A silly little philosophy-related survey for all of you.

Social Forums Non-Philosophical Chat
1

I love bullshit laundry list-type things like this.

Religion (or lack thereof):

Years spent studying philosophy:

Favorite philosopher(s) to read:

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from:

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3):

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate:

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living):

Philosophical texts you love:

Three words that describe you:

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers:

Philosophy or oranges?:

2

Religion (or lack thereof): Atheist/agnostic, depending upon what someone means by God, and how I feel when asked. Today - atheist.

Years spent studying philosophy: 4 at university

Favorite philosopher(s) to read:Nietzsche, Hume, Simon Blackburn, Plato, Spinoza - in places

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from:Hume is the major one. Nietzsche has helped a bit. Spinoza too.

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): Kant? I would say Plato but nobody can take nothing from Plato.

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate:Aristotle is horrible to read. The type of modern academic philosophy article that takes 30 pages to say nothing you haven’t read before, but in a very complicated way.

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from:I dunno, most are a bit too serious. Hume had a fun side I suppose.

Philosophical texts you love:Beyond Good and Evil, Human, All to Human, The Ethics, The Republic, The Fall (best thing Camus ever wrote), Dostoyevsky in general (I’m taking ‘philosophical’ widely)

Three words that describe you:Attentive to detail

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers:read!

Philosophy or oranges?:I like philosophers, but I couldn’t eat a whole one

3

Religion (or lack thereof): Metaphysical

Years spent studying philosophy: 25

Favorite philosopher(s) to read: Socrates, although I don’t enjoy reading other philosopher’s failed attempts to emulate him

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from: Socrates, the one and only necessary philosopher/philosophy

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): None

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate: I purposefully forget philosophers/philosophy I despise to read

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living): I wouldn’t hang out with a “philosopher” for fun

Philosophical texts you love: Buber’s “I and Thou”, Russel’s “A View from Nowhere”, and anything with Socrates by Plato of course

Three words that describe you: “bored”, “numb”, “alone”

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers: “hi”

Philosophy or oranges?: Philosophy

4

Religion (or lack thereof): New Confucian

Years spent studying philosophy: I’ve always thought about it, but I’d say that over the past 6 years it has been more about refining a position as opposed to building a base.

Favorite philosopher(s) to read: Tu Weiming, Bryan Van Norden, Zhu Xi, Mencius, Confucius, Xiong Shili, Rodger Ames, David Hall.

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from: See above, plus: Wang Yangming, Luo Qinshun, Michael Sandel, Foucault, MacIntyre, Aristotle, Whitehead, Kirkegaard, Marx, Wang Fuzhi, Hume, Yi Yulgok, Putnam, and probably a bunch of others.

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): “Nothing” is pretty strong, but “very little” or "learned through antagonism would be: Nietzsche, Zhuangzi, Thoreau, Sartre, Han Fei Zi, and probably a bunch but none come to mind.

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate: Again, hate is a strong word. But I’ll go with: Derrida and post-modernism in general.

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living): The Yan Xishan blog puts up a good case for Xunzi, and I can’t say I disagree with his logic. Van Norden seems like he is a bit of a dork, but I could hang with him no problem. Pretty much every regular poster on ILP.

Philosophical texts you love: I really like the Lun yu and the Mencius. I get something out of every reading. “Humanity and Self-Cultivation” by Tu Weiming is nice too. Wing-tsit Chan’s “A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy” is also pretty hard to argue with, for the sheer volume of information it contains.

Three words that describe you: Impulsive, fusion (as in cuisine, but with philosophy), unfocused.

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers: Secondary-sources

Philosophy or oranges?: depends on the variety.

5

Religion (or lack thereof): lack thereof

Years spent studying philosophy: 4 in school, about thirty on the outside

Favorite philosopher(s) to read: Nietzsche, Russell, Logical Positivists

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from: Hume, Nietzsche, Russell, Logical Positivists, Dewey, David Gauthier

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): Spinoza, Hegel, John Rawls

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate: Kant, Kant, Kant and (hmmm…let’s see) Kant!

