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Who are your favorite philosophers?

It has to be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel

I loved to play with his ideas in my head but am a total amateur. I wanted it, but hard to stare at that light. No room for baggage if you wanna shine like that. Every time I go there it fucks up my life. His is hardcore philosophy

Like a moth to the bright light, he got zapped. Forgot to eat.
 
Ancient: Heraclitus for 'The Unity of Opposites'.. An unseen omnivalence that unifies all opposing forces in the universe, keeps things balanced. It makes sense of so much.

Modern: Trey Parker Matt Stone for South Park.
 
Alan Watts, UG Krishnamurti [ though UG probably would not want me calling him a philospher. ]
 
Oh, also Eyedea. His music is amazing. Try listening to The Dive Pt.1 and The Dive Pt. 2 [ gotta listen to them both. ], Here For You, Color My World Mine.... well anything really.
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What do you guys think of Alain De Botton?
 
swilow said:
What do you guys think of Alain De Botton?
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A bit weedy (because that's an important criterion for judging philosophers, don't you know) and vague in his rejection of simplified rationalism ("Oh, but it's so much more complicated than that". Well yes, experience trumps description, but we're talking here, and it's only worth anything if you can communicate it.), but he is a useful moderating force in this respect. Seems like a nice guy too.

Wittgenstein, Toulmin, Dennett for me, but there's plenty to like in most of the deep ones. (of course, by picking more recent ones, you kind of get their forebears for free!).
 
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The ones that immediately spring to mind for me are David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Gottlob Frege and David Lewis.
 
^Yeah, me too. Regardless of the veracity of his ideas, he was an interesting orator.
 
Count me in as a McKennite. He blurred the line between literalism and metaphor, and in saying that the inner world is the outer world, thus got me to appreciate a whole swathe of ideas I might previously have poo-pooed (alchemy, spirit worlds etc). It's baffling that there aren't other bards like him. Come on, there are 7 billion of us!
 
Voltaire could get a bit polarised for my tastes (confident, let's say), but Hume and Schopenhauer were deep! Schopenhauer has a lovely little collection of essays 'On the Suffering of the World' - very Indian philosophically, full of balance and trade-offs. And the stuff on will is just bonkers.
 
I like Schopenhauer's "Studies in Pessimism" which includes "On the suffering of the World" which is one of it's chapters. It's a pretty quick read and easy to understand unlike some philosophers.
 
My recipe is Robert Pirsig's oevre, splash in some Krishnamurti and Adyashanti to open the mind and then sceptic filtering with Dawkins, a pinch of Kant and Daniel Dennett.. strain and simmer in the crucible of Huxley's perennial philosophy..
 
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