I am a big fan of Daniel Dennett. He writes about Philosophy of Mind, evolution, and most recently religion.
What contemporary philosophers do you read and what do they write about?
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Tu Weiming and Van Norden. Both are contemporary Confucian scholars – Tu Weiming is the ‘founder’ of the ‘Boston’ New Confucian movement and generally a pretty freakin’ smart guy while Van Norden is the closest thing to a neo-Xunzian scholar I’ve ever read . . . so that’s pretty sweet.
Li Zehou is a sino-Kantian with a strong aesthetic sense. I’ve enjoy some of his work as well. I think he is still alive.
Xunzian, what’s a sino-Kantian ?
I reckon its a mixuture of chienese philosophy with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Stephen Hawking.
Dan~
Myself
Tool.
Let’s try to get beyond words now, shall we? I could have said Maynard James Keenan is the greatest contemporary philosopher, but that would have been much too simple. I mean, his words are great and all, but the power of the message is only truly felt when all of the beats, rhythms, and melodies of Tool are taken as an organic whole.
Let’s also try to get beyond this “single human being” idea of what a philosopher is. With Tool, you have four distinct human entities working together in such perfect harmony such that there could not be a more unified message if you tried.
The great thing about the growth of the “existential” philosophies is that they attempt to explain the fullness of range of attunements (emotions) that serve as grounds for all “objective” scientific observation. The preceeding statement is not something I want to explain right now: just believe it. Or not.
In Tool, we have perhaps the greatest existentialist philosopher in history. I simply cannot describe the emotion that is unleashed while I listen to a Tool song. I would, however, say that it is precisely this “emotional substratum” that has given me reason to live when all other reasons left me “swinging in the breeze.”
The job of a philosopher, I believe, is not to accurately represent some state of affairs of the world. It is, rather, to uncover the grounds that allow there to be anything like a “world” whatsoever. In other words, philosophy will always be a “metaphysical” concern. (I do not mean to invoke the concept of metaphysics in a Barnes-and-Noble kind of way. That brand of “meta-physics” would better be referred to as “mystery-physics” in that it does not attempt to explain the ground of all possible physics, but rather lays out a set of physical laws that have never been subjected to the process of scientific validation.)
The job of the philosopher is not to represent, but to uncover. The scientist represents, but the philosopher uncovers. The philosopher uncovers the ground for there to be any kind of “world” whatever. This ground may be called self, soul, spirit, subject, mind, or any other word of that ilk. Philosophy exists in order to “clear away” all circumstantial, worldly facts from this ground and lay it bare. In this sense, Tool “does philosophy” better than any other living entity.
Ding-ding, and Mearsult gets the prize!
Though it has more to do with the Hegelian mindset that has dominated the mainland since they went Marxist. So, it is also a reaction to the Hegelian philosophy as understood by Chinese intellectuals. Throw in a bit of native Chinese philosophy that lingers in the average mindset and bam. There you have it.
I sort of like Slavoj Zizek - not that I agree with any or most of him or even that he is an out and out “philospher” - but he’s fairly diverting - alawys find his article entertaining- also keith ansell pearson from Warrick who’s line on Nietzsche got me into Deleuze, and all sorts of wierdness
Krossie
Nicholas Humprey, a friend of Dennett, who is a better writer than the latter and an exponent of bioepistemology. Who has not read Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” without realizing that it isn’t? The book peters out so that its final pages are almost unreadable.
i have not read consciousness explained. Perhaps now I shouldn’t?
LOL at Tool. Dude I think you are confusing philosophy with art. And you are confusing Tool with good art.
Hawking is a cosmologist
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Badiou
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizek
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Negri
umberto eco
-Imp
Hey Krossie,
Matter of fact, I took Slavoj Zizek’s Parallax View with me to the lake today. He’s good for trips or holidays; fun too, even the names of his chapters. For example
Part II: The Unbearable Lightness of Being No One
Chapter 3: The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Divine Shit
My favorite living philosopher is Derek Parfit, on the basis of his Reason’s and Persons. Also outstandanding (in no particular order) are Jean-Luc Nancy, Colin McGinn, Thomas Nagel, Mary Midgley, Galen Strawson and Harry Frankfurt.
Michael
Bill,
Don’t take my word for it or anyone else’s. Read the Dennett book and decide for youself. There is much that is noteworthy in the book.
Parfit’s a kind of super materialist - right?
Wow parallax view is a film as is the unbearable lightness of being
I might get that - mostly read articles of his off the web
I see Dunamis has Habermas - even as a lefty I find him unbelievably boring PLUS he seems to spend a lot of words saying nothing new and conducting defences of “modernism” from imaginary enemies!
Read one of Badiou’s attacks on Deleuze - he didn’t knock me out now I must say - but it was at (or maybe) past the limits of my understanding - anyone ever had a go at Negri’s Empire - I’ve heard its a toughy
Krossie
A living philosopher I would describe as “worth a damn” is Ermanno Bencivenga. His book “Hegel’s Dialectical Logic” is rather fresh and refreshing. He starts by setting Hegel in opposition to Aristotle’s influential analytic logic, and shows some really interesting affinities between Hegel and his “ungrateful heirs” (particularly Wittgenstein) by articulating Hegel’s view in Wittgensteinian terms. A process he describes as (ironically) “all too Hegelian”.