Favorite philosopher/philosophers?

[greencoloredpencil]

This might be a silly question to ask at this point in most of our studies but do you have a favorite philosopher?

 

I'd have to say Wittgenstein is mine. 

 

 

[Cottagecheeseman]

Probably David Lewis. I mentioned "On the Plurality of Worlds" in my statement of purpose just as an example of why I love philosophy. Dude argues for this crazy theory (that all possible worlds exist as material worlds, but are causally isolated from one another) and he does it so well I kinda want to believe it. Or as Neil Sinhinbabu (spelling!) has on his facebook profile, I'm in a complicated relationship with modal realism.

I'm also a big fan of Ayer, he was a pretty cool cat back in the day, and in terms of historical figures (outside of the last 100 years or so) I would have to say Hume. That guy was flippin sweet. If you haven't read the dialogues of natural religion, you should pick it up, hands down one of the best works on philosophy of religion (and philosophy in general) I've read and the philosophical reason for why I'm not a theist.

[DHumeDominates]

Probably David Lewis. I mentioned "On the Plurality of Worlds" in my statement of purpose just as an example of why I love philosophy. Dude argues for this crazy theory (that all possible worlds exist as material worlds, but are causally isolated from one another) and he does it so well I kinda want to believe it. Or as Neil Sinhinbabu (spelling!) has on his facebook profile, I'm in a complicated relationship with modal realism.

I'm also a big fan of Ayer, he was a pretty cool cat back in the day, and in terms of historical figures (outside of the last 100 years or so) I would have to say Hume. That guy was flippin sweet. If you haven't read the dialogues of natural religion, you should pick it up, hands down one of the best works on philosophy of religion (and philosophy in general) I've read and the philosophical reason for why I'm not a theist.

 

This.

[isostheneia]

Historically, Kant and Hegel. More recently, Sellars and McDowell. All of them think weird but cool things, and write them in weird but cool ways.

[axiomness]

Zizek, do yourself a favor and get Dan Howard-Snyder's fantastic The Evidential Argument from Evil. I'm assuming that, mostly, you find Hume's inductive argument in book X to be the main force behind Hume's work. Check out Paul Draper (my favorite philosopher of religion) who takes Hume's argument, mixes in some formal Bayesianism, and does some incredible work with it. (To show my cards, my WS was an argument against one of Draper's--that Skeptical Theism defeats his sort of argument from evil). I'm also a major fan of David Lewis like yourself, for eerily similar reasons. I had a professor who was apparently closer than an acquantaince with him, and the way he spoke of Lewis was inspiring (excepting Lewis' apparant love for horrifically stinky cheese...). I'm also a major fan of Ayer. I totally am surprised at these names you've thrown out, I thought you were more a continentalish guy.

 

As to the OP--perhaps it is a silly question for some of us. I'll answer anyway--

 

Current: Paul Draper, or Keith DeRose, or maybe Dean Zimmerman

Historical: Hume or Spinoza, Aquinas, maybe Ockham (there are too many)

Edited January 29, 2014 by axiomness

[TheVineyard]

Alex Rosenberg

and no news from Duke....=,[

[warrior3]

Leibniz, Kierkegaard, or Nietzsche. Currently, Chalmers or Searle. 

[MattDest]

Zizek, do yourself a favor and get Dan Howard-Snyder's fantastic The Evidential Argument from Evil. I'm assuming that, mostly, you find Hume's inductive argument in book X to be the main force behind Hume's work. Check out Paul Draper (my favorite philosopher of religion) who take's Hume's argument, mixes in some formal Bayesianism, and does some incredible work with it. (To show my cards, my WS was an argument against one of Draper's--that Skeptical Theism defeats his sort of argument from evil). I'm also a major fan of David Lewis like yourself, for eerily similar reasons. I had a professor who was apparently closer than an acquantaince with him, and the way he spoke of Lewis was inspiring (excepting Lewis' apparant love for horrifically stinky cheese...). I'm also a major fan of Ayer. I totally am surprised at these names you've thrown out, I thought you were more a continentalish guy.

 

As to the OP--perhaps it is a silly question for some of us. I'll answer anyway--

 

Current: Paul Draper, or Keith DeRose, or maybe Dean Zimmerman

Historical: Hume or Spinoza, Aquinas, maybe Ockham (there are too many)

 

 We would get along famously. I love Paul Draper, and especially his work on the Evidential Argument from Evil. I would love to see your thoughts on this, if you'd ever feel comfortable sharing it. 

 

I have a really hard time picking a favorite philosopher, because I tend to go between picking them for their ideas, or for the lives they led. I'm really fond of Epicurus, David Hume, and A.J. Ayer. 