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living): Socrates

Philosophical texts you love: Most of Nietzsche, with the notable exception of Zarthustra, Rawls’ two major texts, because they are so well-written, the Bible, if you can count that, which I think you can.

Three words that describe you: “Dangerously sexy dude”

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers: literacy

Philosophy or oranges?: oranges

6

Religion (or lack thereof): Roman Catholicism

Years spent studying philosophy: Going into my third year formally. Informally, since my first encounter with the written word.

Favorite philosopher(s) to read: St. Thomas Aquinas and Benjamin Hoff

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from: From Socrates to Kuhn I guess

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): Nothing really. Everything I read influences me.

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate: None that I consciously know. Oh wait… scientology.

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living): Socrates, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton and Fr. Nilo OP

Philosophical texts you love: The Tao of Pooh

Three words that describe you: Empathy, Illusions, Satire

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers: Poverty

Philosophy or oranges?: Pears!

7

Just out of curiosity–and nothing but–why not Zarathustra?

8

Wow, someone else who likes Nietzsche but not Zarathustra. Though I read it first, so that was probably a mistake.

9

It’s overblown, even for Nietzsche. I admire his attempt at writing a myth, but it reminds me of some spanish music stations, where the DJs are always bellowing - at full reverb - over continuous spanish polkas. I like dj’s, bellowing, reverb and spanish polkas - just not all at once.

10
11

I’m willing to bet you don’t understand too much of it in-depth.

12

and you’d lose that bet…

-Imp

13

Perhaps. But I used to feel the same as faust.

14

Imp-

You know the rules: no posting in survey threads without filling out the survey! It’s a publicity stunt. :smiley:

15

stunts indeed…

"I love bullshit laundry list-type things like this.

Religion (or lack thereof): High Priest of the Temple of the Purple Wombats

Years spent studying philosophy: 6+ formal, 25+ informal

Favorite philosopher(s) to read: eco

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from: the greeks, hume, nietzsche, derrida, eco…

Philosophers you’ve adopted relatively nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): spinoza, leibniz, locke, berkeley, hobbes, kierkegaard…

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate: kant, hegel, schopenhauer…

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living):zeno… we could argue the impossibility of motion as we walk to marathon…

Philosophical texts you love:green eggs and ham, the sneetches

Three words that describe you:me, myself, I

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers: you have two ears, two eyes and one mouth for a very good reason…

Philosophy or oranges?:oranges? oranges? we don’t need no stinking oranges!

scurvy for everyone!

-Imp

16

Religion (or lack thereof): Agnostic fundamentalist - I have equal contempt for religious and atheistic dogmatism

Years spent studying philosophy: 1 formal, 10 informal

Favorite philosopher(s) to read: Derrida, Barthes, Foucault, Nietzsche, Orwell, Brecht, Lenin,

Philosophers you’ve adopted philosophies from: All the ones I’ve read, which is too many to bother listing, but basically a lot of anarchists and deconstructionists of varying types

Philosophers you’ve adopted absolutely nothing from, but still enjoy reading (this may overlap with #3): None, except the ones I haven’t read but would enjoy reading if I did, but obviously I don’t know who they are

Philosophers you hate to read/philosophers whose philosophies you hate: Machiavelli, Kant, Plato, Zawahiri, Schmitt, Stalin

Philosophers who you’d hang out with, just for fun - not to necessarily learn from (living or non-living): They’re all dead, and there’s only so much fun you can have with a corpse before some rotten cnt or asshle splits on you

Philosophical texts you love: Philosophical Investigations, Signature Event Context, Zarathustra (contrary to Faust et al), The Possibility of an Island, 1984, the Anarchists Cookbook

Three words that describe you: Malcontent, imaginative, brutal

One WORD of advice to aspiring philosophers/thinkers: Read

Philosophy or oranges?: Oranges, you can’t juice a philosopher