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Sat

February 19, 2011

People &
Politics

Top 10 Greatest Philosophers in History

193
Comments

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by FlameHorse

This list examines the influence, depth of insight and wide-reaching interest
across many subjects of various “lovers of wisdom,” and ranks them accordingly.
It should be noted, first and foremost, that philosophy in its traditional sense
was science – philosophers (like Aristotle) used rationality to come to
scientific knowledge of the world around us. It was not until relatively modern
times that philosophy was considered to be separate from the physical
sciences.

10

John Locke

The most important thinker of modern politics is the most directly
responsible for Thomas Jefferson’s rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence,
and the rhetoric in the U. S. Constitution. Locke is referred to as the “Father
of Liberalism,” because of his development of the principles of humanism and
individual freedom, founded primarily by #1. It is said that liberalism proper,
the belief in equal rights under the law, begins with Locke. He penned the
phrase “government with the consent of the governed.” His three “natural
rights,” that is, rights innate to all human beings, were and remain “life,
liberty, and estate.”

He did not approve of the European idea of nobility enabling some to acquire
land through lineage, while the poor remained poor. Locke is the man
responsible, through Jefferson primarily, for the absence of nobility in
America. Although nobility and birthrights still exist in Europe, especially
among the few kings and queens left, the practice has all but vanished. The true
democratic ideal did not arrive in the modern world until Locke’s liberal theory
was taken up.

9

Epicurus

Epicurus has gotten a bit of an unfair reputation over the centuries as a
teacher of self-indulgence and excess delight. He was soundly criticized by a
lot of Christian polemicists (those who make war against all thought but
Christian thought), especially during the Middle Ages, because he was thought to
be an atheist, whose principles for a happy life were passed down to this famous
set of statements: “Don’t fear god; don’t worry about death; what is good is
easy to get; what is terrible is easy to endure.”

He advocated the principle of refusing belief in anything that is not
tangible, including any god. Such intangible things he considered preconceived
notions, which can be manipulated. You may think of Epicureanism as “no matter
what happens, enjoy life, because you only get one and it doesn’t last long.”
Epicurus’s idea of living happily centered on just treatment of others,
avoidance of pain and living in such a way as to please oneself, but not to
overindulge in anything.

He also advocated a version of the Golden Rule, “It is impossible to live a
pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing ‘neither to
harm nor be harmed’), and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly
without living a pleasant life. “Wisely,” at least for Epicurus, would be
avoidance of pain, danger, disease, etc.; “well” would be proper diet and
exercise; “justly,” in the Golden Rule’s sense of not harming others because you
do not want to be harmed.

8

Zeno of Citium

You may not be as familiar with him as with most of the others on this list,
but Zeno founded the school of Stoicism. Stoicism comes from the Greek “stoa,”
which is a roofed colonnade, especially that of the Poikile, which was a
cloistered piazza on the north side of the Athenian marketplace, in the 3rd
Century BC. Stoicism is based on the idea that anything which causes us to
suffer in life is actually an error in our judgment, and that we should always
have absolute control over our emotions. Rage, elation, depression are all
simple flaws in a person’s reason, and thus, we are only emotionally weak when
we allow ourselves to be. Put another way, the world is what we make of it.

Epicureanism is the usual school of thought considered the opposite of
Stoicism, but today many people mistake one for the other or combine them.
Epicureanism argues that displeasures do exist in life and must be avoided, in
order to enter a state of perfect mental peace (ataraxia, in Greek). Stoicism
argues that mental peace must be acquired out of your own will not to let
anything upset you. Death is a necessity, so why feel depressed when someone
dies? Depression doesn’t help. It only hurts. Why get enraged over something?
The rage will not result in anything good. And so, in controlling one’s
emotions, a state of mental peace is brought about. Of importance is to shun
desire: you may strive for what you need, but only that and nothing more. What
you want will lead to excess, and excess doesn’t help, but hurts.

7

Avicenna

His full name is Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā, the last two
words of which were Latinized into the more common form in Western history. He
lived in the Persian Empire from c. 980 AD to 1037. The Dark Ages were not so
dark. Aside from his stature as a philosopher, he was also the world’s
preeminent physician during his life. His two most well known works today are
The Book of Healing (which has nothing to do with physical medicine) and The
Canon of Medicine, which was his compilation of all known medical knowledge at
that time.

Influenced primarily by #1, his Book of Healing deals with everything from
logic, to math, to music, to science. He proposed in it that Venus is closer
than the Sun to Earth. Imagine not knowing that for a fact. The Sun looks a lot
closer than Venus, but he got it right. He rejected astrology as a true science,
since everything in it is based on conjecture, not evidence. He theorized that
some fluid deep underground was responsible for the fossilization of bone and
wood, arguing that “a powerful mineralizing and petrifying virtue which arises
in certain stony spots, or emanates suddenly from the earth during earthquake
and subsidences…petrifies whatever comes into contact with it. As a matter of
fact, the petrifaction of the bodies of plants and animals is not more
extraordinary than the transformation of waters.”

This is not correct, but it’s closer than you might believe. Petrifaction can
occur in any organic material, and involves the material, most notably wood,
being impregnated by silica deposits, gradually changing from its original
materials into stone. Avicenna is the first to describe the five classical
senses: taste, touch, vision, hearing and smell. He may have been the world’s
first systematic psychologist, in a time when people suffering from a mental
disorder were said to be possessed by demons. Avicenna argued that there were
somatic possibilities for recovery inherent in all aspects of a person’s body,
including the brain.

John Stuart Mill’s five methods for inductive logic stem mostly from
Avicenna, who first expounded on three of them: agreement, difference and
concomitant variation. It would take too long to explain them in this list, but
they are all forms of syllogisms, and every philosopher and student of
philosophy is familiar with them from the beginning of education in the subject.
They are critical to the scientific method, and whenever someone forms a
statement as a syllogism, s/he is using at least one of the methods.

6

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas will forever be remembered as the guy who supposedly proved the
existence of God by arguing that the Universe had to have been created by
something, since everything in existence has a beginning and an end. This is now
referred to as the “First Cause” argument, and all philosophers after Thomas
have wrestled with proving or disproving the theory. He actually based it on the
notion of “ού κινούμενον κινεῖ,” of #1. The Greek means “one who moves while not
moving” – or “the unmoved mover”.

