# What philosophers now living will one day rank as Canonical Names (with Plato, etc.)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773 "2007-01-21T00:15:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/1 "2007-01-21T00:15:18Z")
Kindasorta a followup to [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=404079&highlight=philosophy) thread. 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.](http://www.amazon.com/Dewey-90-Minutes-Paul-Strathern/dp/156663475X/sr=1-1/qid=1169338305/ref=sr_1_1/102-0669315-8938529?ie=UTF8&s=books) What philosophers now living/thinking/writing will one day be considered worthy to be added to a list beginning “Plato, Aristotle . . .”? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Joe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Evil\_Joe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Joe)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/2 "2007-01-21T00:25:48Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Kindasorta a followup to [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=404079&highlight=philosophy) thread. 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.](http://www.amazon.com/Dewey-90-Minutes-Paul-Strathern/dp/156663475X/sr=1-1/qid=1169338305/ref=sr_1_1/102-0669315-8938529?ie=UTF8&s=books) What philosophers now living/thinking/writing will one day be considered worthy to be added to a list beginning “Plato, Aristotle . . .”? [/QUOTE] I fear someone along the lines of Paris Hilton. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/3 "2007-01-21T00:37:07Z")
Seven years ago I would have said W. V. O. Quine, but he up and died in 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/4 "2007-01-21T00:56:10Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/5 "2007-01-21T01:49:05Z")
Don’t much care about “canonical” or not, I just hope they spell the name right. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/6 "2007-01-21T02:13:47Z")
Barthes. . . dead. Foucault. . . dead. Said. . . dead. Slavoj Zizek is pretty darn famous, no? He’s kicking around. ---
**Author:** ![BlueCase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@BlueCase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueCase)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/7 "2007-01-21T02:21:32Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/8 "2007-01-21T03:39:34Z")
Rorty is a good choice. But I suspect future philosophy will draw more and more on non-philosophers in the vein of Richard Dawkins or John Searle. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/9 "2007-01-21T03:45:10Z")
Carl Sagan. _The Demon-Haunted World_ is a masterfully written guide to critical thinking. It should be required reading in high school. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/10 "2007-01-21T04:06:08Z")
David Chalmers and Ken Wilber. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/11 "2007-01-21T04:17:08Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Carl Sagan. _The Demon-Haunted World_ is a masterfully written guide to critical thinking. It should be required reading in high school. [/QUOTE] 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. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/12 "2007-01-21T14:53:06Z")
Rand 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/13 "2007-01-21T16:24:47Z")
None. The time is past. 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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/14 "2007-01-21T16:36:36Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] 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._ [/QUOTE] re: Newton. Yes, he does. As does Einstein and Galileo. Three of the greatest minds that ever were. Marx is a piker in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/15 "2007-01-21T16:53:21Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > re: Newton. Yes, he does. As does Einstein and Galileo. Three of the greatest minds that ever were. Marx is a piker in comparison. 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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/16 "2007-01-21T17:27:28Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] 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. [/QUOTE] 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. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/17 "2007-01-21T18:03:13Z")
Daniel Pinchbeck. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/18 "2007-01-21T19:15:53Z")
Newton’s advances in alchemy remain unchallenged. His grasp of necromancy was singular, and unequaled until the aforemention Rand. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/19 "2007-01-21T19:40:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/20 "2007-01-21T19:41:54Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Newton’s advances in alchemy remain unchallenged… [/QUOTE] Your point being…? Marx, after all, has only Marxism to his credit. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773.md?page=2)