[Cottagecheeseman]

Zizek, do yourself a favor and get Dan Howard-Snyder's fantastic The Evidential Argument from Evil. I'm assuming that, mostly, you find Hume's inductive argument in book X to be the main force behind Hume's work. Check out Paul Draper (my favorite philosopher of religion) who take's Hume's argument, mixes in some formal Bayesianism, and does some incredible work with it. (To show my cards, my WS was an argument against one of Draper's--that Skeptical Theism defeats his sort of argument from evil). I'm also a major fan of David Lewis like yourself, for eerily similar reasons. I had a professor who was apparently closer than an acquantaince with him, and the way he spoke of Lewis was inspiring (excepting Lewis' apparant love for horrifically stinky cheese...). I'm also a major fan of Ayer. I totally am surprised at these names you've thrown out, I thought you were more a continentalish guy.

 

As to the OP--perhaps it is a silly question for some of us. I'll answer anyway--

 

Current: Paul Draper, or Keith DeRose, or maybe Dean Zimmerman

Historical: Hume or Spinoza, Aquinas, maybe Ockham (there are too many)

 

I might check that out sometime. To be honest, I used to be interested in phil of religion, but I'm awfully tired of it now for various regions, mainly because the more I studied it the less religious I became and the less interested in the arguments I became, and I got tired arguing with people who I used to count as friends before I stopped sharing a few beliefs with them and apparently that made me a huge enemy that needed to be confronted every time I ran into them.

Also I'm 100% analytic! Not a continental bone in my body! (lol)

[ianfaircloud]

Gettier.  

[bar_scene_gambler]

I'm not sure I have a favorite current philosopher. I guess I like some of Conant's stuff on Nietzsche. I don't read much contemporary work. Historically, Nietzsche is my favorite (clearly). He's the only philosopher that I'm confident in saying I'll never get sick of (he was my first philosophical love in a way).

[greencoloredpencil]

I'd like to say a little more since my original post was just too boring. Historically I'd probably say Wittgenstein. I'm really into analytic philosophy, particularly early analytic philosophy. So, most of my favorite philosophers of all time come out of the 20th century--I'm simply enamored with a lot of work from that time. I also really love Frege and Russell. Another 20th century figure I quite like is Anscombe. Though, in addition to these more modern philosophers I do have a soft spot for Descartes too, especially since he was my first love when I first discovered philosophy! 

 

As for contemporary figures I'd probably say Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, or Tyler Burge. 

Edited January 29, 2014 by greencoloredpencil

[axiomness]

 We would get along famously. I love Paul Draper, and especially his work on the Evidential Argument from Evil. I would love to see your thoughts on this, if you'd ever feel comfortable sharing it. 

 

I have a really hard time picking a favorite philosopher, because I tend to go between picking them for their ideas, or for the lives they led. I'm really fond of Epicurus, David Hume, and A.J. Ayer. 

 

That's great to hear MattDest (funfact--the medieval Muslims' [i know Alfarabi & Averroes use it] term for atheist was directly derived from Epicurus' name. No joke.)

 

I'm curious to hear of your opinion of Rousseau then, by your reported method of choosing favorites.

 

It's obviously kind of technical (as you are [at least] familiar with probability theory in Phil Religion, you know what I mean -- 'em prior probabilities are a tricky matter), but essentially the argument is a response to his 2013 article against Mike Bergmann's (2008) argument against Draper-style (he calls them Hume-style) arguments from evil, viz., the 1989 "Pain and Pleasure" argument. I don't defend Bergmann, but critique Bergmann's view so that it properly addresses the problems addressed in Draper's 2013 (well, he obviously disagrees, but he gave me an A on the paper so I'm happy with it). I think that skeptical theism of the Bergmann sort (which, rudimentarily, says that we have little-to-no idea about how the realm of value works--e.g., is it really all-things-considered good to do such-and-such? How likely are we to be able to discern such a value?) sucessfully undercuts the power that our understanding of pain and pleasure (which is a fundamental aspect of Draper's '89--hence the name) has in his argument. Well, that's my WS. As for any general thoughts, that's probably more PM-worthy stuff.

 

 

I might check that out sometime. To be honest, I used to be interested in phil of religion, but I'm awfully tired of it now for various regions, mainly because the more I studied it the less religious I became and the less interested in the arguments I became, and I got tired arguing with people who I used to count as friends before I stopped sharing a few beliefs with them and apparently that made me a huge enemy that needed to be confronted every time I ran into them.

