Oh - and Docta G, you can’t take this too seriously. As an insider, you see all the nuance; folks like us just think headlines (Decartes = I think therefore I am; Augustine’s ontological proof of God, etc…).
As a guitar player, I have to deal with folks saying “Hendrix rules, Page drools” (or whatever - you get the idea…). Yes you can boil the talent of such superior artists to one-line summaries, but you miss so much…
Just to elaborate on my post above, the point I am making is that philosophy is about understanding reality and Man’s place in it. So many philosophical systems over the years are defined by the basic assumptions they start with given the biases of the philosopher in question and the state of science at the time. So when you have a slew of philosophers who base their system of thought on “Okay, assume there is God. From there…” again - you can insert X for God, based on the philosopher in question and the assumptions they are basing their system on. It just feels like they are building their house on the shakiest of foundations…and then you get guys like Hegel who are like the anti-Occam, looking for ever-greater levels of complexity when the basic truth of the inherent give-and-take between Rationalism and Empiricism fuels the engine of philosopical thought…well…
Okay - I just lost myself. Gotta run back to stuff I know, like my job. ;)
Spinoza is tops with me…but Barney is up there too.
“Baruch (or Benedictus) Spinoza is one of the most important philosophers—and certainly the most radical—of the early modern period. His thought combines a commitment to Cartesian metaphysical and epistemological principles with elements from ancient Stoicism and medieval Jewish rationalism into a nonetheless highly original system. His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness. They also lay the foundations for a strongly democratic political thought and a deep critique of the pretensions of Scripture and sectarian religion. Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth-century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza.”
I have a few friends who are philosophy professors, and most of them would be able to put aside their professional self-importance long enough to nominate a favorite philosopher, even if only for the purpose of a layperson’s message board thread. I think your comment says less about the question than it does about you. Which, coincidentally, is true of quite a few philosophers.
I’d say the 3 biggest influences on my worldview have been Erich Fromm, Robert Wright and Ray Kurzweil.
Erich Fromm’s work on the nature of freedom (which I have only started reading in the last month or so) has done a lot to explain certain aspects of life I didn’t understand. The need for connection, the nature of love, authoritarianism, destructive vs constructive methods of coping with isolation and powerlessness, etc. It is all really interesting and fertile information. Fromm wasn’t really someone who opened my eyes to new info and a new way of thinking as much as he made things I had been struggling with for years make sense in a new light and made the pieces fit together nicely for things I couldn’t add up on my own.
Kurzweil is also a great philosopher because he opened up the idea that our potentials as a species are infinite because of man made technologies. This totally changed how I looked at the world and my place in it.
Robert Wright (I guess if I had to pick one Evo psych it’d be him) opened me up to the idea that human behavior can be seen through evolution with his book the moral animal. I’ve read several other books on E.P. but the moral animal was the first.
Its hard to limit yourself to just one, because I could name others who have had a big impact on me.
*This isn’t painful. Getting shot is painful. Getting stabbed in the ribs is painful. This shit isn’t painful. It’s empty… dead.
*
*I wipe my ass with your feelings.
A wrong decision is better than indecision.
If you can quote the rules, then you can obey them. *
