The best philosopher

[jinkazama]

1. Kant
2. Hume
3. Plato, Aristole, Socrates
4. Hegel, Descartes, Spinoza

 

[Bananafish]

Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Marx.

 

[MoonlessNight]

Honestly it would take me a vast amount of time to even begin to reason out which philosophers I thought were better than others. I would like to bring up Confucius, Zhuangzi and (to a lesser extent) Xunzi, because no one has yet seen fit to mention them. I think if you got some kind of synthesis of the three (which I'm sure has been done, I've just never looked at one), it would explain about half of my thought.

But of the three Zhuangzi hands down has the best style.

Others that I would acknowledge as greats would be Plato, Aquinas, Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche, probably with a few more that I've forgotten at the moment. But honestly I have no idea how to explain what ideas I get from each one, really I'm not that close to agreeing with any of them.

Actually, I think I might try to reason these things out anyway. From Plato I took his general way of looking at mathematics (and hence why learning mathematics is so incredibly important). I also have taken a large amount of his political philosophy though I do advocate anarchy as an alternative to an aristocracy, and my aristocracy would look nothing like his. From Aquinas and Aristotle I get the general view of virtue and vice which has profoundly influenced my moral philosophy. From Kant I rejected his categorical imperative, but I found his statements "There is no good thing except a good will" and the notion that we cannot treat human beings as merely means very touching. In regards to Nietzsche I am mainly talking about his geneology of morals. I do not agree with most of it, and I don't think I agree with any of his conclusions, but I find it to be very good analysis with some profound insights.

 

[VirOptimus]

Axel Hägerström - the only Swedish philosopher of note and father of Uppsala skolan and value nihilism.

 

[vajradhara]

Namaste all,

interesting responses thus far...

i would tend to put my list in the following order:

Buddha Shakyamuni
Nagarjuna
Chandrakirti

from there, it flows like water into Tenzin Gyatso, Lao Tzu, Aryadeva, Shantideva, Bertand Russel, Paul Hume and Karl Popper.

metta,

~v

 

[Eudaimonist]

Buddha Shakyamuni
Nagarjuna
Chandrakirti

from there, it flows like water into Tenzin Gyatso, Lao Tzu, Aryadeva, Shantideva, Bertand Russel, Paul Hume and Karl Popper.

I'm surprised you didn't mention Heraclitus.


eudaimonia,

M.

 

[Moros]

Che, Che, and Che. Did I already say Che?

Ha, ha. The philosophy of kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out is indeed a noble one. He makes a damn fine fashion statement for the under 16 crowd as well.

I'll go with HL Mencken, William Blake, and Diogenes.

 

[Species8472]

I hear rankings of and superlatives about scientists, athletes, politicians, actors, musicians, journalists, etc., etc. But I have never heard any such things about the enterprise of Philosophy.

So who is the best philosopher ever? Second best? Third best?

I think the best philosopher there ever was was Christ because of how well his 'vine' has spread throughout the world.
I think the second best philosopher there ever was was the Buddha because of how he tackles the transcendentals of thought, where Christ lacked.
The third best philosopher, I think is Nietzsche because of how he tends to subvert the thought of any ascended master, placing modernism before old mysticism.

 

[vajradhara]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Heraclitus.


eudaimonia,

M.

Namaste M,

i do like what little i've read about him, though i really couldn't say that i've spent enough time reading his work to include him on my list of influential philosophers.

generally speaking, i am not partial to Greek philosophical thought, though i do appreciate the great contributions that it has made to the modern world.

metta,

~v