I’m sure this has been asked but if not I thought it would be an interesting topic of discussion…
Mine is actually a toss-up between two very commonly studied philosophers…
I think the edge goes to Descartes… just because after reading Descartes
“Meditations”… I truly began to love the study of philosopy although much of it I disagreed with. I loved it because I could argue and critique it, but also that Descartes was atleast trying to push philosophy in a little different of a direction at the time. I do believe that he was a little too eager to try to please the Church at the time… but he probably had to more than he wanted to in order to be published and taken seriously.
But I also loves the stories of Socrates… but I think that’s more of the enjoyment of the style of Socrates… because I find it funny how much of the dialogue was of Socrates building peoples hopes up in their beliefs just to crush them. (I know this is an amatuerish view and I can go more extensive into Socrates but my first introduction to Socrates brought that sort of flavor to my view of him and I can’t say I want to fully let it go…)
Hope other people have some interesting comments / additions.
Xun Zi:
I dig his synthesis of Daoist (specifically Zhuangzi’s) metaphysics into the larger Confucian canon. Additionally, his strong Statist position compliments my own way of thinking much more than the (relatively, he was still a Monarchist, after all) decentralized thinking of Mencius. Venerating Heaven, while finding useful, pragmatic ways of applying that veneration into usable human goals.
Zhu Xi:
I’m kinda conflicted, since he declared the Xunzi a heterodox text . . . but, man, this guy knew what he was talking about. His hardcore synthesis of relgious-Daoism and Buddhism with Confucianism was really impressive. He also outlined a very nice order of study of the Classics (though he may have gone too far! People often stoped with his Four Books, a sort of ‘primer’ before the Five Classics!).
Zhuangzi:
A nice corrective for hard-line Confucians. The more I read this text, the richer and fuller it becomes. So much to work with here. Lots of cool metaphysics. Less on the forging of Character, stressed by both Xun Zi and Zhu Xi, but it helps keep perspective. I disagree with the text more often than not, but even in those disagreements, I find wisdom. Good stuff.
asking who your favourite philosopher is a bit like asking who’s your best friend, not something that should be responded by anyone with a serious perspective on philosophy.
I’ll second Dennett. Philosophy is done in the now, past philosophers have given us the shoulders to stand on. As for contemporary philosophers Dennett blows them all away, and the controversy he enrages is icing on the cake.
Nah. It’s a simple enough question. Perhaps “who are your philosophical influences” would be more appropriate but nevertheless there’s nothing wrong with the question, or with answering it. I do find it amusing that this thread seems to have dropped dead after that elitist remark, “Don’t post or we won’t listen to you!”
I love the radical tone of Jean Paul Sartre and obviously on that note Nietzsche too, I find the non-ananlytic and slightly abrasive tone so much more colourful and exciting. For me philosophy is colourful and exciting so I would credit those two certainly.
In contrast; in contempory philosophy, nothing has resonated so well with me as the common sense naturalistic dualism of David Chalmers. I recently finished Colin McGinn’s autobiography too, so at the moment I am in that mystic frame of mind but I’m sorta hoping that will ware off! I CANT SEE! I CANT SEE! ARGH!
Epicurus - he provided a logical argument for why we shouldn’t fear death. No scientist, no priest, no politician has accomplished something so applicable to (literally) everyone…
Hm… neither my Mother nor my Father are philosophers however you shake a stick at it. I do agree that the cosmos should be an influence n our thought, with a bit of luck, some of our thoughts should be ABOUT the cosmos, you know, what with it being all there is.
I dunno… it changes all the time, but I’m gonna go with a couple
I gotta agree in terms of modern philosophy Dennett is tough, it’s hard (for me at least) to really poke too many holes in what he says. I imagine he’ll be seen as a bigger figure as time goes on.
In terms of overall timelessness I’d say Neitzsche. I mean the guy didn’t really think up too many of his major ideas but he’s a brilliant writer and even a funny guy to boot.
I’ll throw Heraclitus in there too, there was always something i liked about his interactive style of writing.
i’ll second that, that was a real turning point inphilosophy for me, and the most useful thing I’ve ever read. I spoke about it at my Cambridge interview and everything. In fact if i remember correctly he gave 2 logical arguments why we shouldn’t fear death…
Too bad it doesn’t matter. People still fear death… he might not have feared death, but a flimsy theoretical concept didn’t change too much. This is just personal preference now, but I liked his… ‘cheerfulness’, not so much his views on death but dissention from the contemporary view on God, and how they translate to life… …which I’m realizing as I’m writing is basically the same.
Alright… I may have read it in a simplified light. You win this round.
Heh still though,… I was just never all that impressed by him. I mean look at this (from wiki)
Like… what the hell is that? Is that supposed to be a real argument?
Man… we need suffering to appreciate pleasure. If God exists the fact that he has a plan and is sticking to it does not mean he’s unomnipotent or evil, it means he/she knows our biological and psychological makeup.
Suffering serves a very real purpose which HE TALKS ABOUT in his critieria for why we shouldn’t fear death.
I understand why we need suffering, but like If god is omnibenevolent then he would want the best for us, raping murdering horrible people is not the best for us… furthermore innocent babies being killed by tsunamis is not helping them appreciate anything, so he should want to change it, why wouldn’t he?
If he is omnipotent he should be able make us appreciate pleasure without suffering, or can he only do whats “consistent with our nature”?. If this is the case then our nature precedes God, so he is not omnipotent, he cannot change our nature?.
SO for God to be an omnipotent God he must be able to change suffering, to stop it, to make it unnecessary… but he doesn’t, so… why not? is he malicious, but then once again he isn’t the God of classical theism, because maliciousness isn’t in his nature.
evil and suffering therefore, means God is either malicious or impotent… not looking good… or maybe he’s not omniscent, he’s just ignorant of our suffering, but that doesn’t work either. the inconsistant triad!!!
His argument was much more than a flimsy theoretical concept and he himself can’t be blamed for modern people’s ignorance of his work. I don’t fear death because of his work. It’s as simple as that. As has been said, this whole thing is a bit of a pointless question. Fun, but pointless.
His affirmation of life is the groundwork for Nietzsche’s later ideas on the same topic. Nietzsche refers to him loads, both implicitly and explicitly. The connection between N and Heraclitus is well documented but I think that Epicirus’ influence is somewhat downplayed. I’ve not read huge quantities of secondary material though so I could be wrong.
How about Witty, for pointing out that all philosophical problems are problems of language? He was pretty cool as far as philosophers go, gay as a battleship and mad as a hatter…
Probably not, it’s a fragment of speculation. It isn’t an argument in any conventional sense of the word, but a lot of Greek philosophy isn’t…
Good use of ‘haggard’. There is a really simple answer to the benevolent/omnipotent God/existence of evil on earth ‘problem’ but we needn’t get into that. I think that we’ve discussed it before anyway.