Thomas founded everything he postulated firmly in Christianity, and for this
reason, he is not universally popular, today. Even Christians consider that,
since he derived all his ethical teachings from the Bible, Thomas is not
independently authoritative of any of those teachings. But his job, in teaching
the common people around him, was to get them to understand ethics without all
the abstract philosophy. He expounded on #2′s principles of what we now call
“cardinal virtues:” justice, courage, prudence and temperance. He was able to
reach the masses with this simple, four-part instruction.

He made five famous arguments for the existence of God, which are still
discussed hotly on both sides: theist and atheist. Of those five, which he
intended to define the nature of God, one is called “the unity of God,” which is
to say that God is not divisible. He has essence and existence, and these two
qualities cannot be separated. Thus, if we are able to express something as
possessing two or more qualities, and cannot separate the qualities, then the
statement itself proves that there is a God, and Thomas’s example is the
statement, “God exists,” in which statement subject and predicate are
identical.

5

Confucius

Master Kong Qiu, as his name translates from Chinese, lived from 551 to 479
BC, and remains the most important single philosopher in Eastern history. He
espoused significant principles of ethics and politics, in a time when the
Greeks were espousing the same things. We think of democracy as a Greek
invention, a Western idea, but Confucius wrote in his Analects that “the best
government is one that rules through ‘rites’ and the people’s natural morality,
rather than by using bribery and coercion. This may sound obvious to us today,
but he wrote it in the early 500s to late 400s BC. It is the same principle of
democracy that the Greeks argued for and developed: the people’s morality is in
charge; therefore, rule by the people.

Confucius defended the idea of an Emperor, but also advocated limitations to
the emperor’s power. The emperor must be honest and his subjects must respect
him, but he must also deserve that respect. If he makes a mistake, his subjects
must offer suggestions to correct him, and he must consider them. Any ruler who
acted contrary to these principles was a tyrant, and thus a thief more than a
ruler.

Confucius also devised his own, independent version of the Golden Rule, which
had existed for at least a century in Greece before him. His phrasing was almost
identical, but then furthered the idea: “What one does not wish for oneself, one
ought not to do to anyone else; what one recognizes as desirable for oneself,
one ought to be willing to grant to others.” The first statement is in the
negative, and constitutes a passive desire not to harm others. The second
statement is much more important, constituting an active desire to help others.
The only other philosopher of antiquity to advocate the Golden Rule in the
positive form is Jesus of Nazareth.

4

Rene Descartes

Descartes lived from 1596 to 1650, and today he is referred to as “the Father
of Modern Philosophy.” He created analytical geometry, based on his now immortal
Cartesian coordinate system, immortal in the sense that we are all taught it in
school, and that it is still perfectly up-to-date in almost all branches of
mathematics. Analytical geometry is the study of geometry using algebra and the
Cartesian coordinate system. He discovered the laws of refraction and
reflection. He also invented the superscript notation still used today to
indicate the powers of exponents.

He advocated dualism, which is very basically defined as the power of the
mind over the body: strength is derived by ignoring the weaknesses of the human
physique and relying on the infinite power of the human mind. Descartes’s most
famous statement, now practically the motto of existentialism: “Je pense donc je
suis;” “Cogito, ergo sum;” “I think, therefore I am.” This is not meant to prove
the existence of one’s body. Quite the opposite, it is meant to prove the
existence of one’s mind. He rejected perception as unreliable, and considered
deduction the only reliable method for examining, proving and disproving
anything.

He also adhered to the Ontological Argument for the Existence of a Christian
God, stating that, because God is benevolent, Descartes can have some faith in
the account of reality his senses provide him, for God has provided him with a
working mind and sensory system and does not desire to deceive him. From this
supposition, however, Descartes finally establishes the possibility of acquiring
knowledge about the world based on deduction and perception. In terms of the
study of knowledge therefore, he can be said to have contributed such ideas as a
rigorous conception of foundationalism (basic beliefs) and the possibility that
reason is the only reliable method of attaining knowledge.

3

Paul of Tarsus

The wild card of this list, but give him fair consideration. Paul
accomplished more with the few letters we have of his, to various churches in
Asia Minor, Israel and Rome, than any other mortal person in the Bible, except
Jesus himself. Jesus founded Christianity. But without Paul, the religion would
have died in a few hundred years at best, or remained too insular to invite the
entire world into its faith, as Jesus wanted.

Paul had more than one falling out with Peter, primarily among the other
Disciples. Peter insisted that at least one or two of the Jewish traditions
remain as requirements, along with faith in Jesus, for one to be counted as
Christian. Paul insisted that faith in Jesus is all that is required, and
neither circumcision, refusal of certain foods or any other Jewish custom was
necessary, because the world was now, and forevermore, under a state of Grace in
Jesus, not a state of Law according to Moses. This principle of a state of
grace, which is now central to all sects of Christianity, was Paul’s idea (if
not Jesus’s), as was the concept of God’s moral law (in Ten Commandments) being
innately understood by all men once they reach the age of reason, by which law
God will hold all men accountable on his Day of Judgment.

He is especially impressive to have systematized these principles flawlessly,
having never met Jesus in person, and in direct opposition to Peter and several
other Disciples. Many theologists and experts on Christianity and its history
even call Paul, and not Jesus, the founder of Christianity. That may be going a
bit too far, but keep in mind that the Disciples intended to keep Christianity
for themselves, as the proper form of Judaism, to which only Jews could convert.
Anyone could symbolically become a Jew by circumcision and obedience of the
Mosaic Laws (every one of them, not just the Big Ten). Paul argued against this,
stating that as Christ was the absolute greatest good that the world would ever
see, and Almighty because he and the Father are one, then the grace of Christ is
sufficiently powerful to save anyone from his or her sin, whether Jewish,
Gentile or anything else. If the religion were to have lasted to present day
without Paul’s letters championing the grace of Christ over the Law of Moses,
Christianity would just a minor sect of Judaism.

2

Plato

Plato lived from c. 428 to c. 348 BC, and founded the Western world’s first
school of higher education, the Academy of Athens. Almost all of Western
philosophy can be traced back to Plato, who was taught by Socrates, and
preserved through his own writings, some of Socrates’s ideas. If Socrates wrote
anything down, it has not survived directly. Plato and Xenophon, another of his
students, recounted a lot of his teachings, as did the playwright Aristophanes.

One of Plato’s most famous quotations concerns politics, “Until philosophers
rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and
adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely
coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively
are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils…nor, I
think, will the human race.” What he means is that any person(s) in control of a
nation or city or city-state must be wise, and that if they are not, then they
are ineffectual rulers. It is only through philosophy that the world can be free
of evils. Plato’s preferred government was one of benevolent aristrocrats, those
born of nobility, who are well educated and good, who help the common people to
live better lives. He argued against democracy proper, rule by the people
themselves, since in his view, a democracy had murdered his teacher,
Socrates.

