"Top 5" Intellectuals and Philosophers

[Free Soviets]

bah, lists of 5 are for losers. i get 8, and only 2 of them get to be ancients.

Hume
Aristotle
Leopold
Diogenes
Wittgenstein
Kripke
Nietzsche
Marx

apologies for my incredibly white and male list, but the patriarchy's walls have only recently come down enough to let others shine through, and we don't yet have a good handle on how they will stand the test of time.

[Free Soviets]

If philosophers were smart they wouldn't waste their time on such meaningless drivel that is "philosophy"

i like to think of philosophy as society's safety valve. better to distract us with highly abstract probably irresolvable problems than to let us run free, see our plans blocked by fools, and then plot world domination.

[Neo Art]

If philosophers were smart they wouldn't waste their time on such meaningless drivel that is "philosophy"

i like to think of philosophy as society's safety valve. better to distract us with highly abstract probably irresolvable problems than to let us run free, see our plans blocked by fools, and then plot world domination.

It also perhaps stems from my rather narrow definition of the term "philosopher". Lots list Marx as a philosopher, I don't see him as such. Marx is no more philosopher than Adam Smith or Kenneth Waltz. They're theorists, Marx and Smith economic theorists, Waltz political theorists.

Theory is useful and at time very valuable because it predicts models of human behavior. "philosophy" is just so much subjective clap-trap.

[Pope Joan]

Augustine of Hippo http://www.amazon.com/Augustine-Hippo-B ... 0520227573

I hate him, he killed my feloow believers by naming them "heretics" foe daring to say that loyalty was better than apostasy. (Donatists; Mennonites)

Thomas Aquinas, bringing Aristotle (apologist for slave owners) into the new milennium with credibility. I like his hierarchy of values. http://www.socinian.org/thomas_aquinas.html

Soren Kierkegaard

Albert Camus

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

[Conserative Morality]

Pretty much, yeah.

Of course, the same goes for artists, novelists, and the sort. They don't contribute anything REAL to this world.

[Neo Art]

Pretty much, yeah.

Of course, the same goes for artists, novelists, and the sort. They don't contribute anything REAL to this world.

Not at all, entertainment has considerable value. I highly doubt you sit in a box all day, do you?

[Republicke]

i like to think of philosophy as society's safety valve. better to distract us with highly abstract probably irresolvable problems than to let us run free, see our plans blocked by fools, and then plot world domination.

It also perhaps stems from my rather narrow definition of the term "philosopher". Lots list Marx as a philosopher, I don't see him as such. Marx is no more philosopher than Adam Smith or Kenneth Waltz. They're theorists, Marx and Smith economic theorists, Waltz political theorists.

Theory is useful and at time very valuable because it predicts models of human behavior. "philosophy" is just so much subjective clap-trap.

I'm somewhat confused by this. Would you mind giving me an example of a philosopher (by your specific definition)? Like, who are the philosophers as opposed to the theorists, etc.?

[Aeronos]

Hume
Nietzsche
Sartre
Socrates
Jefferson

[Conserative Morality]

Not at all, entertainment has considerable value. I highly doubt you sit in a box all day, do you?

Philosophy cannot be entertaining?

I suppose I read Beyond Good and Evil becuase, uh...

Because I didn't want to be entertained?

[Neo Art]

It also perhaps stems from my rather narrow definition of the term "philosopher". Lots list Marx as a philosopher, I don't see him as such. Marx is no more philosopher than Adam Smith or Kenneth Waltz. They're theorists, Marx and Smith economic theorists, Waltz political theorists.

Theory is useful and at time very valuable because it predicts models of human behavior. "philosophy" is just so much subjective clap-trap.

I'm somewhat confused by this. Would you mind giving me an example of a philosopher (by your specific definition)? Like, who are the philosophers as opposed to the theorists, etc.?

I theorist in the social science concept is one whose work can be used as a tool to create models to base activity and events on. It has a predictive quality to it, and the value of the work is how well it predicts.

Marx, by that definition, is more theorist than philosopher because his work was a work of economic theory, it set forth a prediction of a model based on observation. Descartes is a philosopher, his work is useless for the purposes of creating models of behavior or events. It's what separates social science from philosophy. Social science is as much a science as "hard" science. It observes, predicts and theorizes in a way that is falsifiable and predictive.

Philosophy is metaphysical bullshit musings.

[Neo Art]

I suppose I read Beyond Good and Evil becuase, uh...

I high tolerance for bullshit and a low perception of quality is my guess.

[Conserative Morality]

I high tolerance for bullshit and a low perception of quality is my guess.

I found very little of it bullshit. I may not have agreed with it, but I found it very enjoyable nonetheless.

