Are there any prominent Philosophers in the world?

Question

I'm talking at the level of Descartes, Sartre, Nietzsche, etc.

Answer 1

Yeah, a lot of extremely influential philosophers have all relatively recently dropped dead. (and I'm gonna show no particular bias here... haha, I mean analytic v continental)

Evans (Gareth) biggest loss for me...
Quine
Strawson
Lewis
Rorty
Derrida
Rawls
Khun
Popper

I could go on and on through Feyerabend (90s) Sartre (80s) Heidegger and Lakatos (70s) Merleau-Ponty (60s) Wittgenstein (50s)

but there are still some awe inspiring philosophers around today... my favorites

Ed Mares, Kim Sterelny, Steve Clarke, Luciano Floridi, Dretske, Phil Gerrans, John Weckert, - ok a fairly strong oxford school there...

Answer 2

"Prominency" is hardly a virtue worth chosing a philosopher for, if that is your purpose. Most are a mix of Platoism and Aristotileanism, which makes for irrationality half the time. That is why I think most living or recent philosophers have little to offer except confusion. Plato, through Augustine, gave us the Dark Ages. Aristotle, through Aquinas, gave us the Enlightenment. I'd follow the path of anyone consistently Aristotilean.
But as for which philosopher has the most clout? Ayn Rand seems to have the most, percentage-wise. Half the think-tanks in Washington are Objectivist-based, Alan Greenspan was one of her personal students, Randians helped elect Ronald Reagan and that is how they came to power in Washington; and I'll bet Newt is a fan.

Answer 3

Richard Rorty died quite recently, otherwise he'd have to be on any list you'd create of prominent contemporary philosophers.

There's still Jacques Barzun (who turns 100 years old this month, God bless him), Philip Kitcher, Alvin Plantinga, (here's his homepage, BTW, http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/plantinga/index2.html), and Julia Kristeva.

That's just an off-the-cuff list. I've noticed that the lists you've been getting don't much overlap with each other, which suggests how fissionable contemporary philosophy is.

Answer 4

Slavoj Zizek is a pretty huge name in philosophy these days. Jean Baudrillard (who recently died) was also a big deal, and popularized the notion of simulacrum. Stanley Cavell is (was?) a pretty noted American philosopher. Marshall McLuhan was pretty good in his heyday, though that was (like Cavell) almost 35 years ago. bell hooks is a well-known theorist on African-American feminist issues.

The thing with philosophers is that they don't tend to get noticed except by prominent artists and academics.

Answer 5

Prominent? hmmmm.

Ute Bublitz (1998)

Beyond Philosophy
Reconciliation and Rejection
Three Essays on Aristotle and Hegel
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/bublitz.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer

Name
Arthur Schopenhauer

Birth
February 22, 1788 (Danzig)

Death
September 21, 1860 (aged 72) (Frankfurt-am-Main)

School/tradition
Kantianism, idealism

Main interests
Metaphysics, aesthetics, phenomenology, morality, psychology

Notable ideas
Will, Fourfold root of reason, pessimism

Influences
Plato, Kant, Upanishad, Goethe

Influenced
Samuel Beckett, Henri Bergson, Jorge Luis Borges, Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer, Albert Einstein, Mihai Eminescu, Freud, Eduard von Hartmann, Hesse, Horkheimer, Jung, Suzanne Langer, Mann, Nietzsche, Popper, Gilbert Ryle, Tolstoy, Hans Vaihinger, Vivekananda, Maupassant, Proust, Wagner, Wittgenstein, Houellebecq, Schrödinger



Pessimism, from the Latin pessimus (worst), denotes a belief that the experienced world is the worst possible. It describes a general belief that things are bad, and tend to become worse; or that looks to the eventual triumph of evil over good; it is the antonym of optimism, the contrary belief in the goodness and betterment of things generally. A common conundrum illustrates optimism versus pessimism with the question - does one regard a given glass of water as: "Is the glass half empty or half full?" Conventional wisdom expects optimists to reply with half full and pessimists to respond with half empty, but this is not always the case.

Answer 6

Two great ones have died recently, Hans-Georg Gaedemer from Germany and Manuel Artegas from Spain. Pope John II was a very serious philosopher.

Answer 7

Robert Anton Wilson

I would honestly put him in the same league as those you mentioned.
Never heard of him?

There are some really great thinkers around but we have a different set of priorities, so they don't get much attention. Even though they have a great deal to contribute.
If only to challenge the status quo, to get us thinking of possibilities.

Answer 8

There's Ralph McInerny, philosophy professor at Notre Dame and author of the "Father Dowling" mysteries.

Answer 9

Chomsky, Singer, and Habermas are probably the most prominent philosophers of today.

Answer 10

Neil Postman Amusing ourselves to death A chronicle of media infuance over social and philosophical views how its done and its motives and aims!