Favorite Philosophers?

[Whateverist]

I might choose Aristotle over Plato and his mouthpiece Socrates, since he contributed so much to the foundations of science.  Plato/Socrates always struck me as being as much rhetoricians (a dirty word as I use it) as philosophers, though that might just be the fault of the manner of Plato's exposition.  

Y'know, I've found that you're either an Aristotle guy or a Plato guy. Sure, there are some Greco-philes out there who enjoy both, but usually people tend to like one over the other. I'm a Plato guy.

To me, Socrates is more than just Plato's mouthpiece. He's the provisioner of the fundamental dialectic which we still use today in philosophy. You can toss out a lot of stuff that Plato and Aristotle said because it is ... well, wrong. But Socrates pointed out that we should always delve deeper into our understanding, and through the process we learn more and more about our own perspective.

I disagree that Plato and Socrates were rhetoricians. In fact, they were opposed to the sophists who taught people how to be convincing speakers and treated truth as something relative. To convince others that something was true was an empty pursuit. Plato thought that there was one capital T Truth, and thought that philosophers ought to be committed to discovering that instead of convincing others to agree with persuasive argument. Now Aristotle had some pretty neat ideas, and he took a more hands-on and naturalistic approach to philosophy. I've found that he is far more popular than his teacher, Plato. I admit, he does make more sense than Plato sometimes.

In terms of readability, I'm a Plato guy too.  But I think of Socrates as Plato's alter ego, the badass he'd like to be if he didn't have aspirations.  But lets face it, Plato's pure forms is just ass backwards.  Understandable though that he should be overawed by the labyrinths of language at the dawn of reason.  Meanwhile stodgy old Aristotle is just grinding through the actual and laying the foundation for science.  While it isn't as inspiring it is pretty admirable in its own way.

Someone who isn't really a serious academic philosopher but made a big impression on me before I studied it in college, was Alan Watts.  If you liked Thoreau and James you might also like Watts, though Watts' woo as a percentage of his writing was much higher.

I like Watts. I haven't read a whole lot of him, but I rather like what I have read. I saw a few videos of him speaking on youtube. Good stuff. As for "woo," I will tolerate it from someone, but it's not something I ever personally dig. James might fit the bill for being woo woo, but I think it's a stretch. I don't get that from Thoreau at all. He refers to nature as the divine object, but this isn't in relation to some deity or cosmic force; it is divine all by itself. He's not talking about spirits, ectoplasm, or anything spooky like that. He's talking about the actual rocks and actual trees, earth, and rivers. These things filled him with spiritual fervor, but not because they were related to anything supernatural. "Natural" was good enough for Thoreau.

My favorite thing by Alan Watts is "The Wisdom of Insecurity".  Funny I started reading some Watts when I was actively shopping for woo, but that book helped me lose that interest.  Now I look to nature and literature for my transcendent moments and don't crave the concentrated version they try to distill in the spiritual book section.  

I might like to include Hume and I always felt like I should have read Wittgenstein, but too late.  All I read now is novels and honestly, I've probably gotten just as much out of it.  Though if I hadn't of studied philosophy I might never have gotten my head out of the clouds.

I like Hume a lot, but I've only read a few essays of his. Never read a word of Wittgenstein, but he's come up in conversations/lectures. He sounds quite interesting.

I remember reading the early Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" in which he probably thought he had unpacked all the good bits of consciousness as a systematic hierarchy of facts.  So weird.  Then after a period away from philosophy I hear his later works are all about helping others find their way out of their fascination with the hall of mirrors which is language.

I haven't read much Hume either but what I did read was such fresh air after sloughing through Kant.  Funny how when reading Kant my sentences started growing to paragraph length.  *shudders*