Who's your favourite philosopher?

arctic lemur

Who is your favourite philosopher(s) and why?

Below is a summary of my favourites and a synopsis of their teachings.

Thomas Aquinas: Wrote Of God and His Creatures giving a new definition to God.

Augustine of Hippo: Preach and teach.

Democritus: The Laughing Philosopher, need I say more. In the words of Asimov, "He had a reason to laugh. Most philosophers were poor: he had inherited a fortune."

John Locke: Wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises On Civil Government establishing him as the leading philosopher of freedom.

Niccolo Machiavelli: Wrote Discor si, Il Principe, and The Prince establishing him as a leading political theorist. Use any means nessessary as long as the ends are justified.

Plato: Wrote 30 dialogues defining philosophical terms, ideas, and the soul. These versions of philosophy became known as Neoplatonism and affected Christian philosophy through the Middle Ages. He also recorded the words of men like Socrates, who rarely wrote anything down himself.

William of Ockham: The simplest solution is most often the correct one.

These are my Lucky 7 of Philosophy, if you will. I realize some of them have conflicing views, but I try to integrate them into my life as much as possible.

DadaKopf

Oh, there are so, so many philosophers to chose from. I'll list my favorites in alphabetical order with a brief synopsis of what their philosophy is to me.

Thomas Aquinas: Wrote Of G-d and His Creatures giving a new definition to G-d.

Augustine of Hippo: Preach and teach.

Democritus: The Laughing Philosopher, need I say more. In the words of Asimov, "He had a reason to laugh. Most philosophers were poor: he had inherited a fortune."

John Locke: Wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises On Civil Government establishing him as the leading philosopher of freedom.

Niccolo Machiavelli: Wrote Discor si, Il Principe, and The Prince establishing him as a leading political theorist. Use any means nessessary as long as the ends are justified.

Plato: Wrote 30 dialogues defining philosophical terms, ideas, and the soul. These versions of philosophy became known as Neoplatonism and affected Christian philosophy through the Middle Ages. He also recorded the words of men like Socrates, who rarely wrote anything down himself.

William of Ockham: The simplest solution is most often the correct on.

These are my Lucky 7 of Philosophy, if you will. I realize some of them have conflicing views, but I try to integrate them into my life as much as possible.

While were on the subject favorite philosophers, why not mention your LEAST favorite philosopher. My LEAST favorite philosopher is Confusius. Does anyone agree?

Found this post over on http://www.asimovians.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t1241.html.

Hmmmm.

simu

Um... that's odd. Arctic lemur - is that you posting on another forum or do you happen to share that person's views on philosophy very much?!

-simu (philo forum mod)

muesli_offire

Not my favourite, but this guy is a complete legend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer

from Wikipedia:

...professor at Bard College in the fall of 1987. At a party that same year held by fashion designer Fernando Sanchez, Ayer, then 77, confronted Mike Tyson

Black Swan

Favourite philosopher: Omar Khayyam.
Published work: Rubaiyat (translated by Edward Fitzgerald)
Why? A profound and poetical exploration of the meaning of human life.

arctic lemur

simu wrote:

Um... that's odd. Arctic lemur - is that you posting on another forum or do you happen to share that person's views on philosophy very much?!

-simu (philo forum mod)

Is it ok to post in other philosophy forums?

Tar.Aldarion

arctic lemur wrote:

Is it ok to post in other philosophy forums?

But that person is not you.

Pherekydes

Pythagoras.

Transmigration of the soul, the Brotherhood, equal rights for women and some other stuff you may have heard about...;)

Tar.Aldarion

Plus vegetarians were called pytagoreans up to the 18 hundreds, go him!

Pherekydes

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

...pytagoreans ...

This is going in the Spell Czechers' forum...

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

...18 hundreds...

...and so is this!

Tar.Aldarion

Give me a break, I was in the middle of a game of Counter Strike, I had people to shoot!

monkeyfudge

I've always been a fan of Soren Kierkegaard myself.

Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Plato, JS Mill & Sartre this week

Jackie laughlin

Now is the time to look to Averroes to bring Reason to Islam.

Bodhidharma

Sartre.

Jackie laughlin

I'd be interested to know why someone considers their favoured philosopher important.

Mrs. MacGyver

I've always liked Descartes probable cause he was the first guy i studied when doing my degree. I lkied his logical reasoning towards proof of human (and God's) existance. Like discounting sensory reactions along the lines that sometimes people dream and their dreams are so real that we cant tell them from reality (like the falling dream). Sorry i'm a bit rusty with the old explanations as i've not looked a phiospohy for 4 years! I like his conclusin 'cogito ergo sum' 'i think therefore i am' to prove that we exist.

DadaKopf

I really didn't buy Descartes at all, even though he was the first non-Greek philosopher I'd ever heard of. He was, basically, dead wrong - his argument's elegantly logical, but his key assumptions are dubitable - i.e. you *have* to believe in God, and that the Christian concept of God is the True account. Great mathemetician, though.

Depends which day of the week you get me on. Today, my favourite philosopher is Slavoj Zizek because he's the Syd Vicious of philosophy.

Earthhorse

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But, then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness — I hope you're getting this down." - Woody Allen

monkeyfudge

Oh, wheat! Lots of wheat! Fields of wheat.