Plato’s most enduring theory, if not his political theories, is that of “The
Forms.” Plato wrote about these forms throughout many of his works, and
asserted, by means of them, that immaterial abstractions possess the highest,
most fundamental kind of reality. All things of the material world can change,
and our perception of them also, which means that the reality of the material
world is weaker, less defined than that of the immaterial abstractions. Plato
argued that something must have created the Universe. Whatever it is, the
Universe is its offspring, and we, living on Earth, our bodies and everything
that we see and hear and touch around us, are less real than the creator of the
Universe, and the Universe itself. This is a foundation on which #4 based his
understanding of existentialism.

1

Aristotle

Aristotle topped another of this lister’s lists, heading the category of
philosophy, so his rank on this one is not entirely surprising. But consider
that Aristotle is the first to have written systems by which to understand and
criticize everything from pure logic to ethics, politics, literature, even
science. He theorized that there are four “causes”, or qualities, of any thing
in existence: the material cause, which is what the subject is made of; the
formal cause, or the arrangement of the subject’s material; the effective cause,
the creator of the thing; and the final cause, which is the purpose for which a
subject exists.

That all may sound perfectly obvious and not worth arguing over, but since it
would take far too long for the purpose of a top ten list to expound on
classical causality, suffice to say that all philosophers since Aristotle have
had something to say on the matter, and absolutely everything that has been
said, and perhaps can be said, is, or must be, based on Aristotle’s system of
it: it is impossible to discuss causality without using or trying to debunk
Aristotle’s ideas.

Aristotle is also the first person in Western history to argue that there is
a hierarchy to all life in the Universe; that because Nature never did anything
unnecessary as he observed, then in the same way, this animal is in charge of
that animal, and likewise with plants and animals together. His so-called
“ladder of life” has eleven rungs, at the top of which are humans. The Medieval
Christian theorists ran with this idea, extrapolating it to the hierarchy of God
with Man, including angels. Thus, the angelic hierarchy of Catholicism, usually
thought as a purely Catholic notion, stems from Aristotle, who lived and died
before Jesus was born. Aristotle was, in fact, at the very heart of the
classical education system used through the Medieval western world.

Aristotle had something to say on just about every subject, whether abstract
or concrete, and modern philosophy almost always bases every single principle,
idea, notion or “discovery” on a teaching of Aristotle. His principles of ethics
were founded on the concept of doing good, rather than merely being good. A
person may be kind, merciful, charitable, etc., but until he proves this by
helping others, his goodness means precisely nothing to the world, in which case
it means nothing to himself. We could go on about Aristotle, of course, but this
list has gone on long enough. Honorable mentions are very many, so list them as
you like.

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Muma /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:39 am

Plato is a bore. – Nietzsche

Loved the list <3

Reply

seang /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:40 am

FIRST!

Reply

Muma /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:50 am

You sir failed…

Reply

Yazzmin /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:22 am

Haha! gutted!

Very interesting list indeed.

Reply

OmegaMan /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:15 pm

What’s the philosophy behind being first on commenting? And apparently,
you are not!

Reply

g /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:56 pm

You failed, therefore you aren’t.

Reply

chris s /
21 Feb, 2011 at 12:20 am

^^ lol

Reply

fraterhater /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:50 am

One fact has been left out of #1 and that is that as we all know Aristotle
was abugger for the bottle.

Reply

fraterhater /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:51 am

damn lazy space bar! a bugger

Reply

BurntOrange /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:10 am

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, I drink therefore I am!

Reply

Sid /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:35 am

Immanuel Kant was a real *****ant!

Reply

katecdc /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:46 am

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;

A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he’s *****ed!

Reply

gaurav /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:03 am

no Socrates?

Reply

Kiwi /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:45 am

I would agree. I would personally remove Paul of Tarsus and added
Socrates. But maybe he didn’t want to get calls about it being being “to
Greek”

Reply

circlefan /
20 Feb, 2011 at 05:06 am

i’d even remove plato for socrates

Reply

Andrew /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:05 am

The world would not be the same thing it is today without Socrates. He
laid down the tracks, so to speak, for civilization to really spread it’s
wings instead of wiping itself out with genocidal monarchies.

Reply

Skata /
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:21 am

But we don’t know if there was a real Socrates, or if he was a Plato
sock-puppet.

Reply

imperial /
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:21 pm

i thought he didnt write but did exist???? idk but thats what the
classic political thought class explained it to me. would love to know
more..

Reply

circlefan /
20 Feb, 2011 at 05:11 am

yes, it was believed so, there was even a book from jostein gardner
that shows some parallels with Jesus and socrates, both did not write
themselves and died because of their beliefs, among other
things

BFXer /
24 Feb, 2011 at 04:34 pm

Socrates definitely should be on the list seeing as how without him you
wouldn’t have number 2 or number 1.

Reply

anony /
30 May, 2011 at 06:08 pm

Plato and Socrates are synonymous; Plato recorded Socrates’
arguments.

Reply

Brian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:11 am

Overall a very interesting list. I appreciate the effort to include Eastern
philosophy. A few criticisms though:

Just to be clear, Epicurus did believe in Gods. He just thought they didn’t
care about humans, so we shouldn’t worry about them.

Also, of course in a list of only 10, some great philosophers are going to
get left out. However, I think Socrates and Kant really needed to be in
here.

Reply

Brian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:24 am

I forgot to mention: Although Zeno founded Stoicism, I think the general
consensus is that Chrysippus is the better philosopher. As a funny side
note, the guy apparently wrote a ridiculous amount about logic, and it is
all lost today because antiquity found it too boring to preserve.

Reply

Dawnbearer /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:17 am

Kant should have been mentioned somewhere.

Reply

Armin Tamzarian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:45 pm

True dat. A lot of modern philosophy is either based on Kant’s work, or
is directly opposed to his work. Without Kant, there wouldn’t be a Nietzsche
or a Hegel.

Reply

Dawnbearer /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:02 pm

Not only that, don ‘t forget the impact Kant made in Metaphysics by his
Critique of Pure, and the impact against Descartes’ philosophy.

Reply

I /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:10 pm

you’re right, who knows how many more centuries of metaphysics there
would have been if it wasn’t for him. It is also worth mentioning his
work on ethic, nowadays you can’t write anything about ethics without
mentioning him.

