# 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:** 2
**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, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/21 "2007-01-21T20:12:53Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] 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. [/QUOTE] The thing about Rand is that she’s an absolutely atrocious philosopher. Her “arguments” are riddled with more holes than 49ers defense. Plus ethical egoism isn’t exactly a new idea. Sidgwick provided a far more compelling case for it in _Methods of Ethics_ than Rand ever did long before she was even born, even if he did ultimately reject it. Fleischmann and Pons sparked debate too, but you’ll never hear them listed with Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. ---
**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, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/22 "2007-01-21T20:15:08Z")
Plus, she died quite a few years ago. The OP asks for people still alive. ---
**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, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/23 "2007-01-21T20:33:42Z")
I’ll hold to my assertion in the previous thread that none of today’s philosophers is a keeper. To rehash my argument, an enduring philosophers must tackle the big issues that are above merely current issues. Hence Augustine, for instance, took on the issues of fate vs free will, the source of happiness, the proper organization of society, and the chances for redemption. All topics that will be relevant for as long as there are human beings. Unsuprisingly, Augustine is still read widely by ordinary folk as well as students of philosophy. The philosophers of today are too concerned with making their arguments fit the framework adopted by the mass of people today. Hence when that framework collapses, their philosophy will no longer be relevant. And I firmly believe the framework will collapse. We have lived in a post-modernist world for almost a century, yet I see few signs that it can be sustained. I believe Hilaire Belloc’s assertion that postmodernism is inherently self-poisoning, and the edifice wlil collapse before the century is out. (I also believe that Belloc will still be widely popular after centuries have passed.) > [@Sam Stone](#): > > 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. If Ayn Rand is a philosopher, then so are Edward Belamy, Upton Sinclair, and Dan Brown. Placing bits of other people’s philosophy into a potboiler doesn’t make one a philosopher. Belamy, once the most succesful American author of all times, is forgotten now because his books were thuddingly bad as books; they functioned only as propaganda. Propaganda has no lasting value. Hence Sinclair, Rand, and Brown will fade as well. ---
**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, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/24 "2007-01-21T21:00:24Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] …Unsuprisingly, Augustine is still read widely by ordinary folk as well as students of philosophy… [/QUOTE] Well, sure, but only the “hot” parts. (Probably a phenomenon peculiar to Tennessee, in MN, its all about the Logical Positivists…) ---
**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, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/25 "2007-01-21T22:02:22Z")
[QUOTE=Gorsnak] The thing about Rand is that she’s an absolutely atrocious philosopher. Her “arguments” are riddled with more holes than 49ers defense. Plus ethical egoism isn’t exactly a new idea. Sidgwick provided a far more compelling case for it in _Methods of Ethics_ than Rand ever did long before she was even born, even if he did ultimately reject it. Fleischmann and Pons sparked debate too, but you’ll never hear them listed with Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. [/QUOTE] I’m not arguing the quality of her philosophy - just whether or not her name will be remembered as a 20th century philospher. I think it will. Personally, I agree with you about the quality of her philosophy - especially her attempts to extend it to every facet of life. She spent too much time trying to ‘prove’ that people who adopted her philosophy must have the same taste in art, for example. Ridiculous. She was a ‘quack’ philosopher who didn’t know what she didn’t know. I think she had a few reasonable insights, buried in a lot of twaddle. > [@ITR Champion](#): > > If Ayn Rand is a philosopher, then so are Edward Belamy, Upton Sinclair, and Dan Brown. Placing bits of other people’s philosophy into a potboiler doesn’t make one a philosopher. Belamy, once the most succesful American author of all times, is forgotten now because his books were thuddingly bad as books; they functioned only as propaganda. Propaganda has no lasting value. Hence Sinclair, Rand, and Brown will fade as well. She wrote a lot more than fiction. She wrote non-fiction philosophy books like, “An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, which were intended to be more scholarly. ---
**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, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/26 "2007-01-21T22:22:35Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] I’m not arguing the quality of her philosophy - just whether or not her name will be remembered as a 20th century philospher. I think it will. [/QUOTE] Except that in the long run, to be remembered as a philosopher you have to either turn out very high quality work or found an important and influential school of thought. Neither of these apply to Rand. She’s a philosophical footnote at best, far more significant as a social movement than as thinker. ---
**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, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/27 "2007-01-21T22:49:00Z")
Deepok Chopra. 'Cause that’s how bad it is. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/28 "2007-01-21T23:32:19Z")
Well, he’s been dead a while, but Marshall McLuhan counts. > **[Marshall McLuhan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan)** > > Herbert Marshall McLuhan\[a\] CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the United States and Canada before moving to the University of Toronto in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. He is known as the "father of media studies".\[ McLuhan co... One of the first communication-age philosophers. Alive? The man who wants Information to be Free. Eric S. Raymond, author of the Cathedral and the Bazaar. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/29 "2007-01-22T04:43:46Z")
the PC apeman writes: \> But I suspect future philosophy will draw more and more on non-philosophers in \> the vein of Richard Dawkins or John Searle. Searle is a philosopher: > **[John Searle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searle)** > > John Rogers Searle (American English pronunciation: /sɜːrl/; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language and Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, until June 2019, when his status as professor emeritus was revoked b ---
**Author:** ![Mbossa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Mbossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mbossa)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/30 "2007-01-22T07:31:25Z")
No mention of Noam Chomsky yet? He made some significant contributions to theoretical linguistics, and the Chomsky Hierarchy is one of the first things taught to students of formal languages. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/31 "2007-01-22T08:10:01Z")
Peter Singer? ---