A tremendous amount of wheat!

DadaKopf

Hah, Woody in his wild-eyed Camus-digesing salad days. My favourite of his films except for the others I like more.

Mrs. MacGyver

DadaKopf wrote:

I really didn't buy Descartes at all, even though he was the first non-Greek philosopher I'd ever heard of. He was, basically, dead wrong - his argument's elegantly logical, but his key assumptions are dubitable - i.e. you *have* to believe in God, and that the Christian concept of God is the True account. Great mathemetician, though.

Depends which day of the week you get me on. Today, my favourite philosopher is Slavoj Zizek because he's the Syd Vicious of philosophy.

i've never heard of him. What was he all about then? Just curious!

DadaKopf

Here ya go ...

He hosted an excellent TV programme called "Cinema: The Pervert's Art" or something like that.

I think so he's great in so many ways at so many levels. Most important is that he (and Terry Eagleton) are reviving studies into Ideology (which has fallen out of fashion) and, while being a postmodernist, challenges many of the ideas and assumptions of famous postmodern philosophers. He's working out a way out of postmodern suspicion.

He's also mental. Really cool.

muesli_offire

Originally Posted by Dadakopf:

Slavoj Zizek

He's never made the real seem so strange, right?

I like some of his thoughts on particular films. In fact his book 'The Sublime Object of Ideology' is littered with (if not organized by) a few observations on Hitchcock, as I recall. (?)

He is a bit of a Marxist rehabilitationist but I can't recall most of his ideas, the only things that stick in my head are a few remarks about Tom Cruise and Jim Morrison - can you help me out?

[EDIT] Here's his take on Eyes Wide Shut: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0107.html

cuts to the sailor talk:

we do not dream about f**king when we are not able to do it - rather, we f**k in order to escape and stifle the excess of the dream that would otherwise overwhelm us.

...guess he liked the film then.

Also in the vein of 'hip' thinkers, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard

He's got a series of books called 'Cool Memories. Again, Tom Cruise and Jim Morrison have never seemed so deep.

DadaKopf

Marxist rehabilitationist? MmmIdunno. Marxist thought went away? He dislikes positivism, and sees ideology - any kind of ideology - as a fetish that societies create because they can't deal with the truth of human existence - the dimensions of libido. Political ideology is sort of like a super-ego or something.

If he's Marxist, it's a very, very revised form of neo-Marxism. He also wrote the preface to An Introduction to Alain Badiou, who is France's darling philiosophe de jeu. Badiou is a sort of Mathemetician-Philosopher who blends Lacanian psychoanalysis with logical set theory and marxism to form something he calls 'infinite thought' - the world CAN be remade however people can imagine it blah blah - he tries to reconcile many disciplines of thought in one vision.

greglo23

for me it would have to be the late great Bill Hicks.

On 25 February 2004, British MP Stephen Pound tabled an early day motion titled "Anniversary of the Death of Bill Hicks" (EDM 678 of the 2003-04 session), the text of which was as follows:

That this House notes with sadness the 10th anniversary of the death of Bill Hicks, on 26th February 1994, at the age of 33; recalls his assertion that his words would be a bullet in the heart of consumerism, capitalism and the American Dream; and mourns the passing of one of the few people who may be mentioned as being worth of inclusion with Lenny Bruce in any list of unflinching and painfully honest political philosophers.
from wikipedia http://tinyurl.com/7urjm

UU

I think the Buddha is a worthy philosopher which I cannot disagree with. I like his whole teachings of not giving answers to his follwers. For example, when asked "Is there a God?", he just remained silent indicating that it is up to the individual to discover God for oneself, that such an answer can't be answered by another human being.

Jesus is also a philosopher in my view rather than a god. I have cherished his teachings of love, peace, forgiveness, etc. His metaphorical images also give freedom to search for a hidden meaning behind his noble words.

Valmont

I really enjoyed reading Nietzsche. When I had finished his books, I really looked at everything differently. I like the way he challenged traditional moralities and beliefs, and his virulent dislike of organised religion.

I also enjoyed reading Voltaires "philosophical dictionary", no particular reason but I suppose that it was easy enought to follow.

I liked confucius because he showed that the whole "love your neighbour" concept was not exclusive to Jesus Christ.

Acid_Violet

Spinoza, Sartre and Woody Allen. (Watch 'Hannah and her sisters.')

St. Thomas Aquinas thought that vultures were lesbians and fertilized by the wind. When I read that (and no prizes for guessing where I read that) I lost all faith in him.

I'm surprised enough to see that Aristotle hasn't been mentioned at all. He was lovely and rational.

adm

Diogenes of Sinope
Lived in a barrel and gave out to people
my kinda guy.


I heard a nice story about when the model twiggy
went to new york in the 60's and woody allen
asked her who her favourite philosopher was , probably
to make her look a bit dumb . she replied:
"I dunno, who's yours?"
I always liked that reply.

Playboy

I'm interetsed in the philosophy od Science and my favourites would have to be Thmas Kuhn and Bas Van Fraassen. I like Merleau Ponty's stuff on the lived body and his essay on Cezanne. That essay can be found here if anyone is interested btw