cro djinn sels Who is the person pictured on the far left of the quintorial atop the screen (atop and to the left, that is)?
Always good to enter a new forum with your ignorance worn on your sleeve like a fat schmurgoli isn’t it?
Gracias
PS. If I had to guess the answer, I would say: H.P.Lovecraft, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Admiral Lord Nelson, my brother - supposing he hadn’t gone bald and his hair had been less ‘Teutonic’ when he still had some.
ludwig, karl, socrates, bernie, freddy
-Imp
Welcome Gog,
From left to right: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Marx, Socrates, Bertrand Russell and Uniqor’s favourite, Mr. Nietszche.
Hope you enjoy you stay at ILP,
- ben
Could it be purely chance that EVERY one of these philosophers is white? Two clean shaven, two with beards and one undetermined - yet all white. I though we had put all that behind us.
I think it absolutely outrageous, and so do all my philosophy class, that no Negro, either American or Australian aboriginal, Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, Punjabi, Gujarati, Vietnamese, Inuit, Andaman or Polynesian philosopher is considered a suitable candidate for inclusion here. I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark here and guess the person who selected these portraits is ALSO white. OK, stand up, let’s see who you are. What do you have to say for yourself?
What ever next - will you be wishing us all a Merry Christmas? Tsk, tsk.
What a seasoned racialist would do now, of course, is to turn this travesty right around to somehow make it seem that I am the racialist, for having actually noticed the bias - and then for having highlighted the fact, in fact.
That, or simply zap this post to kingdom come altogether so none of you will ever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thank you Ben. I hope my stay is not a short one. I have yet to pose the question I had in mind when I joined - for the finest minds in cyberspace to consider and pronounce upon.
Mabye, just mabye by some incredible degree of chance it so happens that there has been a far greater amount of white philosophers than any other ethnicities? It could just be, I mean who would of thought that in western philosophy most of the great thinkers are white. Wow! I am so shocked at this, I thought for sure that the best philosophers would be black or asian. Do the math, throughout history probably over 90% of the great thinkers were white. Stop trying to be so damn politically correct, take a step back and look at things at face value. Ignore their race for one second and you will realize that everyone of those men up there are worthy of their place.
Hey Gog,
I can honestly say that in the 5 years this site has been running, you are the first to question the fact that all the philosophers in the logo are white. I can tell you now that it was not racially motivated but rather due to the fact that they were the first 5 philosophers who showed up in a search on google images. However, as an independent organisation, ILP is not required to fill affirmative action quotas on its logos 
I am pleased to see that you are engaging your philosophy class with this site. Bring them all over and we’ll debate your outrage! We’ll even bring PoR back for it.*
- ben
-
- just kidding folks.
imagines PoR and Gog in the same room 
well Gog, although you may be correct that all those philosophers are white on the logo, that is because they are the most FAMOUS ones, to us in the west anyway. This does not neccessarily mean they are better/smarter then any other philosophers. All of those are widely recognized, and this site is more focused on western philosophy anyway, thus the pictures are suiting. There are plenty of easter philosophy sites i’m sure, but this isn’t one of them. The only sad thing about the logo is that Plato isn’t up there!!! 
Thanks for the interesting responses.
Kimball was closest to the prepared script. Well done Kimball.
Whether or not Kimball is right, and higher thought is beyond the power of some races, is an open question of course. Maybe they just haven’t tried it yet Kimball - let’s give them a chance. Or it may be that some races are good at things other races are not. I know that if I were forced to annihilate the troublemaking inhabitants of a cluster of villages just over the county border I certainly wouldn’t have a clue where to begin. For one thing, it’s a very long time since I used a machete to solve a problem. And for another, my machete was confiscated when I crossed the border.
In the land of gold-paved streets and overflowing prisons where I live now the government has a clever policy of recruiting their public interface from so-called ethnic minorities whose second or third language sounds like a nasal rendering of a forgotten form of Chaucerian English (so called ethnic minority that is - because by actual head-count my specific ethnicity is rare here - I am only considered one of the majority because of their choosing to lump my kind in with the Germans, the Cornish, the Latvians, the Erse and the rest of the Kimberlins). What this means is that queries directed to a government phone number about any aspect the massive and relentless government intrusion into our lives, and our pockets, is conveniently deflected into hyperspace at the velocity of a Tamil bullet. It would be interesting to know whether this is simply a case of jobs for the boys, or a cynical government ploy to insulate themselves from a troublesome and insatiably demanding proletariat (or simply blind chance, of course).
Intelligent white governments can be a pain in the a*** can’t they. Give me a benevolent dictatorship of any hue rather than layer upon layer of desensitized obstructionist condomation upon the erect middle finger of putative democracy.
DEMOCRACY: Government of the people by the government.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH: That in which the government helplessly admits there is simply nothing it can do to dissuade a peaceful demonstration of foreign expatriates at the gates of a foreign legation, yet at the same time has no hesitation in calling upon a heavily armed and armoured pesudo-police paramilitary force to disperse peaceful local demonstrators from the green-space opposite the parliament building.
I think it is undeniable that the founders of the Western philosophical tradition we white. Since this is a western-based site, it will be biased towards western thinking. I don’t have a problem with that, even though I tend to stick to Chinese thinkers.
