Favourite Philosophers

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Who do you like? Who are you drawn to?

If you're choice is not on the list, you can put your favourite that is on the list. If you don't have a favourite on the list, you could choose your least disfavourite.

Elaboration below is welcome for all voters or and non-voters.

Last edited by Saturn on 14 Jan 2012, 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You left out Hobbes. You should not have left out Hobbes.

ruveyn

Sorry. I had Hobbes in and then revised the list to include ones that I was or have been particularly interested in or had some experience of. I then had to revise the list again because it was too long.

What appeals to you in Hobbes?

He has the only reasonable justification for having a government. To prevent an eternal civil war.

Read Leviathan.

ruveyn

I'd tend to agree with Hobbes about that and I'm inclined to find out more about Hobbes. I'll maybe check out a podcast. Leviathan looks pretty intimidating. Have you checked out any of the Partially Examined Life podcasts?

You left out John Locke the father of liberalism. He inspiered the writers of the decleration of independence.
I would not say that he was the greatest philosopher but he was influential to Thomas Jefferson and others american revolutionaries.

I voted for Marx because he greatly inspired my political views.
I agree with the majority of his ideas and socialism would not be the same without him.

Paul Feyerabend. He earns bonus points because I find him enormously witty and entertaining to read, and, although I have plenty of disagreements with him on specifics, I find that his attitude and approach to philosophy (and life in general) resonates very strongly with me. He's surely had far more influence on me than any other philosopher.

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I picked Spinoza, but I would feel better if this poll wasn't a single choice. Is it possible to make ones that allow mulitiple selections?

And Kierkegaard is also missing. He's my other favorite.

well, according to bakunin, and this appears to have been borne out to some degree by reality, the existence of governments and antagonism between states simply leads to eternal war anyway, so it seems that we are damned if we do and damned if we don't.

Maimonides.

you missed out sartre. i think he should be on there.

Sorry to have left him out. I know he's a big name but not one I have had much experience of. Another one for me to check out in more detail.

Another one I'd like to find out about. Thanks for the recommendation.

It doesn't seem to be possible. I know it can be frustrating to be forced into one choice. Why Spinoza and why Kierkegaard?

Why Sartre? I've had a look at him but never been drawn to explore him more fully.

If you are interested in him, "Against Method" is the place most people start. A word of warning: it's worth having some awareness of the history of philosophy of science up to that point, and it's worth trying to forget anything you might have read about Feyerabend elsewhere. In my opinion, a lot of people seriously misunderstand the book, but that shouldn't be a problem as long as you have a bit of background knowledge and don't read it with any silly preconceptions.

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