Favorite Philosopher

[rational thinker]

Whose your favorite philosopher of all time (and please, no Ron Paul )? Mine would have to be Friedrich Nietzsche.

 

[Dindoleki]

[deleted]

 

[yongrel]

 

[Kotin]

thats what I'm talkin' about!



I like William Blake.

 

[amy31416]

I like the fact that Spinoza lived as he believed and was a rebel of a sort.

 

[rational thinker]

Spinoza was truly a revolutionary in his day. Funny thing, though, is many Christians accused him of being an atheist, when he really wasn't. He was a pantheist.

 

[asgardshill]

Niccolo Machiavelli. But there are nuggets of gold to be had among the dross of many other philosophies too.

 

[RSLudlum]

I don't know if he is my favorite but Voltaire definitely made an impact on me in my high school years...I still read some of his works off n on from time to time

 

[Grimnir Wotansvolk]

Nietzsche

 

[Kludge]

Rand, Rothbard & Orwell.

 

[Mach]

Nietzsche...

"The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us. "

"With all great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception they are overcome by belief in themselves, it is this which then speaks so miraculously and compelling to those around them."


and Mach-iavelli

 

[Conza88]

Aristotle / Plato...
Haven't read their work since I woke up... will do eventually. Oh and Socrates.

Anyway, get back to me on this one.

 

[Alex Libman]

Ayn Rand.

(Seriously.)


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[LibertiORDeth]

I don't know, I need some direction to good philosophers

 

[familydog]

Thomas Aquinas.

 

[haigh]

At the 2008 LP convention the POTUS candidates were asked the same question.
It went:
Barr - Rand
Ruwart - Rand
Gravel - Solon
Jingozian - Ben Franklin
Kubby - David Nolan
Root - Yogi Berra
Phillies - Goldwater and Cicero

For my money no one has better bolted Liberty-Pride-Economics-Politics-and-Philosophy together as well as Rand. And done it with fiction.

 

[sophocles07]

Gravel - Solon

That's a very interesting answer. Saying Rand at a LP convention is a bit....

easy. Solon takes a little originality.

I like:

Nietzsche, Pico (Mirandola), Giordano Bruno, G. Vico, Spinoza, Hegel on history, writer of Job, Schopenhauer, Marcus Aurelius, Matthew Arnold (on culture), Samuel Johnson.

Etc.

 

[ryanmkeisling]

Kant is great but his "inaccessible beyond" is largely misunderstood and a stumbling block for many that followed. Imo. I always liked Kierkegaard's ideas on living the "spiritual life" which was to seek to do the impossible at all times with the leap of faith.

Lao-tzu would be my favorite, as he encompasses all philosophy with unmatched brevity and is intellectually superior to everything that came after.