Philosophers! Which Philosopher do you think was most effective!

Which one you think was most effective and productive?


  • Total voters
    3
  • Poll closed .
I see the poll has closed. It seemed like a narrow range of choices which is why I plugged in Lao-Tze but if I had to confine to the confinements I guess I'd go with Kung Fu Tze as the next closest thing.

Odd that such a question would have a closing date though. "Fast food filosophy"?
 
I'd say Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarianism) and Kant (the Categorical Imperative) are the most influential in Ethics.
 
Al Bundy...

Don't be a fat fucking slob and you won't have to wear gunboat shoes!

 
I'm sensing an anti-German flare here.

Many of the best philosophers were German, like Kant, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Christian Wolff etc.

what happened to your POLACK-PHOBIA delusion?.
Have you ever noticed REAL polock-phobia----amongst
GERMANS?
 
The list is way too incomplete.
I’m a fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson myself. I particularly like his treatises on Anarchy, and poems which speak of the value of self reliance.
 
You are missing Socrates, the smartest human who ever lived, and the biggest impact (through his heirs) on the world, if that's what you mean by "effective".

Look, just because Plato looked up to the man and was one of his pupils does not mean he should be on the list

LMAO!
 
Effective? Odd word, but Locke for western culture and Confucius for eastern culture.

Personally, a few that impressed or made me think through these years are:

Albert Camus
Bernard Williams
Derek Parfit
Erich Fromm
Friedrich Nietzsche
Harry Frankfort
Herbert Marcuse
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jeremy Waldron
John Rawls
Karl Popper
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Michel Foucault
Noam Chomsky
Roland Barthes
Theodor Adorno
Walter Benjamin

All worth your time. Eric Hoffer too although more a social observer.

Edit: Add Samuel Beckett one of my favorites, another philosopher of life. "I'm like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget." Samuel Beckett

"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business." Eric Hoffer

"The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto." Eric Hoffer
 
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Only three votes? Well, maybe that's a good sign, really; most 'philosophy' is total rubbish anyway, just bourgeoisie navel gazing. Locke for instance basically just ripped off a lot of Catholic intellectuals and stole credit for their ideas, as did most of the 'Enlightenment' types.
 
Only three votes? Well, maybe that's a good sign, really; most 'philosophy' is total rubbish anyway, just bourgeoisie navel gazing. Locke for instance basically just ripped off a lot of Catholic intellectuals and stole credit for their ideas, as did most of the 'Enlightenment' types.

Killjoy
 
Jefferson made a lot of noise name-dropping assorted philosophers, they all did, since it was the popular parlor game of the middle and upper classes of the era, but the one who influenced his real life mentality was Viscount Bolingbroke and 'Bolingbrokism'; his real attitudes came directly out of The Craftman pamphlets of the early 18th century, and from him to many of the other 'anti-Federalists'.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke - Wikipedia

Republicanism in America
In the late 20th century, Bolingbroke was rediscovered by historians as a major influence on Voltaire, and on the American patriots John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Adams said that he had read all of Bolingbroke's works at least five times; indeed, Bolingbroke's works were widely read in the American colonies, where they helped provide the foundation for the emerging nation's devotion to republicanism in the United States. His vision of history as cycles of birth, growth, decline and death of a republic was influential in the colonies,[20] as was his contention on liberty: that one is "free not from the law, but by the law".[21]

Forrest McDonald's succinct little book covers Jefferson's real politics better than almost all the large bios do.

The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson by Forrest McDonald
 
Out of the choices choose 1 Philosopher you think was most effective and most productive.
Maybe because I’m a new member I can’t see any way to vote. Doesn’t matter, I’m not all that impressed by the offerings other than to say I find Plato the most entertaining and Aristotle in parts the most effective. (whatever effective might mean)
 
Missed the vote. Out of that list I would give the most credit to Confucius. At least he offered a more positive perspective to humans. He was short sighted compared to Jesus however IMO.
 

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