A Brief Overview of all the Philosophers I've Read.

Being that I am a philosophy major, it's natural that eventually this blog would have something to say about philosophy. This is a list of all the philosophers I've studied and what I've come to think of them, briefly. Hopefully I'm not leaving anybody particularly important out.

Plato is a tad boring to read. I strongly disagree with most everything he says (I've read 12 Platonic works so far, more than most other philosophers I've studied), and my favourite part of Republic was the sequence of degeneration in the final three books.

Aristotle was much more difficult to read than Plato, but mostly because there was no sense of imagination. Aristotle can be seen as progressing philosophy, but Aristotle can also be seen as setting science back a cool 1500 years.

Karl Marx: I'm a leftist, and I sympathize with a lot that Marx has to say about labor, about Capital, about political economy in general. Communism looks good on paper, even. I'll agree to that.

Thomas Hobbes was far too pessimistic for my liking. The tiger who used him as a namesake was far better.

GWF Hegel. Ah, Hegel; hands down the most difficult philosophy I've had to read yet (The encyclopaedia, the philosophy of religion, and the phenomenology). I hated him at first, disagreed with him entirely, disliked everything Hegelian. Now, I can understand where he was coming from. An understanding of the history of philosophy is necessary to even begin thinking about why the notion of System is necessary. Hegel really grew on me.

Bentham should've never come up with the Panopticon. It's landed him in a world of hurt. Coincidentally, JS Mill represents Utilitarianism much more efficiently. Regardless, the whole notion of a utilitarian system of ethics puts me off. A worse ethical system is employed only by Seneca. No excuses for that kind of shit. Don't think you're getting out of my anti-universal-ethical-system rant either, Immanuel Kant. JL Mackie sets you straight, but it took a few hundred years.

Existentialism, then. Kierkegaard makes a valid case for christian existentialism, and I find his pseudonymous writing entertaining and witty. Highly reccomended. Albert Camus is not one that I would consider strictly an existentialist, but for lack of a better category, let's call him an absurdist. Anyway, he's worth reading, but to be taken with a grain of salt. Sartre poses an enormous influence on me, but would've been better off staying away from trying to fit his works in with Marxist Dialectics. Simone de Beauvoir I can take in limited doses, much akin to Wollstonecraft. They'd do well to read some de Sade.

Let me say here that I've never considered Nietzsche to be an existentialist, although it's apparently evident to a large number of scholars, I just can't see how. In Human, All Too Human, the man outright denies the existence of a free will. If that doesn't negate existentialism, I don't know what does. Still, probably the most entertaining philosopher I've ever come to read. Thoroughly enjoyable, and one of my favourite philosophers, if not my favourite.

Ludwig Feuerbach taught me enormous truths about religion and christianity in general. The doctrine that religion is a sickness rings true with me. Heavily influential.

Bertrand Russel helped me understand analytics a good bit. Chaim Perelman then helped me apply that to speech act theory. Let me just say here that Perelman doesn't get anywhere near enough credit anywhere on the internet. You'll be hard pressed to find much about him outside of scholarly libraries.

Herbert Marcuse authored what I generally consider to be the best book ever written, One-Dimensional Man. It changed my whole life.

Hume was boring. Spinoza was strange, and a lens-grinder. CS Peirce needs to get his shit in order, and that goes double for William James.

John Locke was boring. Anselm was boring. Leibniz was boring. Francis Bacon was boring, and wrong. And an alchemist, which is just hilarious. Blaise Pascal should've stuck with mathematics, his philosophy is atrocious.

Adam Smith was boring, but altogether accurate. Niccolo Machiavelli was entertaining at best, disastrous to future empires at worst. Jaques Derrida thought about things too much. Word has it he was Bill Clinton's favourite philosopher.

Arthur Schopenhaur had a good bit of pessimism to him. Theodor Adorno seems interesting to me, and I should really read some more of his work. Voltaire is always a fun read, especially in Candide, which is why I can't understand John Ralston Saul's beef with him. Saul, however, remains heavily influential on my everyday life.

Heidegger has me confused, and all in a tizzy. Thus, it's hard for me to love or hate him. Descartes had a solid methodology, but needed to be less of a pussyshit and just release Le Monde when it needed to be released, instead of fearing persecution as per Galileo and Copernicus. Augustine and Aquinas bother me, but it's probably just because I can't relate to their place in history.

Michel Foucault remains influential, and I find myself constantly trying to understand him better with each passing day. Post-structuralism doesn't take the place of Existentialism in my mind, but it sure makes a solid effort.

Whew! I'm pretty sure that's the gist of it. I'll try not to be this dull in the future.

Thanks for the comments: Meg, Anon, Audiophile.

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