Who Is Your Favorite Philosopher?

Comte De Maistre

[ComtedeMaistre]

That was the question that George W. was asked in the 2000 campaign. Unfortunately, the questioner failed to provide a precise definition of how to define a philosopher.

A useful definition of a philosopher is anybody who has ever written a book on ideas. Anybody. Whether he is an economist, theologian, politician, mathematician, soldier, boxer, musician, historian, artist, psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, biologist, physicist, athlete, etc, etc, etc.

Yes, I do recognize Yogi Berra as a notable philosopher. Even Barry Goldwater, notwithstanding the fact that his book, "Conscience of a Conservative" was ghost-written for him.

Certainly, if some of the well-read freepers know of philosophers noted for conservative ideas, their contributions are certainly welcome.

For my part, my favorite philosopher is the anti-enlightenment thinker, Joseph de Maistre (also known as Comte de Maistre). I regard him as the most authentic conservative intellectual of all time. Reading his works made me realize how the spread of moral relativism can endanger civilization.

[ztiworoh]

My problem with the fountainhead was that it never seemed to be going anywhere, by 1/3 of the way into the book I had gotten the point that Rand valued individuality over conformity... after that the book was merely a series of examples reasserting the same point over and over, the same point which is made in all of the rest of her books. The reason I liked Anthem better was that it seems better paced and held my interest for a longer period of time.

[pupdog]

Wow, I can't believe that Thomas Jefferson hasn't gotten a single mention yet. I'll tack on Henry David Thoreau as well.

[DoctorMichael]

"Ayn Rand was an alchoholic nutbag."

I'd never heard that before. I've read a number of biographies on Rand, both good and bad, and no one I know of has made that claim. Can I ask your source?

[kesg]

I have heard that Roark was modeled after Wright.

I don't know about that, but in a closely related vein, in Atlas Shrugged Robert Stadler was patterned after real life scientist Robert Oppenheimer, and Mr. Thompson was patterned after President Truman. I'm guessing that Ragnar Danneksjold was patterned after Kirk Douglas in the movie The Vikings. :)

[WhiteGuy]

Sincere Thanks.

[x]

Good question. Aristotle was definitely a realist, and hence more conservative than the idealist Plato. But I'm not so sure that one can simply associate Plato and Aristotle directly with liberalism and conservatism.

In his day, Plato counted as a conservative and his Republic has been regarded as an attempt to give society a rigid, unchanging form. Of course, what counts as conservatism has changed over the years. I don't think most of us would find Sparta or the Republic a good model for our own society. Today, a state run by guardians from on high for the public good, looks very much like modern judicial-bureaucratic liberalism.

But liberals have also been able to build on Aristotle's view of human needs to justify the welfare state. Aristotle represents a common sense path that radicals have found too realistic and elitist. He accepts human nature and institutions too much to win over those who want to change them. But there may be some on the right who find Aristotle, the exponent of the mean between extremes, unappealing.

[Revolting cat!]

Uhm, it's a toss between Otis Blackwell and Chuck Berry!

[WhiteGuy]

In no order..............

Ayn Rand

Woody Hayes

Howard Stern

My Dad

[Mad Dawgg]

Ben Franklin

Ayn Rand

Plato

Douglas Adams

P.J. O'Rourke

[bethelgrad]

William Lane Craig: Christian apologist and philosopher. HOlds a Ph.D as well as D.Theol.

[Our man in washington]

Victor Frankl would be #2 on my list of thinkers who have most influenced my life. Here's an odd answer for #1: Thomas Sowell.

His book "Knowledge and Decisions" made me profoundly change the way I looked at the world. The central idea of the book is that information is not free. We therefore can never make perfect decisions because we don't have infinite resources for information.

The book had an odd effect on me. It made me reevaluate my feelings about my parents and authority figures at work. I was thus transformed from an angry young men to an optimistic thirtysomething man who tries his best and tries to appreciate the efforts of others.

[ztiworoh]

I actually disagree, Plato's Republic offers much valued advice for the American people. Like it or not America is not a true democracy, it's an oligarchy with input from the citizenry, however, the oligarchy is not based only on money or lineage (though these still hold sway to some degree), the ruling class is based on a combination of cunning and inteligence.

Plato realized that although there are equal rights inherent to people, that does not mean all men are endowed with an equal chance. He resolved that some people are meant to be workers and some are meant to be thinkers. The workers maintain the economic level of the country while the intellectuals maintain policy, strategy, and law. Although Plato's ideal country does not mesh completely with American values, it does have much to offer in that it maintains the opportunity created in a freemarket economy while providing a structure which is missing in many libertarian/anarchist views of the nature of the state.

[danmar]

Foghorn Leghorn.

Right on!...althou, Curly is mighty close.

[annyokie]

Yes. I read a biography of Ayn Rand (albeit in a magazine article "Vogue", I believe.)

She had a young man, lover, whom she betrayed and abused, both verbally and physichaly. (My spelling is terrible, forgive me.) She was married before to an older man whom she betrayed with her dalliances.

[ezo4]

My Brother

[beckett]

For me it would be presumptuous to name my favorite philosopher. In my youth I was one of those people who tended to get swept up in the philosophy of whomever I was reading at the time, a very dangerous trait indeed. Leonard Piekoff was accused of the same failing by Ayn Rand, and look what a lousy philosopher he turned out to be! But my spine started to stiffen somewhere in the not too distant but not too recent past, and I've become quite discriminating in what I lend my credence to. I guess I've found my own voice, or, at least, it is beginning to find its way to the forefront of my consciousness and crawl out to the tip of my tongue. In any case my point is that today I can compare and contrast ideas among some very good philosophers with my own experience and find stuff I really don't buy into, and other stuff that really teaches me something.

Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue hasn't been mentioned in the thread, and that book certainly qualifies as one of the best works of philosophy in the last twenty-five years. He tells us we must choose between Neitzsche and Aristotle, and shows us why Neitzsche leads to the Rorty/Butler/Nussbaum brand of moral relativism, although he names none of the latter three. MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality? also blew me away with its explication of the dilemma confronting a shrinking world where emotivism bounces the masses from pillar to post.

So I'd say MacIntyre is my favorite contemporary philosopher, or, that is, I would if I hadn't read another book of his, Dependent Rational Animals, Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, which had some disagreeable ideas that tended to justify wealth re-distribution a bit too enthusiastically for my taste. MacIntyre was a Marxist for a good chunk of his life, so he is suspect on that score.

I also like the playwright Samuel Beckett as a philosopher, which is why I chose him for my nick. Beckett and I share a certain affinity for ideas about the futility of life and the purposelessness of the universe. I do my best to suppress that aspect of my personality, and, in a funny way, so did he. It's an Irish thing.

I am reading Strauss now. I've finally been shamed into it after all the press the guy has gotten lately. So maybe he'll be my next favorite. Like I say, I'm easy. Or has my spine stiffened? Whatever.

The quest continues.

[m18436572]

Blake

[beckett]

...Curly is mighty close.

Cogito Ergo Sum

[danmar]

...thanks, you made my day. I love the Stooges, never the less Ol' Foghorn Leghorn wisdom is extremely hard to pass.