Also I'm 100% analytic! Not a continental bone in my body! (lol)

 

I hope you do. I bet you were reading William Lane Craig or Plantinga (or historical stuff mostly). Or not, I'm curious. I'd recommend two things to get you back interested in it: 1) read some smart, non-fundamentalistic-apologetico-like theistic philosophers (Like, say, Zimmerman, or Rea, or Bergmann); 2) Read some progressive Atheists (like Draper or, better yet, J.L. Schellenberg's work).

Edited January 29, 2014 by axiomness

[objectivityofcontradiction]

Past: T.W. Adorno

Current: Raymond Geuss 

[Edit_Undo]

Russell, Frege, Quine, and Putnam.

[axiomness]

Gettier.  

The man responsible for the last 50 years of epistemology, and he did it all in three pages... that is definitely impressive!

Edited January 29, 2014 by axiomness

[TheVineyard]

The man responsible for the last 50 years of epistemology, and he did it all in three pages... that is definitely impressive!

 

What is impressive is that epistemology has somehow fixated itself on a definition problem (one no more interesting than definition problems in any other subfield of philosophy) and run itself in circles for so damn long.

Edited January 29, 2014 by TheVineyard

[axiomness]

What is impressive is that epistemology has somehow fixated itself on a definition problem (one no more interesting than definition problems in any other subfield of philosophy) and run itself in circles for so damn long.

I completely agree.

 

PhD Student c. 1993: Man, I will never get this epistemology paper on warrant published. I just can't get around this one scant counterexample to my re-definition of K''''''.

Friend: Look, someone just published an article with a functionally-identical definition!

PhD Student: WHAT? Are you kidding me?

Friend: I'm not, sorry--

PhD Student: WHOOHOOO! Academia, here I come!

 

 

And, by the way, that's not me endorsing Tim Williamson.

Edited January 29, 2014 by axiomness

[DHumeDominates]

Blaise Pascal. Thoughts is terrifying -- terrifyingly good and, literally, terrifying.

[frege-bombs]

This might be a silly question to ask at this point in most of our studies but do you have a favorite philosopher?

 

I'd have to say Wittgenstein is mine. 

 

Seconded. 

[Cottagecheeseman]

I hope you do. I bet you were reading William Lane Craig or Plantinga (or historical stuff mostly). Or not, I'm curious. I'd recommend two things to get you back interested in it: 1) read some smart, non-fundamentalistic-apologetico-like theistic philosophers (Like, say, Zimmerman, or Rea, or Bergmann); 2) Read some progressive Atheists (like Draper or, better yet, J.L. Schellenberg's work).

I got into Philosophy of Religion because of apologetics, which of course means Craig and others like him who misuse philosophy in presenting one-sided arguments and views. But I took two courses on philosophy of religion in my undergrad, and I've read a lot of what you call smart-non-fundie-apologetico-like theistic philosophers, and I've read some work by recent atheists. (personal favorite is anything by Mackie) I like philosophy of religion it's just not something I tend to think about or care to think about. I did however invite Laura Ekstrom to give a talk at my campus back when I was interested in phil of religion a lot, and that was a really great talk.

[Griswald]

Very tough question. To name just a few all time favorites: GEM Anscombe, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Rosalind Hursthouse, Martha Nussbaum. Amongst younger, contemporary philosophers, I really admire Jennifer Lackey and Sarah Moss.

[catwoman15]

Past: T.W. Adorno

Current: Raymond Geuss 

 

Oh man, but Geuss is pretty bad at actually reading Adorno sometimes...it's painful to read like, bro, did you even read the original text???

 

Team Bernstein forever.

[Cottagecheeseman]

Very tough question. To name just a few all time favorites: GEM Anscombe, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Rosalind Hursthouse, Martha Nussbaum. Amongst younger, contemporary philosophers, I really admire Jennifer Lackey and Sarah Moss.

Wow I like that you named all women. I used Dr. Lackey a ton in my writing sample, she's a pretty great!

Edited January 29, 2014 by zizeksucks

[Griswald]

What is impressive is that epistemology has somehow fixated itself on a definition problem (one no more interesting than definition problems in any other subfield of philosophy) and run itself in circles for so damn long.

Maybe you're being facetious, but I think it's wrong to characterize epistemology as being "fixated" on a definition problem. Lots of important epistemologists have given up on finding necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge. Williamson (2000) is a well-known example. Also, there's lots of really interesting work going on in areas where epistemology overlaps with phil. mind (e.g. epistemic akrasia) and phil. language (e.g. contextualism vs. SSI). There's also been huge advances in "non-standard" epistemology--formal, feminist, etc.--in the last 20 years .