Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: April 25, 2024, 5:58 pm

Poll: with which philosopher do you most associate ?
This poll is closed.
Aristotle
4.17%
1 4.17%
Plato
4.17%
1 4.17%
Immanuel Kant
0%
0 0%
Ludwig Wittgenstein
8.33%
2 8.33%
Friedrich Nietzsche
12.50%
3 12.50%
Arthur Schopenhauer
4.17%
1 4.17%
Ayn Rand
4.17%
1 4.17%
Karl Marx
12.50%
3 12.50%
Daniel Dennett
4.17%
1 4.17%
Lao Tzu
8.33%
2 8.33%
Thomas Hobbes
0%
0 0%
John Locke
0%
0 0%
David Hume
20.83%
5 20.83%
Rene Descartes
0%
0 0%
Thomas Paine
16.67%
4 16.67%
Total 24 vote(s) 100%
* You voted for this item. [Show Results]

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
What philosopher do you most identify with?
#1
What philosopher do you most identify with?
Which of these do you most identify with? Here's a quick rundown of their views and interests :

Personally, I identify with Paine a lot, so I voted for him, but Nietzsche, Dennett, and Hobbes are also of interest.

Don't complain about Rand being on there either, I included her as an opposite to Marx. I know she is loathed. But hey, she was an atheist.

____

Aristotle - Believed in a creator god ( you could say he was a deist ), had a strong interest in observation of the natural world and taxonomy. He also was interested in astronomy, physics, and metaphysics.

Plato - Believed in a higher realm of things, the realm of the forms ( this is what happens when you use ontological argument style thinking )

Immanuel Kant - Claimed that we cannot know the external world directly, and that things are seperated between the nomenal world ( things in themselves ) and the phenomenal world. Was religions, but in a moral sense more than anything else. He destroyed the ontological argument despise being religious himself.

Ludwig Wittgenstein - Believed philosophy was reducible to language games, and that metaphysics was invalid.

Friedrich Nietzsche - Despised Judaism and Christianity, and western values for that matter. Declared god to be dead, for morals to be relative, and that the will to power drives all thing. He had a bit of a social darwinist streak in him.

Arthur Schopenhauer - Believed the world was represented to us by our will. He improved on Kant's theories and foreshadowed Freud, Jung, and Nietzschean ideas. He was very pessimistic and a misogynist.

Ayn Rand - She was an atheist, hated Kant with a passion, and promoted completely lasseiz-faire capitalism. Somewhat of a moral fanatic in that she claimed that serving your own rational interests was an objective moral, and because of that, that pure capitalism ( not even the mixed economy of the USA) was the only moral society to live in.

Karl Marx - Founder of modern communist thought, and an atheist.

Daniel Dennett - One of the four horsemen of atheism, famous for his books Consciousness explained, Breaking the Spell, and Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Lao Tzu -- founder of Taoism, a stoic system of eastern thought and the alleged author of the Tao Te Ching.

Thomas Hobbes - a possible atheist ( definitely a materialist ) famous for his pessimistic view of human nature and believed in an absolute monarch.

John Locke - one of the founders of liberalism and highly influential on the founding of America. He promoted democracy, human rights, and religious tolerance ( despise writing some nasty thing about atheists himself. He was a believer. )

David Hume - A skeptic and an agnostic/atheist. Famous for naturalizing things, such as morality, and made arguments that preceded those of Darwin. He also believed that we cannot know the external world for sure because while our senses perceive things, our mind constructs the world out of those perceptions, such as cause and effect. He influenced Kant greatly.

Rene Descartes - A Skeptic that relied on A Priori arguments to prove god's existence. He was also a mathematician who invented the cartesian plane.