**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 22, 2007, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/32 "2007-01-22T12:23:34Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] the PC apeman writes: \> But I suspect future philosophy will draw more and more on non-philosophers in \> the vein of Richard Dawkins or John Searle. Searle is a philosopher: > **[John Searle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searle)** > > John Rogers Searle (/sɜːrl/ ⓘ; July 31, 1932 – September 17, 2025) was an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He was the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley. Searle's early work on speech acts, influenced by J. L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein, helped establish his reputation. His most famous philosophical contribution is t... [/QUOTE] Yeah, I wondered if someone was going to call me on that. Searle is most definitely a philosopher with all the bona fides. It was lazy of me to lump him in with someone like Dawkins without explanation. Searle’s head is in the world of philosophy, but like Dawkins, his feet are firmly in the realm of science. It’s from there that he tries to move back toward the philosophical. In his words… "How do we get an account of ourselves as conscious, mindful, free, rational beings that we can make consistent with our concept with the rest of the universe as consisting entirely of mindless, meaningless physical particles and fields of force? Searle’s starting point is in the second half of that question. His lectures go on to deflate dualism and centuries of other philosophical hoohaw. His arguments advance outward from current cognitive and computer sciences and makes few, if any, unsubstantiated leaps. His CV is misleading, IMHO. I see him as having jumped the gap over to hard science, not so much as a practitioner but as an advocate. He works his way back from that foundation, along side the likes of Dawkins and Sagan, toward philosophical questions. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/33 "2007-01-22T12:48:09Z")
Is philosophy just a fashion? In other words, can progress be made (as in science and mathematics) or is progress impossible (as in music and theology)? The former disciplines have ways of being wrong, the latter ones do not. Is there a way to be indisputably wrong in philosophy? If philosophy is a fashion, only the tastemakers count although an ‘unsung genius’ (Van Gogh) might be rediscovered if he fits a later movement. Further, styles move in cycles so what is horrible and unmentionable in one era is natural and genius in the next. If it is not, only the people who are right count and everyone else is simply forgotten. (Quick, name the father of phrenology!) ---
**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 22, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/34 "2007-01-22T13:25:28Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] Is philosophy just a fashion? In other words, can progress be made (as in science and mathematics) or is progress impossible (as in music and theology)? The former disciplines have ways of being wrong, the latter ones do not. Is there a way to be indisputably wrong in philosophy? [/QUOTE] There are many ways to be indisputably wrong in philosophy. There just aren’t any ways of being indisputably right. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/35 "2007-01-22T14:02:23Z")
Rand herself said that she will be remembered as someone who asked some interesting questions, and I believe she was right. Who will be remembered, though, will be the person who starts out with her questions and finds the right answers, filling in all the gaps in Objectivism, especially in her epistemology. And Objectivism (if he still calls it that) will be the better for no longer being associated with Rand and her unfortunate personal life. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/36 "2007-01-22T14:41:15Z")
[QUOTE=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. [/QUOTE] The difference is, philosophers **invent** systems of thought, which they can be said to “own.” Scientists **discover** what is out there in the material universe, which somebody would be bound to discover sooner or later. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/37 "2007-01-22T14:53:20Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] Seriously: Ayn Rand. [/QUOTE] Influential – I’m sure if Bertrand Russell were alive writing his _History of Western Philosophy_ today he would probably feel obliged to devote a full chapter to Rand, as he did to Marx (or else a chapter on modern libertarian and anarchist philosophers generally – Rand, Nozick, etc.). But Russell is long dead. And so is Rand. Read the thread title. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/38 "2007-01-22T15:25:54Z")
Sartre may be dead but existentialism is still around. ---
**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 22, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/39 "2007-01-22T15:56:52Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The difference is, philosophers **invent** systems of thought, which they can be said to “own.” Scientists **discover** what is out there in the material universe, which somebody would be bound to discover sooner or later. [/QUOTE] Nope. Both _create_ models of how things work. The difference is that, like religion, philosophy is generally nonfalsifiable. (yeah, I’m sure there are exceptions) ---
**Author:** ![carterba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85e7bf/32.png) [@carterba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carterba)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773/40 "2007-01-22T15:56:54Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Yeah, I wondered if someone was going to call me on that. Searle is most definitely a philosopher with all the bona fides. It was lazy of me to lump him in with someone like Dawkins without explanation. Searle’s head is in the world of philosophy, but like Dawkins, his feet are firmly in the realm of science. It’s from there that he tries to move back toward the philosophical. In his words… "How do we get an account of ourselves as conscious, mindful, free, rational beings that we can make consistent with our concept with the rest of the universe as consisting entirely of mindless, meaningless physical particles and fields of force? Searle’s starting point is in the second half of that question. His lectures go on to deflate dualism and centuries of other philosophical hoohaw. His arguments advance outward from current cognitive and computer sciences and makes few, if any, unsubstantiated leaps. His CV is misleading, IMHO. I see him as having jumped the gap over to hard science, not so much as a practitioner but as an advocate. He works his way back from that foundation, along side the likes of Dawkins and Sagan, toward philosophical questions. [/QUOTE] I don’t know much about his other work, but based on his Chinese Room argument and his anti-“strong AI” stance, I’d say he’s purely a philosopher. I don’t see how that’s based in science at all; it seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Alan Turing’s so-called “Turing Test” paper (which is actually a paper on moral philosophy, and to my mind makes Alan Turing a better philosopher than John Searle). Russell & Norvig (two actual computer scientists) demolish the Chinese Room argument in their textbook on AI. It sounds like you know more about him than I do, though. Can you point me to any good primers on his work? What I know of it leaves me entirely unimpressed, but my sources are AI advocates who are obviously biased. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-philosophers-now-living-will-one-day-rank-as-canonical-names-with-plato-etc/388773.md?page=3)