Also, they are highly recognizable figures. Mencius was a great philosopher, but his image isn’t immediately recognizable. It’s all about image and impact. Why do all funeral homes have stately doric columns? It’s the way things are done. If there were pictures of Confucius, Laozi, Buddha, and Mao, people would think this was some wierd new-age site, rather than a serious philosophical site. That doesn’t mean their thinking is in any way inferior, it’s merely the social norm.
On a side note: It could be argued that Socrates was mediterranian and, therefore, not White. It’s splitting racial hairs that no-one (besides PoR) still pays attention to, but hey. If we’re going to get all racialistic . . .
Thank you for those thoughts philosopher Xunzian.
I am not clear from re-reading your piece whether your view is that the portrait panel admits no white female philosophers on account of females simply have no interest in, thus nothing to contribute to, philosophical intercourse, or that (in the words of the redoubtable Basil Fawlty) they simply ‘haven’t got a brain between the lot of them’) - or for some other, equally excellent, reason.
Sorry - I see too many ominous unwavering pointers to what’s going on here. Carefully plumped up makeshift um-er excuses just don’t cut it.
So - this forum seems the way it does because it is a freely admitted, blatantly white, western-hemispherian male site - was the Greek included up there (or was he Athenian?) to suggest lack of bias, because Greeks (thank you Xunzian) aren’t white. Whew!
Oddly enough, the question of Socrates’ color has never come up before - not in any cirles I move in, not within range of my hearing. I guess it simply didn’t seem important at the time. I appreciate your putting me right on that point though. Gosh, you really know your stuff. You must have studied those fine distinctions of race and coloration to the nth degree. Is your data available in chart form (I’m better with pictures)?
Let’s talk again.
Cornell West - interesting African American Philosopher! Maybe we should add him to the list…mind you, is he worthy, perhaps the ramifications if his philosophy have yet to be felt?
Ahhh sarcasm, the wit of the fool.
Why hasn’t Socrates’s ethnicity come up before in discussion? Greeks are considered ‘white’ now, but they certainly didn’t used to be. Same with Italians, Irish, ect. So, why hasn’t this come up before? Because its arbitrary and irrelevant, like any race. It doesn’t matter what colour the person is who spouts philosophy, it’s the ideas that have merit.
Most of the hard-hitters in Western philosophy are males. Yes, there are female philosophers, many of them with very good points (at an even ratio, with [female good]/[female total] vs. [male good]/[male total]).
Unfortunately, it is an accident of history that women were kept from literacy and very much kept out of academic circles. This means that there weren’t many academic female philosophers until recently.
I’ve never once argued for the superiority of one group vs. another and, frankly, I very much resent the accusation.
That is exactly what I meant to say. I never once in my entire post stated anything that could mistaken for “I think sdlkgh is less capable then nsdoy”. I don’t know why you are so insistant on getting a minority or women up there. Who they hell cares what race or sex they are, if it only said their names would you be happy then? You should care about their ideas and philosophies, please tell me one ethnic or women philosopher that could take the place of one of those 5 men? If you are going to, then atleast keep it in the realm of reality. If your going to replace one of them replace them with another person that studied the same area of philosophy. You may be able to name a bunch of ethnic/women philosophers but when you break it down are they as good as the ones above? No. I am not some kind of racist and its people like you that keep the flame burning after it is no longer needed. There is no need to insist on paying more attention to women or ethnic philosophers. Philosophy is the type of subject where 90% (probably more) of the people now and days try to be as unbaised as possible. People in the field of philosophy or people that study it most likely won’t care what the person they are reading looked like, but instead care more about their ideas.
I’m pretty sure you are still going to try to make me out as the bad guy. But if the bad guy is the reasonable guy then I guess I am the bad guy.
=D>
Interestingly enough, Gog here seems to make a lot out of our little banner here. Since your so “politicallly correct” why don’t you tell us who you’d like to see up there, give us sufficient reason why your philosophers are better then those guys and then maybe we’ll talk to ben 
PS i think we need to add Plato up there, because well, he’s the best 
Gog’s writing style is eerily familiar…
That’s all I’m saying for now.
hahaha, again with the conspiracies and the secrets…
hey Jer do you think Ben could track down the IP adress of all the posters? Then if a “new” poster’s IP matches with an “old” poster’s we’d know who they are.
No, Western Philosophy started and for the most part progressed in Europe, most Europeans are white (or broadly ‘white’ if you consider hispanics/mediterraneans as white). It’s simply a geographical issue.
All what?
Name a polynesian philosopher - it could just be that none of these places/peoples developed complex literary/philosophical traditions. Black Africans, for example, seem to have had no interest in philosophy whatsoever until the mid 20th century. Not because they were oppressed, not because they were colonised, not because of racism or any of that, just because they had other things that they considered more important. There are a million widely respected Black African poets, for example, that appear on literature courses the world over…
White people are white - so what?
If you believe that non white philosophers should be included on the grounds of racial equality then yes, you are the racist. If you believe that ideas and arguments, regardless of any other factor, is the key issue in determining the ‘greatness’ of philosophers (symbolised by their presence in the pic in the top right) then you aren’t. Affirmative action is racism. Political correctness is racism.
It depends on the criteria… if the philosopher’s penis length should be the only means to judge one’s inclusion, then yes, you will get a selection of all male philosophers, few, if any, will be white.
thank you xunzain, i had never thought of that point. they were byrated(and oppressed) intellectually for hundreds of years,and thus pushed into the role!
also, i’d been out of ILP for quite a while(personal problems), and want the scoop on why POR got banned again?i mean it is not a suprise but it is a curiosity.