Reply

adifferentJamie /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:19 am

As much as these philosophies differ from each other, the underlying lesson
seems to be that man will always be (and always has been) his own worst enemy.
Self realization leads to self *****ysis and is, in my humble opinion, our
most important tool for self preservation and improvement. However, that’s
easier said than done in most cases. Awesome list, though, I love
philosophy.

Reply

jethro /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:24 am

What about laozi, who schooled confucius? causing him to disband his
classes whilst he reflect for three days

Reply

Sid /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:35 am

No Immanuel Kant, Bentham or Mill? I mean apart from Locke there are almost
no modern thinkers here at all. I think defining the difference between
categorical and consequential morality is one of the most interesting debates
in modern philosophy, and that representatives of these two schools of thought
could have been represented. However, this is an excellent list. Good job.
Philosophy is so much more than cliched quotes and emo depressionists
sprouting on about the meaning of life.
Here’s one for you:
You’re a
train driver driving your train, up ahead on the tracks are five workers. The
brakes have suddenly stopped working and nothing can be done to avoid hitting
and killing the workers. Except, you notice a diverting track that would allow
you to steer the train into just one worker. Do you do nothing and simply let
the 5 die. Or take action and kill just one worker?
Please let me know what
you might do and why. Try to focus on which might be more morally
permissible.

Reply

Lifeschool /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:51 am

We’ve had these kinds of questions before, by yours seems like a test for
potential psychos. Who would kill 5 people over just one?

Reply

Sid /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:41 am

It proposes a difference between categorical and consequential
thinking. If you take a stance that says ‘killing a human is wrong under
any circumstances’ then you may choose not to divert the train. If you
think of morality only in terms of the consequences of your actions then
you might choose to divert the train in order to save more lives.

If you change the circumstances, the situation becomes fuzzier. You’re
now a surgeon with two waiting rooms. In one is 4 men who all need various
transplants. Without receiving these transplants they will inevitably die.
In the other is a healthy patient who only needs a checkup. BUT WAIT! He’s
suddenly fallen asleep. Do you cut him open to harvest his organs in order
to save the other 4 men? Or leave him be and watch the other men die? When
is it morally permissible to condone murder?

How does this situation differ from the train scenario?

Reply

Maggot /
19 Feb, 2011 at 11:35 am

It differs because the sleeping person was not going to die anyway.
You should substitute that with a terminally ill patient who has only
days to live, but you need organs now for the four others. Then the
dilemma is – do you pull the plug on him now and expedite the
inevitable? Which no ethical doctor is going to do, so there’s no real
dilemma. Likewise, your train scenario is kind of silly. Anyone in their
right mind would choose the path that causes the least amount of damage
or casualty. Just like a pilot having to crash a disabled plane full of
people to certain death – do you ditch into a populated area or try to
steer it into an open field. It’s a no-brainer. As Lifeschool mentioned,
there’s a list full of these “dilemmas” in the LV archives, but IMO
they’re all pretty simple once you remove the artificially included
element of drama from the equation.

Reply

fendabenda /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:24 pm

Sid, there was a simple answer to this somewhere: Wait for one of the
four men to die, and whoever dies first gets to donate his organs to the
other three. Don’t kill the healthy man.
Unless he’s a bastardo

Reply

Mik /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:20 am

Kant, Bentham and Mill are all Liberal thinkers; the author chose Locke
to represent Liberalism.

Reply

dalinean /
20 Feb, 2011 at 06:49 pm

I thought that this was a list of the GREATEST philosophers, not of the
different schools?

Reply

poco /
20 Feb, 2011 at 10:01 pm

i would divert the train to the lone person. i could not stomach five
people die because i did nothing….

Reply

gollumizer /
21 Feb, 2011 at 03:15 am

i would hope that the men (since they are working on the raiiiilrooooad)
are able bodied. so they should be able to jump away from the approaching
train.

Reply

Luc /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:45 am

What about G.W.F Hegel? And Kant? I’d have tied Rousseau with Locke though.
But, anyway, my comments aside, this is a pretty good list.

Reply

Nick Dalacu /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:57 am

In a few thousand words, most about what is important; and Christ is not
part of it! Oh JF, you will pay for this! Also, those guys who said before
that JF may be simplistic or incompetent go in front of a mirror and
articulate: I am an idiot.
I am wondering if “Transdisciplinarity” and
Nicolescu Basarab does not belong to this list.

Reply

becky1965 /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:17 pm

Really? Jesus was not a philosopher. Get that thought out of your head.

Jesus was a Rabbi.

There’s a difference.

The belief that he was some sort of “god” and that “belief” in him was
the only way to salvation or “heaven”…well, he sounds really super
narcissistic to me. Just like most of his “followers” today. Everything is
always about “god” or “Jesus”…if something bad happens well it was just
“gods will” and we have to be “thankful” and love him even more so he
doesn’t make something worse happen. If something good happens, well then
it’s all “praise ‘god’” and “hallelujah”…it’s a MIRACLE.

No, what the miracle is, is that human beings have gotten as far as they
have with one dimensional non logical thinking like what you expressed in
your very churchy post.

Geez.

Reply

BurntOrange /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:17 am

Great list I’d forgotten a couple of these it’s been so long since
university. I’ve never heard of Avicenna nor Paul of Tarsus. Never read the
Bible.

Reply

flgh /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:34 am

Hey! Where’s George Carlin?

Reply

david davidson /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:51 am

no adolf hitler?

Reply

Der Philosoph /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:12 am

Where are the germans?!

Kant
Hegel
Heidegger
Schopenhauer
Schelling
Fichte
Nietzsche
Leibnitz
Marx
& Engels
Adorno
….

Reply

Julius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:10 am

Don’t forget Habermas. One of, if not the most important living
philosopher.

But I guess FlameHorse wanted to keep the list with mainly “ancient”
historians (with the exception of Locke and Descartes).

There are so many brilliant German philosophers that you could probably
do a list of just them though XD.

Reply

Mik /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:22 am

Marx and Engels were not philosophers; they were economists. Kant was
embedded in the Liberalism argument.

The others aren’t really ‘philosophers’. Nietzsche was more a political
theorist than genuine philosopher.

Reply

Monica /
19 Feb, 2011 at 09:05 am

Marx was a philosopher, read his whole work.
You just cannot
embedded Kant in anything, he’s worth his own spot, and his work on
politics was a “small” part compared to the rest…
Nietzsche was a real
philosopher too! from what you’ve said I assume you have not studied any
of them, I recommend you read more before you make statements like
these…

Reply

Armin Tamzarian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:51 pm

That’s nonsense. Nietzsche wasn’t the most constructive philosopher,
because he mainly attacked his predecessors, but he most certainly a
philosopher.

