Most Important Philosopher Of Recent Times?

[Verv]

Who was the last truly important philosopher that needs to be studied? As of late, the most modern philosopher I am talking about...

I find that there is a poverty in philosophy as of late. So I would like to hear people's opinions.

 

[RatzingerRocks]

Who was the last truly important philosopher that needs to be studied? As of late, the most modern philosopher I am talking about...

I find that there is a poverty in philosophy as of late. So I would like to hear people's opinions.

Jacques Maritain, he revived scholastacism, and put a renewed intrest in Aquinas!

Also his book "Moral Philosophy" is unbleaveiably good.

But don't forget about Husserl, and Sokolowski!

 

[ReluctantProphet]

Who was the last truly important philosopher that needs to be studied? As of late, the most modern philosopher I am talking about...

I find that there is a poverty in philosophy as of late. So I would like to hear people's opinions.

The most imporatant philosopher at any time is the one who no one is listening to, fore he knows what none others have said thus they remain blind to his knowledge.

What knowledge can be more important than that which is as yet unknown?

 

[Orontes]

Who was the last truly important philosopher that needs to be studied? As of late, the most modern philosopher I am talking about...

I find that there is a poverty in philosophy as of late. So I would like to hear people's opinions.

If recent times means the Twentieth Century then I would answer Martin Heidegger first and Ludwig Wittgenstein second.

There is no poverty in philosophy, rather most Modern thinkers are responding to and working within a larger corpus of thought that if the reader isn't familiar with will leave them at a loss. A simple example would reading Nietzsche without understanding Hegel.

 

[JonF]

How modern is modern?

 

[ReluctantProphet]

There is no poverty in philosophy, rather most Modern thinkers are responding to and working within a larger corpus of thought that if the reader isn't familiar with will leave them at a loss. A simple example would reading Nietzsche without understanding Hegel.

I have to agree with that.

A philosopher becomes well known only for saying what society is encouraging at that time. The famous philosophers in history are those who were saying what someone wanted to promote (usually to over throw the current reign)

A great many extremely wise philosophers go totally unheard just as inventions before there time simply because promotion and recording causes memory, not wisdom.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I find that there is a poverty in philosophy as of late.

If you find that there is a poverty in academic philosophy of late, then I recommend you read Ayn Rand, who shared the same opinion about modern philosophy, and had a fresh perspective on many issues.

I also recommend Julia Annas, David Norton, Douglas Rasmussen, Douglas Den Uyl, and Tibor Machan.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Verv]

Thank you for the input.

If we are discussing modern philosophy, I believe Ayn Rand is the most influential and important next to Jacques Derrida. However, I am still young and have a lot to read and to catch up on, and am in the military, not exactly college.

 

[TeddyKGB]

I second Derrida, and nominate Doug Hofstadter.

 

[Abbadon]

Carl Jung.

Without him, we would not have the major philosophical pieces of the most modern generations: Dune, Star Wars, and the Matrix.

 

[Pogue]

It depends how modern- if Kant counts, then I'd say him.

 

[nadroj1985]

Depends on how modern we're talking. Obviously in the 20th century Heidegger and Wittgenstein go practically without saying. More recently, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, and Rorty come to mind.

 

[Received]

The worship around the campfire seems to be on the pragmatist Richard Rorty. But I would nominate Viktor Frankl, though he is essentially a psychologist, nevertheless an existentialist with some very important things to say, utterly essential to our nihilistic culture. Derrida would also be there, but I'm not too familiar with him.

If we're including the entire 20th century, my vote would go with Camus, but also with Kafka, though he was a novelist first and foremost. Wittgenstein and Heidegger are givens.

 

[michabo]

I'll toss in Karl Popper for a bit of philosophy of science.

 

[David Gould]

I'll toss in Karl Popper, too, for The Open Society and Its Enemies. Everyone, please read this book - both volumes. (Although if you are a fan of Hegel or Plato you will possibly be offended.)

 

[Received]

Anyone who's a fan of Hegel deserves to be offended. Not so much for holding his philosophy, but for being capable of reading like a machine.

 

[David Gould]

I just thought I should explain my position on Plato a little, as that comes across a little badly, perhaps.

The more I have read of and about Plato and his influence, the more I have come to regret his influence. I think that Plato is probably the second most important thinker in history, with Kant the first. But I think that Plato is significant because of the questions he asked, and not because of the answers he obtained to them. Plato's answers to the majority of his questions were wrong. And yet his answers not his questions represent Plato's most significant hold over the world.

Popper in particular and a few others, such as Stephen Pinker, have helped show me the dangerous seductiveness of Plato's answers.

 

[pinqy]

John Rawls, arguably of of if not the most important and influential modern (b. 1921 d. 2002) political philosopher of the 20th century. At the very least, his concetp of the Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance are useful for examing all issues of the social contract and political interaction.

 

[ReluctantProphet]

..Plato's answers to the majority of his questions were wrong.

Examples?

 

[nadroj1985]

I agree with David almost entirely about Plato. I would want to add the caveat, though, that Plato seemed to write in such a way as to focus on the questions rather than the answers. His disciples, unfortunately, often didn't understand this, and I think it's the Platonists' fault, and not Plato's, that ideas like the unreality of the physical world and totalitarian government have been the focus of the study of Plato. Plato didn't encourage these ideas nearly as much as he encouraged being able to reason about them capably.