Philosophy (in the narrowest sense), more than most other fields of intellectual achievement, is a field dominated by Great Names. We speak of “Newtonian physics” as a tribute to Newton because he was the first to discover and publish the principles; but he doesn’t own it the way Marx owns Marxism or Nietzsche owns the ubermensch.
Paul Strathern’s popular(izing) “Philosophers in 90 Minutes” series has not yet, AFAIK, covered any figure later than Michel Foucalt.
What philosophers now living/thinking/writing will one day be considered worthy to be added to a list beginning “Plato, Aristotle . . .”?
I’ve seen the adjective Hicksian floated around a few times in the last several years. Usually followed by rant, of course :).
Of course, he’s dead, though very recently in historical terms.
If you mean pure philosophers strictly in the traditional sense . . . there is not exactly an abundance of them these days. Richard Dawkins might come close, though philosophy is not his mainstay.
Hmm, I think at least a few of these guys will be remembered: Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennett, Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, Michael Dummett, Juergen Habermas. If any of them join the ranks of Plato, Hume, Kant, etc., it would probaby be Dummett or Rorty, maybe Dennett. Although we’ve lost some philosophers in the last decade or so who I think will have a greater legacy than any alive today. Specifically, Quine, Davidson, Derrida, and Kuhn.
Another excellent choice. And another in the line of science oriented thinkers that, in my mind anyway, differ from classical philosophers. Unfortunately he’s no longer among the living.
Back in the day philosophy was the game to approach knowledge (other than by merely accepting revealed religious truths) … philosophy encompassed all of science, sociology, psychology, medicine, mathematics, and more. It was the field to be in if you loved the pursuit of wisdom and was the necessary preamble to real advances in any of those other fields.
The preamble is done now and the greatest seekers of wisdom are now writing chapters in the book rather than trying to re-edit the pages numbered i to xiii that preceded the title.
I believe the point BrainGlutton was making is that with philosophers you read the actual texts of those philosophers to find out what the philosophy is, while with scientists almost no one reads the original scientific texts. Hence if you want to understand Marxist philosophy you read Marx. (Many people, of course, choose to criticize Marx without first understanding his philosophy, but that’s another debate.) If you want to understand Newtonian physics you read a book with a title like Introduction to Physics that was not written by Newton or any other person who made a central contribution to our understanding of physics.
Well, not wanting to hijack this thread on that topic I’ll let it drop, but that’s not what **BG **said, and even if he did, so what? That has nothing to do with the OP’s interest in Great Names. Scientists don’t read Newton because he prose is hard to penetrate, not because of the nature of his ideas.
Seriously: Ayn Rand. You don’t have to like her, or even think she was a decent thinker, but the fact is, her books are still among the most influential around, and I’ve seen more than one serious philosophy book discuss her, even if to dismiss what she had to say. She’ll be remembered.
I suspect the modern philosophers who will be remembered will be ones who, like Rand, were attached to certain political movements and political philosophy. They are the ones who spark debate, who collect followers, and who have vigorous defenses and criticisms written about them in widely read media.
