I only know of Pyrrho through the works of Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus. But he did in a sense ‘solve’ one of the major problems of Greek scepticism…
I’ve never read Schopenhauer at any length, only introductions to his work and selected writings; I’ve no idea of his credentials…
Out of interest, is this the same pyrrho of the “pyrrhic victory”?
I always thought Schopenhauer was famous mostly cos Nietzsche liked him. Mind you, I also think that of Wagner. And the German language. And moustaches. yeah. Nietzsche rules OK. Nietzsche rocks HARD! =D>
Schopenhauer
The World as Will and Idea is about the world being composed of will and idea. That’s still a modern concept.
He discussed evolution and he talked a lot about human psychology.
No, that’s Pyrrhus, rather than Pyrrho.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrho
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus
That should clear it all up…
It should be noted that Schopenhauer scheduled his lectures to compete with Hegel’s at the time, something Kierkegaard was doing as well, but unofficially and behind the scenes. This is pretty slick, if you ask me.
I don’t have three favorites. Its impossible to have only three. I will say that Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche all worked within the same vein and while their philosophies appear to contrast in many ways, they are all quite similiar.
Dunamis
Reason number 35,003 for disliking george bush lite
he called Jesus his favorite “philosopher”.
Kropotkin
Hey! I like Superman, so what’s wrong with that?
TheAdlerian: Hey! I like Superman, so what’s wrong with that?"
K: so what! I like Harry potter books, it doesn’t make harry potter
a philosopher.
Kropotkin
Oh…
I find this fascinating. This says (to me a couple of things), either:
A) You only have 1 favorite at this time. Fine, though I find it weird you would add a temporal aspect, but whatever.
B) You truly only agree with this one particular philosopher - Spinoza.
C) Its something I haven’t thought of.
While you’ll probably just repond with c) to cover your ass… perhaps you would enlighten us peons anyways?
I frankly was confused by obw’s post. Somehow we were supposed to post the “greatest†but not include who we thought was “best,†nor our “favorite,†so I just went with whom I thought was the greatest in the broadest sense.
Spinoza
Prefigured by more than a hundred years,
1). Darwinian conceptions of drive as the locus of change
2). Millsian conception of a democratic society of freedoms
both of which might be called two of the dominate ideas of our last century.
Further he took his philosophical inheritance, the philosophy of Aristotle and the Stoics, and modernized it to a world view that was both an onto-epistemology and a personal psychology, marrying the abstract to the most present.
He critiqued and improved upon the greatest thinker of his time Descartes, side-stepping his most egregious error, that of dualism.
He lived at the birthtime of capitalism and its tension with Republicanism, and staked his theories within that milieu, making root observations on some the most prominent dynamics of our age, illuminating their nature 400 years before their dominance.
His observations on the body and its affects are being confirmed by cutting edge neuro-science now, primarily his thought and system that affects are ideas of the body in a particular state.
He prefigured the great thinker Nietzsche is so many ways, without falling into the trap of that resentment, and therefore surpassed him in power.
He produced what I can only call a polyvalent vocabulary and grammar of thought, which is so dexterous that it has been embraced by post-structuralist Gilles Deleuze, and post-modernist Antonio Negri.
His monism by attribute is mirrored by Donald Davidson’s very significant Anomalous Monism, just another example of how the most modern of philosophy seems to continually rediscover him.
No philosopher I know of was so ahead of his time, while taking up in his hand so much of his philosophical inheritance, all the while addressing and acting within the real world he was in, a political time of extreme importance. He displayed real courage against the tenets of common belief, risked physical safety, while not succumbing to bitterness or castle-in-the-sky thought. Ever the philosopher of pragmatism and power, as it actually manifests itself, there is no philosopher I know of, of such breadth and distance in time or application.
As for numbers 2 and 3 they really don’t matter. I have my exemplar.
Dunamis
I understand.
2 and 3 could have been for best and favorite though 
Oh.
1). Spinoza
2). Spinoza
3). Spinoza
Dunamis
You’re a jackass
It’s a good thing you’re funny
A time will come when the 20th century will be referred to as Deleuzian - Foucault
Dunno how to make an adjective out of Spinoza - Dunamis, you’re the word-obsessive, you hash something together…
A time will come when the 20th century will be referred to as delusion -Hunter S. Thompson
-Imp
Spinoza is God’s bitch.