And while Marx is mainly known for his economic theories, he also wrote
about philosophic subjects. Like Nietzsche, he mainly attacked earlier
philosophers.

Reply

numbmusique /
4 Mar, 2011 at 07:39 pm

Marx is indeed a philosopher; to say that they were mere economists
would do them no justice. A good read would be Etienne Balibar’s “The
Philosophy of Karl Marx”.

It was his later works- Kapital 1,2 , and the unfinished volume 3,
which leaned towards economics, particularly a critique of capitalism. But
would you say that “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” or his “Theses
on Feuerbach” were economic? Not really. There is certainly no economics
in the 11th thesis: “The Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the
point, however, is to change it”.

And although Marx’s works throughout his life were indeed tinged with
economics, it would be injustice to say that they were PRIMARILY economic.

)

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RickyRetro /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:18 am

wow… happy to see Aquinas, he is rarely mentioned.. but no Nietzsche? No
Mill?

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RaikuicTorelius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:08 pm

His First Cause ‘Argument’ is an absolute joke. Flawed due to its
fallacious nature.
In my opinion, there are so many philosophers who
deserved his spot.

Reply

Ye Olde Statistician /
26 Feb, 2011 at 09:09 pm

Alas, his First Cause argument is seriously misstated in the article,
as are other arguments attributed to him, but which he did not make.

Reply

mc /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:54 am

aviceena should be first

Reply

bob /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:54 am

ur so tru

Reply

Will Trame /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:55 am

Anaximander rates a mention. But then, his philosophy was so abstract it
was confusing. I studied both his and Descartes’ philosophy whilst in college
back in the late 70s and all I got in return were migraines, not
enlightenment. Then again, one sees things differently at 50 then when at
20.

Also of note are Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Thales. BTW, wasn’t John Locke
the keyboard player in Spirit? Woops. Wrong John Locke, although the latter
once claimed he was a direct descendant of the former. He was a good musician,
though.

One man’s philosophy is another man’s belly laugh. Good list; a vast
improvement over the past two.

Reply

Lifeschool /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:55 am

No, John Locke was the bald guy in the wheelchair from the series ‘Lost’.
He wasn’t a good musician but he was handy with a knife.

Reply

oouchan /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:19 am

I’ve always liked Epicurus and Plato. Also those that were missing from the
list, Nietzsche and Socrates.
However, the greatest was Comicus – The
Stand-Up Philosopher.

Interesting list.

Reply

Lifeschool /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:59 am

I always wanted to be a stand-up philosopher, but somehow I don’t think
I’d make it; not while George Carlin is still in loving memory.

Reply

Karl /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:53 am

No Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Wittgenstein or Hume? Although I despise them,
I think Marx, Nietzsche and Russel should be on the list too.

And why didn’t you include the person who started Western philosophy,
Socrates? That’s just blasphemy in the philosophical world.

Reply

Armin Tamzarian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:52 pm

How can you despise Nietzsche? He was the only philosopher I know of, who
was right!

Reply

Skinner /
19 Feb, 2011 at 11:17 pm

You belong here as much as you belong in Springfield elementary..

Reply

dubmatrix /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:04 am

Nice…a list of guys other than Confusius, who liked to apprentice young men
and screw them.

Reply

Anonymous Coward /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:31 am

This was a terrible list. Some of these people weren’t even philosophers at
all, like Paul of Tarsus. And where’s Kant? Any “Ten Greatest Philosophers”
list that doesn’t put Kant somewhere in the top three is beyond lame… that
would be like having a “Ten Greatest Physicists” list and not including
Newton. Bleah.

Reply

Julius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:54 am

Why would you say that St. Paul wasn’t a philosopher?

Reply

Kiwi /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:53 am

Although I’ve never read the bible, and know very little of St. Paul,
this list seemed to focus on his contributions to the church, as opposed
to the field of philosophy. While he may have been a philosopher, and a
great one, based on the content of this list he does not seem to belong
here, particularely when many modern philosophers, Kant, Socrates, or one
of the many others mentioned could replace him.

Reply

dalinean /
20 Feb, 2011 at 08:22 am

Paul of Tarsus wasn’t a philosopher because he didn’t teach about
thinking.
Philosophy is ‘thinking about thinking’.
St Paul didn’t do
any of that.
He already had all the answers and that was Christ.
As
an ethicist he believed that women should keep in their place and that
homo*****uality is sinful.
You may as well have put in
Muhammed.
Same thing, He founded a religion with ethics of some
sort.

Reply

Eye-Licker /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:35 am

Great list!

Aquinas was a convoluted fool, most of his arguments devolve into “because
I say so!”

Nietzsche should be here for sure.

Reply

Ye Olde Statistician /
26 Feb, 2011 at 09:10 pm

No, actually they did not. Why flail against straw men if the original is
supposedly so weak?

Reply

rex /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:46 am

WTF! No Kant, Hume, Kierkegaard, Russel or Wittgenstein??!

Reply

rallierf1 /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:56 am

Kant, Socrates, Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama) are the most missed
philosophers from this list I think.
Buddhism was a philosophy not a
religion as many think it to be.

Reply

Armadillotron /
19 Feb, 2011 at 06:27 am

Avicenna looks like Osama Bin Laden! Do you think Osama Bin Laden based his
look on Avicenna?

Reply

Julius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:19 pm

Really? I mean, really?

Reply

Steven Douglas /
19 Feb, 2011 at 06:48 am

I have come to believe that Paul/Saul of Tarsus is the sole reason why
Christianity did not survive — at least not as any organization, but was
instead supplanted by what we see today, all bearing the name, taking on the
many supposed form(s), but with little to none of the original substance.

Christianity did survive on Earth, but only in individuals, many of whom
are not even aware that what they are living has a name, and by some who are
not the slightest bit religious, and all in spite of Paul, the self-proclaimed
apostle, the great and boastful Polemicist who did nothing but gather thorns
and thistles and noxious weeds. To this very day. Even so, I think it is
possible that you will find some Christians in Christian religions. Rare, but
plausible, given that wheat can coexist (with choking difficulty) amongst
tares.

Incidentally, the parable of the wheat and the tares: was it an injunction
against premature judgment, or the judgments of humans, or was it also a
prophecy of the coming of a “thirteenth” apostle, who was “blinded” by the
light? I have come to think so.