Thomas Paine - A Deist thinker famous for writing the pamphlet common sense that sparked the revolutionary war, promoted liberalism in his book The Rights of Man ( particularly, ideas that fly in the face of people like Glenn Beck that claim to love him so much ) and was a staunch critic of religion, authoring the Age of Reason and Examination of the Prophecies, which were two of the first books on Biblical Criticism.
Reply
#2
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
Jean-Paul Sartre - (atheist) developed an ontological account of what it being human really is. This ontology's main features are inescapable subjectivity and the absolute freedom which characterize the human condition. First, each human exists, then defines him/herself. Every human invents their own life meaning and the meaning of everything around them. We are all condemned to be free.
Reply
#3
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
David Hume: he was a great bloke. He came up with two problems that dominate philosophy of ethics and philosophy of science respectively: namely, the Is-Ought problem and the Problem of Induction. He demolished the Teleological Argument and miracles more comprehensively than any other philosopher has. Best of all, he was British (I omit the fact that he was Scottish, but of course, had he been English, I'd identify him as that).
(October 31, 2010 at 5:28 pm)Existentialist Wrote: Jean-Paul Sartre - (atheist) developed an ontological account of what it being human really is. This ontology's main features are inescapable subjectivity and the absolute freedom which characterize the human condition. First, each human exists, then defines him/herself. Every human invents their own life meaning and the meaning of everything around them. We are all condemned to be free.

Sartre's interesting, but his ideas are typically woolly for the Continental philosophical tradition. I'm not sure that his radical libertarianism vis-a-vis free will is correct.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken

'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.

'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain

'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
Reply
#4
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
It was a toss-up between Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, but I opted for Wittgenstein. My identification with him is more philosophical than my identification with Nietzsche (which is more of a value identification). In my view, most philosophical questions arise through the mistake of reification, and can quite easily be answered with a common-sense understanding of how words are used in every-day life.
Reply
#5
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
It's very much a toss-up between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, but, having read both, I am more inclined to identify with Schopenhauer, if only because he shared the same attitude that I exhibit in die Fleischwelt about human interaction: necessary, but comes with a lot of pain.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
Reply
#6
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
Quote:Don't complain about Rand being on there either, I included her as an opposite to Marx. I know she is loathed. But hey, she was an atheist.
I'm not complaining. Heck, she's the only one on the list I identify with, and I'm not even an Objectivist Tongue
Reply
#7
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
Machiavelli isn't up there. Test is broken.

The one there, with whom I most identify, would be Marx.



(October 31, 2010 at 8:41 pm)Tiberius Wrote:
Quote:Don't complain about Rand being on there either, I included her as an opposite to Marx. I know she is loathed. But hey, she was an atheist.
I'm not complaining. Heck, she's the only one on the list I identify with, and I'm not even an Objectivist Tongue

There really weren't that many choices, were there? Tongue
Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
Reply
#8
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
Well to answer this question, I would have to read all of the above Philosophers work, considering I haven't, I probably should't answer this question.

But, I do like the very early Philosophers.
Reply
#9
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
Where the fuck is Bertrand buddy?
.
Reply
#10
RE: What philosopher do you most identify with?
(October 31, 2010 at 5:52 pm)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: Sartre's interesting, but his ideas are typically woolly for the Continental philosophical tradition. I'm not sure that his radical libertarianism vis-a-vis free will is correct.

You need to be sure, or you will never be free.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  What Kind of Philosopher are You?" Online Quiz chimp3 47 11107 June 6, 2017 at 12:46 am
Last Post: Bunburryist
  Philosopher under the bed. CapnAwesome 14 3052 August 3, 2016 at 2:23 pm
Last Post: CapnAwesome
  I would like to identify as a feminist DespondentFishdeathMasochismo 20 3305 December 6, 2015 at 10:27 am
Last Post: Sappho
  "Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain" by philosopher Patricia Churchland Whateverist 12 5211 June 29, 2013 at 12:43 am
Last Post: bennyboy
  When it comes to the afterlife and the meaning of life, what do you identify as? CleanShavenJesus 16 5897 May 28, 2013 at 4:24 am
Last Post: littleendian
  favorite philosopher? justin 16 5091 March 2, 2013 at 7:24 pm
Last Post: jstrodel
  Some quotes, belonging to a philosopher Zenith 3 2589 May 23, 2011 at 9:19 am
Last Post: Zenith



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)