Who's your favorite philosopher?

[deuceswild]

Open topic. Tell us who your favorite philosopher is and why. I'm bringing up this subject since the announcement that Jacques Derrida passed away last week.

www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/

I'm not personally familiar with his philosophy, but from what I understand he had a reputation for being a very complex thinker.

[eufrenio]

Nietzsche.

[Mutt]

Rene Descartes

[Artemisia]

I like two philosophers who have very different viewpoints - Epicurus and Plato.

[Igu]

Nietzsche.

[deuceswild]

Come on...you didn't think it would be that easy did you?
Why are these thinkers so important?

[One Humanity]

Till now: Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Schopenhauer.

There is much philosophy in "rhetoric" aphorisms as well, though,

[Faelcind]

Lao Tzu. I beleive that there is an internal truth like the tao that all humans share, a innate of the truest truth, as it where.. A moral sense to guide us If we listen to the best parts of our selves. I love the concept of wu wei especial as martial artist. Finally I love the idea of looking to nature as way to find the way the truth.

Kahlil Gibran. I am an atheist but the his book the prophet and the Tao Te Ching deeply inform my personal philosophy of life. His words are poetic and beautifull and his philosophy of accepting totally life and engaging in it with all your self is as close to the truth as I see it as anything I have ever read.

[vela]

I like [shadow=red,left,300]Krishnamurti[/shadow].

Read some here: www.kinfonet.org/Discussion_Forums/Journal/absent.htm

[Igu]

-Nieztsche, Cause he's the best Just read his books.

-Nieztsche did not fall in the christian trap by follwing blindessly the moral of his time, He was the first philosopher to re-define the good and the evil, he took back these two concepts to their original meaning, the one that prevailed before God fornicates with Mary.

-There's a sort of Social darwinism in his ideology.

-He's anti-communist.

-He lifts up the postion of the elite -morally- where these people had -and still have- a big feeling of guiltiness.

[polyglotUSA]

Marx, most absolutely.

As did the main character in LeGuins' "The Disposessed", he turned the fascist/elitist ideas of Nietszche(Rand)on its head, stating that the "gifted" had the responsibility to be fully integrating themselves into society in order to become an ACTIVE part of the dialectic, rather than becoming fascist/"individualist" tyrants hovering above the rest of society as if they were gods.

Fascism and "individualism" are but two sides of the same coin, anyway.

[Melnorme]

polyglotUSA said:

Marx, most absolutely.

As did the main character in LeGuins' "The Disposessed", he turned the fascist/elitist ideas of Nietszche(Rand)on its head, stating that the "gifted" had the responsibility to be fully integrating themselves into society in order to become an ACTIVE part of the dialectic, rather than becoming fascist/"individualist" tyrants hovering above the rest of society as if they were gods.

Fascism and "individualism" are but two sides of the same coin, anyway.

Ha, it's about time we had a designated forum Marxist.

[Dienekes]

My favorite philosopher is Aristotle, the inventor of logic and the founder of biology.

[pconroy]

My favorite is Johannes Scotus Eriugena (800-877) - the little known Irish Theologian and NeoPlatonist Philosopher, who was to influence Hegel and others profoundly.

Irish theologian and NeoPlatonist philosopher. Translated and made commentaries upon Pseudo- Dionysius. The name Erigena means the same as Scotus, 'born in Ireland'. He is eulogised by Coulton as 'coming out of the darkness like a meteor', and by Russell as 'the most astonishing figure of the early Medieval period'.

Though a singular and enigmatic figure who stood outside the mainstream, it is now widely accepted that John Scotus possessed the finest and most original intellect of the early Middle Ages. He was highly proficient in Greek, quite rare at that time in mainland Europe, and was thus well-placed for translation work. Though born in Ireland he later (c845) moved to France, where he took over the school, the Palatine Academy, at the invitation of King Charles I (Charles the Bald, 823-77). He remained in France for at least 30 years. At the request of the Greek Emperor Michael (in c858) John undertook some translation into Latin of the works of Pseudo- Dionysius and added his own commentary. He was thus the first to introduce the ideas of NeoPlatonism from the Greek into the Western European intellectual tradition, where they were to have a deeply formative influence over Christian theology.

www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/scotus.html

plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottus-eriugena/

[Italianissimo]

I prefer Heidegger and Baudrillard. They both root back to Nietzsche, though. St. Thomas Aquinas is my all time favorite, although his influence was most definitely Aristotle.