I would listen to what Peter, James and John had to say any day. Paul, not
so much. Recipe for disaster there.

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purityshannon /
19 Feb, 2011 at 06:58 am

Lao Zhi?

Nietzsche?

who is paul of tharus?

Reply

jethro /
10 Mar, 2011 at 03:44 am

“..As a mystic philosopher of ancient China, and best known as the author
of the Tao Te Ching. His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be
traditionally considered the founder of Taoism (also spelled “Daoism”). He
is also revered as a deity in most religious forms of the Taoist religion,
which often refers to Laozi as Taishang Laojun, or “One of the Three Pure
Ones”. Laozi translated literally from Chinese means “old master” or “old
one”, and is generally considered honorific.” – Wikipedia

‘ “After coming back from visiting Lao Zi, Confucius did not speak
for
three days. Zi Gong (one of Confucius’ students) felt strange and
asked
his teacher what had happened. Confucius said: “I know birds can
fly, I
know fish can swim, and I know beasts can run. For those that can
run,
I can catch them with a net, for those that can swim, I can catch
them
with a line; for those that can fly, I can catch them with arrows.
As
for dragons, I do not know how they ride on wind and cloud, and go
to
heaven. I met with Lao Zi, today, and he is exactly like a dragon
and
too deep to be fathomable!” ‘ – Pureinsight

Laozi was a fundamental person to Confucius, as he changes his
thinking.

Reply

Lifeschool /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:06 am

Hi, a very interesting list today from the Flame. Good job. It would be
hard to include all the prominent philosophers in history, especially in a top
10 list, without focusing on specific branches. A full list could be written
simply on Existentialism for example.

#9 – As someone above commented, this entry looks at how we are the cause
of our own suffering – and is quite similar to the philosophy of the Buddha on
the subject, and the Biblical ‘Do Unto Others’ idea. But how does this work in
real life?

Epicurus talks about avoiding the bad in order to lead the wise life, yet
it is often only through experiencing both the good and the bad that a
balanced view of life can be achieved. Without ‘bad’ there would be nothing by
which one could measure the ‘good’, and nothing to measure ones life against.
For example, some philosophers advocate the idea of Utopia – a state of total
harmony, happiness and grace. Yet a Utopic society would become bored of
‘happiness’ once happiness becomes the norm – the plain existence – making
happiness feel less satisfactory, and far less stimulating than a noble
existemce. In this case, the ‘noble’ way would be to take on and appreciate
all aspects of life rather than avoid or shun things which may appear
‘upsetting’.

“Strength comes through temperance” is a term I’ve picked up from
somewhere; which comes from the idea that a sword, heated in fire and hit
repeatedly by a bludgeoning force ,will become sharper, stronger and more
durable. Avoidance of these tempering measures, as Epicurus may suggest, would
only place the mind (ego) in a false sense of security – where the slightest
deviant would cause sheer catastrophy. In this way, it is sometimes observed
that a mind tempered by life is often more adaptable to catastrophy than a
mind secured in self interest, and that what Epicurus was essentially
advocating was a mind of dominant self control and experiential ignorance.

However, living ‘wisely’ can also be a matter of realising that we
ourselves can be the cause of suffering; to ourselves and to others; by our
own actions, and it is wiser to observe the self than to guess or anticipate
the actions of others. For example, harming another with harsh words has the
likely result of those words being used to harm the self. If the self does not
want to be harmed, then it is better to not to perpetuate harm and face almost
certain retaliation. In this way, life becomes a mirror for the individual,
with the consequences largely determined by the individuals state of security
and well-being, or lack thereof. To Epicurus, if you can’t change the outside
world, then at least you can change the way you feel about it.

Notable omissions: Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Hume,
Martin Heidegger.

Reply

Lifeschool /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:49 am

To get an idea of ‘life is only as it appears’, how about this fun video.
Here, we see an ordinary house wife taking part in an LSD trial in the
1950′s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5d4wWGK4Ig&feature=player_embedded

Reply

Dave /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:16 am

Who was it who said, “life`s a *****, then you marry one.” Whoever said
that belongs on the Greatest Philosophers List anyday.

Reply

swapie /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:32 am

b i t c h ?

Reply

poco /
20 Feb, 2011 at 10:08 pm

i dunno but i think it was socrates who said something about marrying a
lousy (or nagging) wife and you become a philosopher…

Reply

egee /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:25 am

An interesting and thought-provoking list. I’m glad to see Aristotle in the
number one spot. The rest of the list can be debated (as it has been).
However, like others before me, I believe that Kant should have been on the
list. Few would argue about his influence over philosophy. But, hey, it’s your
list!! Thanks for sharing it.

Reply

You Kant Miss Kant! /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:26 am

What about Kant!

Reply

apu /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:56 am

no Homer Simpson?

Reply

mom424 /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:14 am

Great list Flamehorse. Not my area of expertise; frankly don’t think I’m
quite smart enough to quite ‘get’ it. The whole god exists/essence,existence
thing sounds like just so much Winston Smith doublespeak to me. Quite a few
things that I need accept as true for the argument to have any
meaning…
Paul of Tarsus’ accomplishments were to the benefit of
Christianity/Catholicism; I’d like to think that humanity was ready for the
leap into altruism with or without this particular sect. It was happening in
other parts of the world at roughly the same time eh?
Also Zeno was a
Vulcan. Must have had his ears fixed.

Reply

Sid /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:52 am

What about Ayn Rand, who developed the idea of Objectivism? She proposed
the idea that self interest is the engine of progress, and that altruistic
thinking has led to many of the horrors that mankind has had to endure. i.e.
doing for others can often lead you astray. How many horrors began with the
idea of doing for others? Do it for your country. For your religion. For
your king. For someone else’s ideals. How many tragedies began with the
words ‘think of yourself’? Just another way of thinking I suppose.

Reply

undaunted warrior 1 /
19 Feb, 2011 at 09:11 am

Glad to see you back – been gallivanting for a day or two have you ?

Reply

mom424 /
19 Feb, 2011 at 11:15 am

Thanks. Not exactly gallivanting – that’d mean I’d been away from home
– and away from the crap family that’s been distracting me…..good thing
they don’t come with a money back guarantee. I’d be having me some
refunds.

Reply

Madison /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:21 am

I’m really happy to see John Locke on here. His views and opinions rocked
England, and Europe. Many people don’t include more modern philosophers and I
am quite pleased you did.

Reply

Johnnybegood /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:22 am

What about Democritus? He is considered the father of modern science and
came up with the first atomic theories.

