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Your favourite philosopher(s): who are they and why do u like them ?

skipjames

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 4, 2022
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933
Hellos,
I ld like to know which philosophers- thinkers (from the Western Eastern or whatever tradition) have influenced you the most and why. Here s my list in order of appearance :

1) Max Stirner: a Nietzsche with less BS and more philosophy, considered the father of anarco individualism ( but influenced lot of different people, from anarchist-libertarians to fucking Mussolini) ) gave a theoretical basis to my disgust for any form of communism-fascism-nazism and any ism in general

2) Jacques Ellul : interesting fella (lutheran anarchist anti fascist pastor), his " Anarchy and Christianism " made me understand all the "anti authoritarian " aspects of Christianity and that you can be a Christian without being a reactionary cunt

3) Rene Girard: his works on Violence and religion and on Christianity made me realize a lot of things about religion in general and Christianism in particular ( i.e. what makes for good or worse Christianity so radically different from any other religion )

4) Blaise Pascal : his Pensees are a great reading, not only for his Wager but also as a testimony of his spiritual struggle ( which at the times was similar to mine)

5) Wittgenstein ( and other wittgensteinians like Anscombe, Hacker etc): in Italy philosophy = history of philosophy and continental BS Italian contemporary philosophy is the poor man´s version of French and German one, My man Ludwig here was the first analytic guy I have ever read, inspired me to continue my studies in the UK ad my interest in epistemology and analytic philosophy of religion, I don t buy lots of what he says anymore but he made me realize how flawed a lot of contemporary philosophy is which led to my current romance with

6) ST Thomas Aquinas, my man! Everything I ve written in the last 4 years has been inspired by him or other thomists, I don t consider myself a thomist ( philosophers can give you tools to think but are not supposed to think for you) but anytike I start working on a new topic, I first check what he said about the subject and it s always a source of inspiration, even when he was wrong was wrong in interesting ways.

So, what about you guys?
]Cheers
 
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One of my faves is Plato.
He was the first to get my attention of shadowplay at a very young age... perspectives if one will. It was at first a little difficult to grasp but afterwards I saw it in most every aspect of "life".
 
Kant led me to a personal discovery of Knowledge Trees..

Understanding reason,

A priori synthetic reason and judgement.

Categorical imperative.
 
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One of my faves is Plato.
He was the first to get my attention of shadowplay at a very young age... perspectives if one will. It was at first a little difficult to grasp but afterwards I saw it in most every aspect of "life".
Really? Actually I agree with Nietzsche on just two things, namely that if the Christian God is in love with humanity than He has a very bad taste ( I solve this thinking that maybe He isn not only a Father but also a other, cos as we say i Italy " even a cockroach is beautiful in his mother´s eyes) and that Plato is behind everything that went bad in Western culture :p :p Kidding, still I m more an aristotelian and it s really hard to present Plato´s philosophy to 1st year undergrads without them taking the piss r wondering which drugs he took. ( they love his argument against democracy though, we always have super cool discussions about it)
 
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Kant led me me to a personal discovery of Knowledge Trees..

Understanding reason,

A priori synthetic reason and judgement.

Categorical imperative.
way too German for me. I prefer his Scottish nemesis Hume , at least criticizing Hume´s arguments against religion gives me something to do and hopefully publish....
 
I don't think i've gotten around to reading much of his original texts, but Spinoza is one that sticks out to me with his holistic, skeptical yet life-affirmative thinking and impressive defiant journey. Also i dig the reverberations of Voltaire, although he was more of a satiricist perhaps.

More mentions: Heracleitus, Bastiat, William James, Nietzsche, Russell, Gödel

Overrated: Kant, Descartes, Hegel
 
To be honest I don't think any philosophers that I am familiar with have got it 100% right..

I wonder which philosophers are closest to that 100% degree mark..

I have heard Socrates was well rounded and same with Plato.
 
To be honest I don't think any philosophers that I am familiar with have got it 100% right..

I wonder which philosophers are closest to that 100% degree mark..
None, at most some were-are less wrong than others on some particular subject
 
Seneca? Nietzsche?

I have to apologize for Nietzsche. It's funny because one of my friends in real life doesn't seem to get that most apologies are perfunctory and that the fastest way to get to the point is allow people room for their pleasantries.

Nietzsche enthusiasts carry a certain terribilitad. But I just realised that you guys know me so it's crystal clear that I don't have terribilitad.

Okay, philosophy question for the day:
Should it be among the duties of a moral society to label competitive people? In other words, is it better for people to be honest if they're good at something, or should people conceal their abilities out of modesty?

My position? If one of you guys was crazy good at something, I'd want to know. If one of you enjoyed a favor and were willing to share? I'd want to know. Like for example if you owned a sports car, but were the type of chick likely to let your friends borrow your sports car? Then sure, I'd love to see pictures of your beautiful Supra.
I only think it's ostentatious to post pictures of sports car if it's something that you wouldn't let me borrow. Then I don't want to see pictures of your car.

Edit: Oh hey James I'm hijacking your thread by the way!
 
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