11 philosophers pick 1?

Question

Out of the 11 philosophers pick 1 you like in brief and why you dont like the others.

Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche,. Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, and John Rawls

Answer 1

I would have to pick Sartre, in that his philosophy allows that our reality is relative; that is, personal perception is an adjunct to reality---there are no concrete conclusions. I will not say that I dislike the others, it is just that Sartre fits neatly into my self-denial.

Answer 2

Of all those, I like Friedrich Nietzsche the best. I love his poetic writing style and his audacity against sacred cows.

I don't dislike reading Plato but he does tend to get bogged down in his quest for perfection and his notion of the world of forms.
Reading Aristotle is like eating sawdust. Very dry. Very boring. One can only take so many categories.
St. Augustine... I think it should be obvious that I don't find Christian philosophy all that compelling.
Thomas Hobbes seemed very much for his time and generally seemed to devote his time justifying a lousy political arrangement because it was better than nothing.
David Hume is alright but he's a bit dull and obsessed with swans.
Why I don't like Immanuel Kant... How long have you got? You know how Lewis Black in Rules of Enragement said you can experience what it's like to go to New Zealand by sitting in a chair and pressing your head for 19 hours? No need to use the time. Read Kant for 2 hours and you'll feel like your in New Zealand... or at least not home!
I quite like John Stuart Mill and thank him for his On the Subjugation of Women. The only thing I would say against him is that in his efforts to justify the greatest happiness principle, went overboard separating higher and lower pleasures. Anyone who has ever had a decedant meal prepared by a master chef, read Lady Chatterley's Lover or seen a painting by Rubens knows that the separation of pleasures is not that straightforward and an element of sensuality often remains in the most sublime and high pleasure.
Jean-Paul Sartre is probably my second favourite. It just comes down to liking Nietzsche's writing style better.
I don't know enough about Bertrand Russell to like or dislike him.
John Rawls, with his "original position" is one of the many philosophers who tried to separate history and morality by putting morality into a totally separate world of rational thought. I happen to agree with Nietzsche that this is a bad idea. Notions of morality and justice are not created in a cultural void.

Answer 3

Most of these are good, though IMHO Hobbes & Augustine were a couple of sophists who could've used some lessons in rational thinking and logic.

For me it would be a tie between Nietzsche and Mill. Nietzsche's philosophy of the ubermench (superman) who overcomes all the artificial constraints of society to attain his full potential as a free, sentient being is very empowering. Likewise, John Stuart Mill's writings had a profound effect on the concepts of liberty, both personal and economic (which are, in fact, one in the same). I guess I like Nietzsche from an emotional perspective, and Mill from a practical perspective.

Answer 4

First of all, I cannot say that I do not like the others for each of their philosophies are very enlightening. Besides, Their philosophies are of different aspects. Some of them tackle political philosophy, others philosophy of Man, and others, existentialism.

But among in the list, the best presentor there I think is Thomas Hobbes. It is because he created a reasoning that is so factual, very realistic.

If you want to know more about his political theory, you could easily get info on him on the net, not unless you're asking a rhetorical question and that you already know the background of all the philosophers you have mentioned.

Answer 5

Russell

Answer 6

Only Aristotle matters. The others multiplied together aren't worth a tenth of him.

He defined fictions and history as follows:
History tells us what men happened to do in the past;
fiction tells us what a man ought to do and ought to have done.

He was the mind who studied government first as a science, and botany, biology, the effects of the arts and the
nature of the manifested real. Whatever his errors in metaphysics, he ignored hypothesis to concentrate on studying the real, and checking the results of his investigations and thinking back against reality, to see if his ideas were true or not.

Whatever his errors, this is his legacy, the legacy that leads through a handful of others to Ayn Rand and to me.
And we are the realists, the future of human thought. And it is on his shoulders we stand.

The Germans taken together lead to Hitler, Lenin, Al Queda and all other forms of postmodernist reality-denying collectivistic tyranny.
Aristotle and we lead to the Founding Fathers who wrote of individuals having the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own priorities of happiness, and beyond--to the future of Stellar Man.

Answer 7

How come I don't see Confucius on the list??

Confucius' thinking really help us to understand what are we suppose to do while we're still alive.

Whereas these 11 philosophers did not give us a clear answer.

Answer 8

I like the gay one.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from another as each must study those who have come before him and form part of the thinking that is adapted.

His interest in phenomenology is consistent with my own as well as the divergence into phenomenology and psychology. As well, his interest in ontology is notable.

Answer 9

Friedrich Nietzsche-- I think he is the closest to reality

Answer 10

Plato, because of his teacher Socrates and his own poetry.

I don't dislike most of the others, but you limited me to one.

(I wish the last one had been Lou Rawls, then my answer would have been instantaneous.)