Reply

Monica /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:52 am

I missed Kant, he really is one of the greatest philosophers in history.. a
prove of that is that no one can write anything about philosophy without
mentioning Kant, you need to either refer to something he said or argue with
it.
I also missed Socrates, Hume, Leibniz, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Wittgenstein and Heidegger…

I think what would make this list improve is a change of name… call it “10
great thinkers” or something of that sort, because I assure you that the only
importance Paul of Tarsus has is theological (off course religion and
philosophy affect each other, but Paul of Tarsus never meant to be a
philosopher), to give just one example.

but seriously, you can’t write a list on great (greatest!!) philosopher and
not include Kant (or you must have a very strong reason and you should state
it).

Reply

undaunted warrior 1 /
19 Feb, 2011 at 09:04 am

Enjoyed the list, but agree with Julius on the German philosophers, the one
I remember is Heinrich Hertz something to do with radio waves or something
along those lines.

Julius if you do read this comment please change your avitar – it makes me
thirsty just thinking about your Bavaria beer.

Sharks drilling the cheetahs 8-5 at the moment.

Reply

John Lock can blow me /
19 Feb, 2011 at 09:51 am

The list is pathetic, sir..
Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Heidegger, Wittgenstein….
Got something against Germans and
Austrians?
KANT should be on the list, even shamefully biased Anglophone
philosophy departments would agree.
Spinoza, no? Whatever

Reply

hmmttfn /
19 Feb, 2011 at 09:58 am

A la “Plato and Platypus walk into a bar”, Decartes would have better
served himself with “Dubito, egro Sum!”

Reply

Name /
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:03 am

This list epically fails without Nietzsche or Kierkegaard. Both are
insanely influential on 20th Century thought and overlooking both of them is
extremely ignorant.

Reply

kidbluboo /
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:05 am

i would have to disagree about aristotle being number one, on the basis
that plato was his mentor and without plato, there would be no aristotle

Reply

jmi2
/
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:09 am

I must rail against the inclusion of Saul of Tarsus being on the list; he
seems to be included for ‘saving’ christianity when in fact he destroyed its
basic principles; his words today, as well as in the past, have been used to
harm, maim, torture & kill; all in complete opposition to the original
message;

he should be included on a list of political organizers…

Reply

g /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:07 pm

Please cite examples, including quotes of Paul, to support your ludicrous
claim.

Reply

Steven Douglas /
19 Feb, 2011 at 07:31 pm

Paul never directly told anyone to harm, maim, torture or kill anyone
(at least not after his ‘conversion’. But neither was that jmi2′s claim.
That Paul’s words have been used to justify all such evil appears
throughout history, and can hardly be disputed, regardless whether or not
blame can rightly be laid at Paul’s feet.

It is notable to me that Paul did not ever mention, nor did he quote or
espouse, living a single saying of Jesus, which according to Jesus were
“commandments”. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Paul transplanted the
sayings of Jesus with his own dogma, part of which was the notion of faith
and words alone, and not the living of any saying, were sufficient for
anyone for salvation. The faith/works controversy was a central
disagreement between Paul and the apostles who walked and talked with
Jesus, and exists to this day, with Paul “the apostle” usually winning
out.

Note that Paul refers to himself as Apostle no less than thirteen times
in the NT, but the other apostles never refer to him as such. He is
referred to twice, and only “beloved Paul” or “beloved brother”. And Paul
was schooled by the apostles, commanded to shave his head to show everyone
that he was, indeed, “under the law” — contrary to what he taught his
followers, in his own convoluted way.

Paul established both by example and dogma that he and everyone would
do wickedly, even against their own will (spirit willing, flesh is weak)
without their ability to control themselves. But that is also the beauty
of Paul’s doctrine, because whatever good or bad you did was the devil or
Christ in you, none for which you could take any credit. That’s where the
faith/belief-only Grace Pass kicks in, which Paul handed freely out to all
of his followers, which opened the door to every kind of excuse imaginable
for the “devil-made-me-do-it” ugliness of human behavior.

Paul taught his followers, by example and words, to engage in
self-piety, self-denigration (and self-promotion as a result, so long as
you make it clear that it’s not you, but “the spirit of Christ” acting —
which today translates in practice to “so long as you end any of your
boasting with “Praise God”, “Praise Jesus”, or “Glory be to God”), and to
actively correct, teach, warn and admonish one another. The biblical
record is clear that Paul’s churches were extremely troubled,
characterized by self-righteous bickering and infighting, not unlike his
churches today, and even the eventual turning against Paul himself.

By their fruits ye shall know them. Christianity is by far the most
practiced religion on the face of the Earth. But what does that mean?
Pauline Christianity, in all of its dogmatic, bifurcated, divisive and
convoluted forms, is also one of the most nebulous, self-conflicted,
multi-headed entities on the face of the Earth. Many of these camp-divided
heads will not even acknowledge the others.

Pick a flavor, any flavor. You can go with the Mother Church, which
claims succession from Peter while advancing Paul, or you can pick any
number of forks in the Protestant roads, from Fundamentalist to
Charismatic. Or you can choose a New Age flavor. Whatever suits your
sensibilities, there is something for everyone to disagree on and cluster
together in a camp over – and the one thing that the vast majority of them
have in common is Paul of Tarsus.

Reply

jmi2 /
22 Feb, 2011 at 11:06 am

@Steven – thank you! i just came back to the discussion and saw the
comment from @g;

when i read your reply you wrote most everything that would have been
in my reply and more! and you were spot on that i never meant that Saul
said things directly but others did and continue to do so, twisting his
words even more than Saul himself twisted the words of JC, for whatever
reason; one commenter described his words as ‘self-promotion’; i tend to
agree with that from all the reading i’ve done about the early
church.

so, again, thank you…

m/

Reply

Steven Douglas /
23 Feb, 2011 at 12:18 am

You’re welcome. It’s good to know you’re out
there.

Dustin /
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:11 am

these ten are what other philosophers built their ideas on. Any philosopher
from the Italian Renaissance would have been a good fit.

Reply

Julius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:31 pm

The only Renaissaince philosopher that might be worthy would be
Machiavelli. Maybe, Mirandola and Ficino but not really…

Reply

Bassbait /
19 Feb, 2011 at 10:48 am

Confucius say: man who put me at number five, will not stay ALIVE.

Reply

Eumesmopo /
19 Feb, 2011 at 11:12 am

Where the ***** is Sartre, Piaget, Camus and Nietzsche!?

