Favorite/Best Philosopher

[jduster]

Who is your favorite philosopher or the philosopher you think was the best, and why?

[Darklordabc]

Sam Harris. He wrote the last word on morality, its done now.

[barts]

David Hume who informed his views with something foreign to most philosophers: reason.

[Angry Citizen]

I voted Plato/Socrates, although I fail to see why these two are combined. I like Plato's idealism, but Socrates is who I was really after. This man was the ideal human being. Smart, physically imposing, wise, humble, unafraid, and was willing to hold contrary ideas. He also created (or perhaps immortalized) the Socratic Method on which I base all of my intellectual inquiry.

[gharik]

It's gotta be my boy Kierkegaard. Tempted to put Hume for his statements about the limits of reason, but Kierkegaard's proto-existentialist understanding of how faith and reason interact was far more instructive.

EDIT: Oh, and he critiqued modernism, which every atheist philosopher of the last century has essentially embraced without qualm.

[grandpa]

Saying I have a favorite costs a lot. It means I would have to lump myself in with him/her, and that any other philosophers would take a lesser station. Plus, I'm not sure I really have a favorite philosopher. I would say Kropotkin, because I see such consideration coming from
him -- he was a very thoughtful person, really (a supposed element in the Christian faith, which is why Oscar Wilde deemed him "a man with a soul of that beautiful white Christ which seems coming out of Russia"). That someone is thoughtful is an important quality, I think.

Grandpa h.

[Strawman]

In this order.

Ralph Waldo Emerson. William James. John Dewey. Niccolò Machiavelli. Jacques Ellul. Guy Debord. Mikhail Bakhtin. Carl Jung. Ludwig Feuerbach. Max Stirner. Karl Marx.

I realize that some of these guys are not technically philosophers. My list includes sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists. I was tempted to include certain novelists, like Dostoevsky. In any case, all of these writers have informed my philosophy.

I am also influenced by Plato, Hume, and Hobbes, but I was forced to pick "other" on the survey, because of the importance of these other thinkers.

I was tempted to put James first, but Emerson is a better writer. One single essay of Emerson is packed with telescopic insight and wisdom. The closer you look, the more there is.

[Zeebadee]

Lord Chesterfield easily tops all others.

[BHownsall]

Sam Harris. He wrote the last word on morality, its done now.

The Moral Landscape was a great book, had a huge influence on my views of morality. Moral Relativism needs to just go away now, in shame.

[Dave In Canada]

I loved Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

[LostInThought]

Lao-Tzu.

I studied philosophy for entertainment as well as intellectual stimulation, but Lao-Tzu is the first philosopher who has works I simply could not refuse to live by. Other philosophers have pieces that I truely admire for their passion (such as Emerson and Hobbes), but Lao-Tzu has pieces that alter my perception completely, rather than altering my interrpretation of one's philosophies until i agree with them.

Also, there is a poetic quality to his works (which is usually attributed to the format of the translation but still) and a more passionate work is far more convincing to dedicate yourself to.

[LostInThought]

In this order.

Ralph Waldo Emerson. William James. John Dewey. Niccolò Machiavelli. Jacques Ellul. Guy Debord. Mikhail Bakhtin. Carl Jung. Ludwig Feuerbach. Max Stirner. Karl Marx.

I realize that some of these guys are not technically philosophers. My list includes sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists. I was tempted to include certain novelists, like Dostoevsky. In any case, all of these writers have informed my philosophy.

I am also influenced by Plato, Hume, and Hobbes, but I was forced to pick "other" on the survey, because of the importance of these other thinkers.

I was tempted to put James first, but Emerson is a better writer. One single essay of Emerson is packed with telescopic insight and wisdom. The closer you look, the more there is.

Philosophy is not a profession (otherwise i wouldn't major in architecture), so technically no one can be a philosopher. Or everyone can be a philosopher, depending on whichever way your glass is filled. I'd consider transcendentalism a philosophical movement. Machiavelli, Jung, anyone else who revolutionized their feild I'd say qualifies as a philosopher.

My favourite quote by Plato by far, "To be a lover of true learning and to be a philosopher are identical."
By that defnition, I'd say we are all philosophers.