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Top 10 Philosophers of All Time
This entry was posted in Science & Philosophy, Top Lists and tagged All, hegel, kant, philosophers, philosophy, socrates, Ten, Time, Top, wittgenstein. Bookmark the permalink.
Ouf. Husserl #2
Ok, a nice attempt, but I’m afraid you just can’t rank philosophy. It’s too naive. Sorry. And you can’t like both Plato and Nietzsche. Stick to games I’d suggest… Oh, and cheers!
You can’t like both Plato and Nietzsche? How retarded are you? How shallow is your philosophical background is the more pressing question.
YUDO, besides calling someone retarded, you’re arguments aren’t that convincing. Oh, and my philosophical background -the shallow one, you know- is happily aware of Nietzsche absolute disdain for Plato and the fact that idealism and materialism don’t go together. Now, look these terms up in Wikipedia and you’ll get closer to getting it. Bah!
And yes, I didn’t mean “you’re”. Meant “your”. Heh.
A closer look at Nietzsche sees a profound respect for how strong of an influence Plato was for the Western World. Besides, It is possible to appreciate both thinkers even if the later had publicly repudiated Platonism turned Christianity. This you wont find though in a “Nietzsche in 90 minutes” though. Your not interested in understanding any of this on a deeper level though. You take anecdotes you overheard about philosophers disliking each other and make them into the philosophers whole lives. Your thinking is small. Don’t wear this shit on your sleeve and you will mentally grow up.
It’s frankly ridiculous how you try to argue without actually using arguments. It seems that name-calling is much easier right? Whatever… As I have both read and professionally translated & edited Nietzsche I just won’t bother anymore… Let me just help you with something… saying that something has an influence on something else is not a sign of respect. “Hitler for example did influence modern history quite a bit”. Not disagreeing with this doesn’t make one a Nazi. GEDDIT? Couldn’t care less really…
Oh, and Mountain… your deep philosophical thinking has already been shared (hopefully to everyone’s amusement).. Lovely stuff. Better than YUDO’s in a way. Let m guess… both Americans, eh?
Yeah, you really sound like you translate Nietzsche professionally.
How do people who translate (not in English, mind) translate sound like then, oh you great monumental lighthouse of human thought?
gnome is smelly
This Gnome person sure is ornery for someone apparently well-versed in philosophical thought.
Personally, I’ve only read about six of these thinkers, but I think it’s totally possible to rank philosophers. In order to make any such list, you need to outline your criteria, and I think the following passage outlines the criteria for being a great philosopher:
“Philosophy, as the love of wisdom, hits at the core of all human beings. It defines them as a specific self in the face of everything else. When people discuss philosophy in a serious, rigorous manner, not only is there a conversation happening between a group of interlocutors, but a feeling of their own lives being on the line in defining the best way for the human being to live and the best way for the human being to describe his world.”
Thus, moreso than any others, the people on this list epitomize this spirit. And from here, you can include Plato and Nietzsche on the same list, even they may disagree with each other.
Ornery? I didn’t start by calling anyone an uneducated retard, did I?
Oh, and something else. I have to disagree with your proposed criteria for ranking philosophers, even though they do seem intriguing, for the following reasons:
a) they still aren’t (isn’t, really) detailed enough to actually allow ranking. They can’t be applied in a way that would -say- rank Plato higher or lower than Epicurus.
b) I feel they are already implying an acknowledgment of an already agreed upon set of rules for thinking and living. Otherwise, anyone wishing to teach people a way of living is a great philosopher.
c) Nietzsche, obviously writing in a more literary way than any other philosopher and definitely ot going for the “serious” approach, wouldn’t make it in such a list.
d) This is a gaming blog, so we’re missing the point
P.S. A discussion on ranking would be interesting, though rather meaningless anyway. Still, I think we could for example measure influence, but this alone doesn’t necessarily make for great philosophy.
Regarding point (a), I didn’t write the list. I was just sharing my interpretation of what I think the list used in its ranking.
I think a lot of people will fall into debates over subjectivity when it comes to ranking things, and they will extrapolate from the fact that opinions/experiences differ to the conclusion that ranking/listing is impossible/futile. This line of thought never sat well with me; indeed, I think it throws the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. A fews ago this same line of reasoning came up on a podcast I listen to about critical thinking and reasoning, and the show’s host said the way to avoid this trap is to set up (agreed) criteria to make the list-making project more objective.
That idea has stuck with me ever since, as I now find myself spelling what criteria I think matter when I evaluate and rank “matters of taste,” and I find myself not resorting to the “subjectivity-sucks” tactic when I see a list that (even if minimally) outlines it’s criteria.
Now, this rant is not a response to anything Gnome is saying, but just a larger comment on people who disapprovingly comment on this site’s lists and use the word “subjective” in their comments. But I think after reframing the discourse in these terms, we can try to have a better set of comments in response to this article. Indeed, Gnome’s latest response makes a thoughtful comment with point (b).
Then we sort of agree I guess, though I’ll have to admit I fail to see the point in all those list… Unfortunately, reality does tend to come up with more than 5 or 10 best of whatevers…. Anyway. Care to share the podcast? Oh, and subjectivity does kind of suck… Heh. So does solipsism…
Is het dat, het iemand me kunnen me zeggen waar het strand is vóór verontschuldigen?
I agree with Kwade drang, perhaps sometimes we take ourselves too seriously..
http://www.princetonreview.com/podcasts/lsat.asp
Thanks!
Wish to see Marquis de Sade here.
hey, good day. i’m not as advanced in the science as most of you guys are but i’m really interested in gaining knowledge in this feild of study. Now i’m unable to tell if the list that is posted is actually true or not.
Could someone please enlighten me on the subject of some of the greatest philosophers, as i’ve learn’t that it is best to learn from the best than those of limited knowledge.