Reply

Graham /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:27 pm

Some one needs to write Emmanuel about this stuff! I just Kant understand
it!

Reply

hans /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:33 pm

You kant understand it? Oh nooos!

Reply

Matthew /
19 Feb, 2011 at 12:44 pm

Like it or not, Jesus the Christ is noted as saying the most profound and
controversial quotes ever uttered.

Reply

g /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:06 pm

True, but His statements are only philosophical from an agnostic point of
view. If one is an Atheist, then Christ was a lying lunatic. If one is a
believer, then Christ’s statements are not merely philosophy, but
commandments.

Reply

g /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:04 pm

I readily admit that he does not belong in the top ten…but I did want to
give a shout out to G K Chesterton.

Reply

Mark /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:39 pm

No Machiavelli? And why do most of them have beards?

Reply

Armin Tamzarian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 01:58 pm

Because only men with beards are real men.

But why would you want to include Machiavelli? I’ve never heard anyone
speak of him as a philosopher.

Reply

Mark /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:25 pm

Machiavelli wrote about the philosophy of political power. And he
should be here. 2 Pac read The Prince and thought it was cool.

Reply

Julius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:26 pm

2 pac read it, that’s your argument why Machiavelli should be here? A
more interesting argument would be that The Prince is always a favourite
of dictators, Stalin for example always had it on his nightstand.

@Armin: How else would you classify Machiavelli? He was a political
philosopher, Marx and Smith too.

Reply

Armin Tamzarian /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:10 pm

I heard he was more of a satirist. ‘The Prince’ was allegedly
written not as an instruction manual for aspiring dictators, but as a
satire about the way the Borghia’s (I believe) were running their
things. Machiavelli was an fervent republican.

And I personally don’t think that is ‘philosophy’, because then
people like that Colbert dude could be considered
philosophers.

Julius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:17 pm

Hmmm…this is actually an interesting thought. I’ve read it and it
didn’t seem like a satire. Oh well, I guess I’m going to give it
another read.

off, TO MY BOOKSHELF!!!!

Kelly /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:37 pm

Machiavelli is the guy who came up with, “the end justifies the
means” and “it`s better to be feared than loved.” The guy was awesome.
Alastair Campbell is often called, “The Modern Machiavelli.” He is. He
came up with the phrase of, “We don`t do God.” Which is cool. The
difference is is that Machiavelli never got into live on TV news
arguments like Campbell did with that fat oaf Adam
Boulton.

MrRocketSkates /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:21 pm

OH C”MON! you guys have made this list like a million times! list about
mathematicians, philosophers, astronomers -you get the picture- are boring as
*****!

Reply

Name /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:27 pm

Wow. Not one woman and all from the old school

Reply

Dave /
19 Feb, 2011 at 02:46 pm

Because there isn`t any women ones. Still, whoever said “Women, can`t
live with them, can`t live without them,” was spot on. There a Dragon one
minute, the next there a Godsend. There the weirdest thing on the
planet.

Reply

Nicholas /
19 Feb, 2011 at 03:48 pm

There are women… for instance, simone de beauvoir and Hannah Arendt.
It’s true there are more men, but women work on philosophy as well.

Reply

Armadillotron /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:07 pm

Hannah Arendt was just another Jewish loon who wrote a book about the
Evil Nazis and the even eviler USSR and came up with a cool phrase “The
B*****ity of Evil.” The B*****ity of Evil? Sheesh..

Reply

Nicholas /
19 Feb, 2011 at 05:10 pm

Yeah, I know what she sounds like before reading, but she has some
pretty interesting things to say, if you’re interested in politics I
strongly recommend her, give her a
try.

Hans /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:32 pm

Hume? Hegel? To a lesser degree, Nietzsche?

Reply

FlameHorse /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:36 pm

Thanks, and glad everyone liked it. I didn’t include Kant because
everything he wrote was written by the Greeks before him.

Reply

Kurt /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:59 pm

Are you serious?

the Greeks knew that judgements could be synthetic and a priori?

why were there 2000 years of metaphysics if the greeks knew everything
Kant said?

did the greeks know anything about categorical imperatives?

did they know newton’s physics and therefore explained how they are
possible?

did Plato believe that imagination had a crucial role in
epistemology?

did greeks believe there were no such things like space or time outside
of the subject?

did the greeks had the concept of aesthetics?

did the greeks solve the fight between rationalism and empiricism?

did the greeks investigate the faculties within the subject that made
knowledge possible?

….

I really hope you’re joking there

Reply

JPearson /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:50 pm

Very good list.

Reply

corwinorr /
19 Feb, 2011 at 04:56 pm

Immanuel Kant was a real *****ant who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger,
Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David
Hume could out-consume William Friedrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a
beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schleigel.

Reply

timefillmyeyes /
19 Feb, 2011 at 06:35 pm

I think this list is missing a few critical philosophers and has included a
few that are fairly unimportant.

This list really should have Kant on it, and there are a few other
philosophers that should probably have a spot on here, such as Spinoza, Zeno
of Elea, and Democritus. On the other hand, Thomas Aquinas begins with some
hefty assumptions (namely, that there is a God) and fails to provide a logical
grounding for that assumption. Paul seems to make this same error even more
egregiously. Even the Presocratics were worried about presenting the basis of
their arguments, and this was before terms such as metaphysics and
epistemology existed.

Reply

Ye Olde Statistician /
26 Feb, 2011 at 09:13 pm

Actually, that is not an assumption he starts with, but a conclusion he
reaches. He starts with the assumption that there is change in the world,
that there is an ordering of efficient causes in the world, that there are
natural laws, etc.

Reply

cynicalgenius /
19 Feb, 2011 at 08:45 pm

Yeah, new age emos poseurs think Nietzche is all that.

Reply

morimyc /
20 Feb, 2011 at 03:18 am

A lot of big names are missing: Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hegel,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre…

Reply

circlefan /
20 Feb, 2011 at 05:25 am

we cant really ***ch about this or that philosopher not being on the list.
a philosophy of one man is based from past ideas. kant may not be here but
other empiricist and rationalist are.
my personal favorites are not here
too, keirkegaard and berkeley. but thats perfectly fine with me.
in fact,
if we are going to be too picky, we cant even put plato nor aristotle, because
their thoughts are not just ‘theirs’.
its like choosing top ten inventors
of modern times, who inspite of their cleverness, is no match for the man who
first thought of using a wheel.
wait, wait…the list is getting on me, i
usually comment just a line or two…;)

Reply

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