrote several important works of his own but, except for certain prefaces, you cannot find the hand of Engels in "Capital", and "Capital' is the work of an extraordinarily brilliant mind.


Capital volume 2 & 3 were painstakingly pieced together by Fred after Marx`s death from his notes.


Engels was a great man, sure, but Marx was the greatest of the two. Didn't Engels remark that where he and others were merely talented, Marx was a genius?


Engels did claim that Marx was the genius of the two, however that is not reason to separate their work. Without Engels, Marx would not of been able to have the output he did throughout his life.


P.S. Marx, Engels, Nietzsche, Stirner etc... it could go on for a while.

[La Comédie Noire]

Since reading and studying his works systematically as a second year university student, I am yet to find a convincing refutation of his analyses, including Kant's.

I'm reading the Critique of Pure Reason right now and Kant's arguments are pretty ridiculous. "There are these things I found, they're apriori and synthetic, there existence is necessary otherwise thought would not be possible."

Like o-kay.

[pax et aequalitas]

Does Malaclypse the Younger count as a philosopher? If yes, definitely him.

[Valdyr]

Marx, obviously.

Engels, who is too often neglected or just conflated with Marx.

Hegel, while idealist, provided the key development of dialectics, I think implicitly forming a criticism of all non-dialectical philosophy, which I see as central to the critique of ideology.

Lenin, despite being primarily a political theorist (obviously) did some stunningly good philosophy, such as in Materialism and Empirico-Criticism, which is still extremely relevant today, as it is a powerful critique of neo-positivism, "naturalism," scientism, etc. in all its forms, and in his Conspectus, which I found invaluable in my studies of Hegel.

Rousseau I see as one of the key pre-Marxist political theorists, as others have said, mainly due to his discussion of positive freedom and his emphasis on the social.

Others, not listed, include Heraclitus, Spinoza, Herder, Evald Ilyenkov, Cyril Smith, and Fichte.

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm reading the Critique of Pure Reason right now and Kant's arguments are pretty ridiculous. "There are these things I found, they're apriori and synthetic, there existence is necessary otherwise thought would not be possible."

Like o-kay.

I had a similar reaction when I read it. One reading of Critique of Pure reason is that is a sort of "proto-psychology" that deals with how we handle and organize perceptions - I'm under the impression that this is no longer the fashionable interpretation of Kant, but it is probably a more sympathetic reading because otherwise there just struck me as too many WTF moments in it.

[zoot_allures]

From that list, Chomsky.

Beyond that list, Paul Feyerabend.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Wow, who would have guessed Marx would get most of the votes on a predominately Marx-oriented forum!:rolleyes:

But yeah, chose Marx:D

[Rafiq]

Marx isn't a philospher.

[Book O'Dead]

Marx isn't a philospher.

You're right, he isn't; he was.

[Valdyr]

Marx isn't a philospher.

I only half agree. He certainly wasn't a conventional philosopher, as his work was not what I like to call "philosophy-as-such," but there are, at least in my view, staggering philosophical implications implicit in Marx.

What I mean by "philosophy-as-such" is the "observation" of the world from an "outside," "foundational" standpoint. The philosopher-as-such is one who attempts to paint a rational picture of the way the world is at base, in a "purely philosophical" manner (i.e. with input from history, economics, politics, practice etc. being a purely a posteriori consideration), while running out of paint for himself, and for philosophy as a whole. It is the rejection of philosophy-as-such that makes Marxism so important for philosophy.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Why are Marx and Engels present on the list and Kropotkin and Bakunin are not?

[Book O'Dead]

Why are Marx and Engels present on the list and Kropotkin and Bakunin are not?

Because they were putzes?

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Why are Marx and Engels present on the list and Kropotkin and Bakunin are not?

Section of "other" I guess

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Because the creator of the thread is a socialist who decided to acknowledge Marx as a philosopher but not Bakunin and Kropotkin.

[Ostrinski]

Because they were political theorists. Many people on the list shouldn't be on there, though.

[Zostrianos]

Again: the list is limited to 20 choices so I couldn't put every philosopher who ever lived.

[Ostrinski]

Indeed. But Lenin, Luxemburg, and Chomsky shouldn't be on there. Especially with no Voltaire, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Freud, or Focault.

[Rafiq]

If Marx was a philosopher, Darwin was as well.

[fabian]

The favourite- Epictetus, whose Discourses and Enchiridion changed my life. After him, Rousseau.

If you respect Rousseau too, look up some writing about and by Leonard Nelson, Henry (Stephens) Salt, and Beatrice Webb.

[Left Leanings]

The poll allows for one choice. So it had to be Dr Marx. His pioneering research has given us both an ideological framework for understanding the world, and for changing it. He recognized that ideas alone were insufficient, and that they should be related to, and revised in the light of lived experience. A work in progress, even today.

This may make some of you laugh - in fact, I know that it will. But I am pretty fond of Alain De Botton. Okay, he is every inch the celebrity rent-a-philosopher, just as Stuart Hall is a rent-a-sociologist.

But the books The consolations of philosophy and Status Anxiety , are quite entertaining.

[escapingNihilism]

yeah a bunch of these people (Lenin, Rosa, Chomsky) were not philosophers.

[fabian]

The poll allows for one choice.
I voted for both Epictetus and Rousseau :rolleyes:

[Book O'Dead]

Oh, and one more thing (I hope): Einstein and other theoretical physicists such as Stephen Hawkins can be considered philosophers and rightly belong in any universal list.

[Azraella]

Marx, Zeno of Citium, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and Teilhard :)

[Valdyr]

After doing a lot of reading, I'm adding Alain Badiou to my list.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Karl Pilkington.

[freethinker]

Marks ,Socrates, Plato, Buddha, Luxemburg Chomsky

I thought about selecting Confucius...

But whenever I think of Chomsky I start craking up because I remember good old Gingrich comparing him to the so called "socialist president"