Thanks in Advance
first of all its all about lao tsu he is the man forget everyone else he did the most
Aristotle WAY beyond Socrates.
Husserl at #2?
That’s not just bad, it’s moronic.
Top-10 philosophers of all-time:
Plato
Aristotle
Saint Agustin
René Descartes
Hume
Kant
Hegel
Nietzsche
Husserl
Heidegger
Wow guys, you don’t really have to get angry at one another. You can disagree but still like the way someone is thinking right? I guess that is how you love wisdom most and that is also why you can of course like Plato and Nietzsche at the same time. Come on guys open mindness!
I argue on a blog with strangers, therefore i am.
Just curious, how far down on an expanded list would I find Thomas Jefferson? I was reading through a bunch of Jefferson one-liners today, and am amazed–and rather troubled–by how relevent his thinking 200 years ago is to what Americans are witnessing today. If he were alive today, I picture him pulling at his hair with both hands, bouncing off walls in madness saying, “I told you so, I told you so…”
I would argue that Ayn Rand and Samuel Johnson should be up here only because i love both of them. Mad props on Nietzsche and Soren. Maybe Vonnegut too but that’s more high brow literature then philosophy.
Aristotle!
LOL ROFL. Real males leave their marks on comment sections below important texts.. …how….existential……. …….. LOL ROFL…..
Wow. This is not really what I expected from a post such as this. Just an opinion, but I believe that one can rank philosophers by their influence. And another, you can’t like Plato and Nietzsche? I would beg to differ. I would have to say that the Republic and Thus Spoke Zarathustra are my two favorite books. Thus Spoke Zarathustra was highly influenced by Plato especially the Myth of the Cave. A philosopher’s duty being to rise up and descend again either into the cave like Plato or the valley like Zarathustra. Either way, honestly guys, is this a “Who’s Longer Debate??”
no aristotle???
How does Wittgenstein not get ranked? Anyone who’s read the Tractatus, or the Blue and Brown Books, or anything he’s published knows how his theories on how language and philosophy are brilliant – unless, like most people, they can’t get through 5 pages of his writing without getting a headache.
Also, what’s up the the complete lack of post-modern philosophers (i.e., Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Lacan), except for Foucault was more of a Historian, and Lacan was more of a Psychoanalyst.
Still, books like Madness & Civilization, The Order of Things, Anti-Oedipus, and anything on Deconstruction or Lacan’s Critical Theory make you rethink EVERYTHING about Philosophy.
If we’re talking about what you take from philosophy and apply to your own life, then I’d argue:
1) Descartes should not be in the top ten, as the only thing he proved was his own existence.
2) Kant shouldn’t be in the top ten, as Nietzsche tears down his theory of Table of Categories in Beyond Good & Evil.
3) Hegel should be in the top 3, as his theory of Zeitgeist is arguably the one philsophical doctrine that cannot be proved wrong.
4) So shculd Nietzsche, as he was the first to state that philosophy was useless unless it was life-preserving, and argued that “truth” was no more desirable than “untruth”, as both are conceptions created by humans.
5) Also, I’d argue for one Eastern Philosopher to crack the top 10, probably Confucius, as his ideas were more than 1,000 years ahead of his time.
why not mahatma ghandi?? he had a great philosopy of life.
yeah, good question. what abot ghandi?
and i think DTNarcus makes very good points.
Tim, you bring up someone who actually I think might be on my list.
I’m not sure what standards you are using, but the omission of Aristotle and the inclusion of Husserl and Kierkegaard is atrocious. If your aim is to list the top ten philosophers, just on general standards, such choices are mystifying.
Now, if you were picking your favorite philosophers, the ones you believe have done what you judge to be the best work, then this list would be more understandable. But if the criteria is who has done the most original and powerful work and had the largest impact on the field of philosophy, omitting Aristotle for Kierkegaard is inexplicable.
If I were to make such a list on the latter criteria, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant would have to be shoe-ins. The last three spots would be up for grabs and would probably require a refining of the standards. For instance, can one include Wittgenstein and not Frege? It can be argued that there is no Wittgenstein without Frege. Spinoza definitely deserves serious consideration. The twentieth century is difficult and I find it hard to consider anyone other than Wittgenstein for such a list (despite the fact that I despise him, I can’t ignore his influence).
Ultimately, however, I have to conclude that your list is unsatisfactory.
No Wittgenstein?
If your list is based on the influence they had, may be you should have also included Karl Marx, he was a philosopher too.
Marx was undoubtably brilliant, and the only reason I’d exclude him from the top 10 was because he was more of an economist than philosopher.
I think Matt makes legit points with Aristotle and Spinoza too, though I still think Descartes shouldn’t be in the top 10, as his mind-body dualism and “ghost in the machine” are just wrong (check out chapter 2 of Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained”).
And yes, I’d say include Wittgenstein and not Frege. Just because Wittgenstein’s ideas and theories were influenced by Frege doesn’t make Frege a better philosopher. Wittgenstein’s exploration of “language games” (no language, no philosophy), his emphasis on being clear before being right, and both his Tractatus and Philsophical Investigations truly make him stand among the greats of philosophy.
And lastly, I’d consider adding Sir Karl Popper. His method of empirical falsification is invaluable to determining what is science as opposed to what is not science.
I think shankspear wasent so bad
nietzsche should be no 1. his books are the most interesting and by far the best written.
if youare going by influence then yes Marx would make the list.
Shankspeare?
Suprised to see you didn’t make the Gallhager brothers #1
in case anyone thought that was a ”what about?”: who is shankspeare?
Another fucking thing Old Wizard knows fuck all about but seems to want to try and use to lord it over people.
Fuck you Old Wizard.