[Conserative Morality]

Also, why is the examination of one's life and actions, or the actions and life of humanity in general so terrible?

[Free Soviets]

Philosophy is metaphysical bullshit musings.

unless, of course, you look at most of my list of philosophers. they are more known for saying that if you find a work full of such, put it to the flames.

[H N Fiddlebottoms VIII]

Also, why is the examination of one's life and actions, or the actions and life of humanity in general so terrible?

Because to a certain set of Absolutist jag-offs who cannot possibly contemplate the existence of a value set different from their own, any person who derives pleasure from something that they don't happen to enjoy is mentally deranged. It isn't so much that philosophers reflect on the meaning of this or that which these close-minded individuals object to, as even the least examined life is a philosophical statement of sorts, but the idea that someone might come up with meanings or values which disagree with their own. How terrible! How blasphemous! So they call forth the inquisitors, alert the secret police, sharpen the executioner's axe, or just blare their deliberate ignorance to the world through the internet. The last one is very popular because it doesn't require any actual work.

[Trotskylvania]

Five is far too few. Here are mine, in no particular order.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Aristotle
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Immanuel Kant
John Dewey

[Neo Art]

Also, why is the examination of one's life and actions, or the actions and life of humanity in general so terrible?

Because to a certain set of Absolutist jag-offs who cannot possibly contemplate the existence of a value set different from their own, any person who derives pleasure from something that they don't happen to enjoy is mentally deranged. It isn't so much that philosophers reflect on the meaning of this or that which these close-minded individuals object to, as even the least examined life is a philosophical statement of sorts, but the idea that someone might come up with meanings or values which disagree with their own. How terrible! How blasphemous! So they call forth the inquisitors, alert the secret police, sharpen the executioner's axe, or just blare their deliberate ignorance to the world through the internet. The last one is very popular because it doesn't require any actual work.

Well, I was gonna start with "throw hysterical hyperbole laden hissy fit on the internet" but I see you got that one covered pretty well enough by yourself.

[Neo Art]

Also, why is the examination of one's life and actions, or the actions and life of humanity in general so terrible?

because it accomplishes nothing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a philosophical work and 3 bucks will get you a cup of coffee at starbucks.

[Angleter]

Aristotle
St. Thomas Aquinas
René Descartes
John Polkinghorne
Enoch Powell

[Unhealthy2]

I theorist in the social science concept is one whose work can be used as a tool to create models to base activity and events on. It has a predictive quality to it, and the value of the work is how well it predicts.

Marx, by that definition, is more theorist than philosopher because his work was a work of economic theory, it set forth a prediction of a model based on observation. Descartes is a philosopher, his work is useless for the purposes of creating models of behavior or events. It's what separates social science from philosophy. Social science is as much a science as "hard" science. It observes, predicts and theorizes in a way that is falsifiable and predictive.

Philosophy is metaphysical bullshit musings.

What about epistemology? What about work on the actual nature of existence? Keep in mind, much of modern physics has been a restructuring of metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the universe. What about formal logic?

[Unhealthy2]

Newton, Riemann, Weierstrass, Russell, Turing, Godel, Einstein, Dirac, Feynman

That's a top 5, for sufficiently high values of 5.

[H N Fiddlebottoms VIII]

Well, I was gonna start with "throw hysterical hyperbole laden hissy fit on the internet" but I see you got that one covered pretty well enough by yourself.

What can I say, man, I'm just feeling the purple prose today. Sort of like how you're feeling the poorly punctuated trolling.

because it accomplishes nothing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a philosophical work and 3 bucks will get you a cup of coffee at starbucks.

You could say that about any "work." What did Avatar physically accomplish, other than kill a couple furries? How many lives has Stephen King saved? Cormac McCartney might as well have spent years picking fuzz out his navel for all the "value" his novels possessesed. And don't get me started on the Beatles, the only music anyone should produce are marching cadences, and we've already got "Left-Left-Right-Left," so that's that wrapped up nice and even.

[Buffett and Colbert]

My top three are:

1. Hobbes

2. Iroh

3. Mafalda

*nod*

[Angleter]

Newton, Riemann, Weierstrass, Turing, Godel, Einstein, Dirac, Feynman

That's a top 5, for sufficiently high values of 5.

See, this is why I decided against doing Further Maths A-level. 5=8? Maaaaan...

[Neo Art]

Plebeians such as yourself who care only about the monetary aspects of eduction are the cancer that is killing the traditional institution of Universities as social areas of the intellectual elite.

oh noes! Whatever shall I do? The intellectual elite won't like me anymore!

Of course, they pretty much stopped liking me since college, when they would come into class for the tests after a night in the library and I'd roll in from an evening well spent, and I'd break their curves. But oh well.