Who's the shittest philosopher?

[Hermit]

Fuck! Where is the shot in foot smiley when I need it?



Edit: Don't apologise, Red. It's my turn to do that. You were right. I was wrong.

[redunderthebed]

Fuck! Where is the shot in foot smiley when I need it?

Hardly i just find your nitpicking to be rather irritating.

[DRSB]

What about Karl Marks? I think he was pretty smart! Not his fault Lenin decided to apply the whole thing to Russia. So, the shittiest of them all was Lenin; you may object he does not qualify as a philosopher, but he wrote and wrote theories too.

Marx developed some very astute concepts about about feudalism, capitalism and the underlying philosophical foundations to them. Lenin and Zedong misapplied the lot of them. Neither Russia nor China had reached the stage of development where internal contradictions of a fully developed capitalism had come to a head that Marx held to be necessary for a successful socialist revolution. The revolutions in both those countries had nothing to do with such a transition. In each case, anybody could have kicked the rotten structures down. The revolutionaries who did the kicking managed to sincerely convince themselves that the capitalist phase could be skipped. History demonstrated them to be wrong. The revolutions were doomed to fail even without the likes of Stalin.

Yes, he was quite smart in combining dialectics with materialism, up till him, all materialism had been static and all dialectics idealistic, to develop the "dialectic materialism", a great idea, actually. Then he went on to develop the utopian Scientific Communist, which was, well, pretty utopian. Anyway, by the time Lenin got to do a reception of Marx, his brain was corroded by syphilis (did I spell this right?)

[redunderthebed]

He actually railed again ideas of utopia which i believe in itself was a serious idea back in his time.

[DRSB]

What about Karl Marks? I think he was pretty smart! Not his fault Lenin decided to apply the whole thing to Russia. So, the shittiest of them all was Lenin; you may object he does not qualify as a philosopher, but he wrote and wrote theories too.

It's spelt Marx just read it off the poster i have of him on my bedroom wall.

I got carried away after reading a article on Marx's inexhaustible libido in a Russian magazine, and there of course it is "ks", so a case of interference.

Anyway, turns out, he was also quite the womanizer, poor wifey Comtesse Jenny von Westfalen was pregnant 7 times and requested a time out but he was unimplorable (not sure about the spelling), needed his sex, got the servant Hellen pregnant too, luckily, Engels stepped in and took the deed upon himself and financed the boy throughout his studies, the only Marx-offspring to end up well. The servant's 16-year old niece was impregnated by Marx as well apparently, and died after an illegal abortion, Jenny never forgave him this death. This alongside other affairs on the side Jenny was too exhausted to follow. And Jenny was exhausted not only by the pregnancies, but by the constant moneylessness and misery. Yes, he was a miser, apparently, earned enough from publications (receipts documented) to have his family live in abundance, but gave Jenny nothing for housekeeping, did not call doctors for his ill children too, two of them died before the age of 1, all the time Engels was stepping in an helping out financially.

Question is, what has Marx done with his income while having his family live in misery? The speculation is, played the stock-exchange and basically gambled it all away.

[redunderthebed]

What about Karl Marks? I think he was pretty smart! Not his fault Lenin decided to apply the whole thing to Russia. So, the shittiest of them all was Lenin; you may object he does not qualify as a philosopher, but he wrote and wrote theories too.

It's spelt Marx just read it off the poster i have of him on my bedroom wall.

I got carried away after reading a article on Marx's inexhaustible libido in a Russian magazine, and there of course it is "ks", so a case of interference.

Anyway, turns out, he was also quite the womanizer, poor wifey Comtesse Jenny von Westfalen was pregnant 7 times and requested a time out but he was unimplorable (not sure about the spelling), needed his sex, got the servant Hellen pregnant too, luckily, Engels stepped in and took the deed upon himself and financed the boy throughout his studies, the only Marx-offspring to end up well. The servant's 16-year old niece was impregnated by Marx as well apparently, and died after an illegal abortion, Jenny never forgave him this death. This alongside other affairs on the side Jenny was too exhausted to follow. And Jenny was exhausted not only by the pregnancies, but by the constant moneylessness and misery. Yes, he was a miser, apparently, earned enough from publications (receipts documented) to have his family live in abundance, but gave Jenny nothing for housekeeping, did not call doctors for his ill children too, two of them died before the age of 1, all the time Engels was stepping in an helping out financially.

Question is, what has Marx done with his income while having his family live in misery? The speculation is, played the stock-exchange and basically gambled it all away.

He is a hero of mine yes but i do not i expect him to be perfect or not have any flaws.

[Ilovelucy]

What about Karl Marks? I think he was pretty smart! Not his fault Lenin decided to apply the whole thing to Russia. So, the shittiest of them all was Lenin; you may object he does not qualify as a philosopher, but he wrote and wrote theories too.

I think Marx was a brilliant thinker and I don't even have that much of a problem with Lenin, it was Stalin who really screwed it up.

[Ilovelucy]

What about Karl Marks? I think he was pretty smart! Not his fault Lenin decided to apply the whole thing to Russia. So, the shittiest of them all was Lenin; you may object he does not qualify as a philosopher, but he wrote and wrote theories too.

It's spelt Marx just read it off the poster i have of him on my bedroom wall.

Neither of them are philosophers but political theorists regardless of what you think of there theories.

Marx was definitely a philosopher, his political theories are based upon his ontological theories of Dialectical Materialism, which is a non-idealist version of Hegel. Lenin also wrote some philosophical texts including Materialism and Empirio-criticism.

Although Alain De Botton annoys the shit out of me most of all fuck off with your poncy crap.

Good to see I'm not the only one! It's self help for Guardian readers, nothing more.

[Ilovelucy]

Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, and being a materialist isn't the only way of being a monist. There is a metaphysical element to the materialist position because it is an ultimate statement on the nature of reality, but Dennett is very careful not to stray into this area. He also spends a lot of time attacking a Cartesian Dualism that no-one else is really defending. There isn't really a monism/dualism debate in contemporary philosophy. I think that Searle and Chalmers are far more interesting and accomplished in Philosophy of mind and Dennett's output tends to consist of shady, obfuscatory rebuttals of their positions.

Your description of metaphysics is right on the money. There are still a few religious types who resort to the dualistic argument to try to wedge their fave sky-daddy into reality, tho. One such wingnut made a brief appearance around here a few weeks ago. After a few pages of discussion, he suddenly "got too busy" to continue.

Yeah, the only Cartesian Dualists you see nowadays tend to be from the theological wing of the Christian fundamentalists and the very, very naive.

[Ilovelucy]

duplicate

[FBM]

duplicate

How dualistic of you.

[charlou]

Fuck! Where is the shot in foot smiley when I need it?



Edit: Don't apologise, Red. It's my turn to do that. You were right. I was wrong.

oooops

[JOZeldenrust]

Dennett! Actually, he's not the shittest, just the most overrated and popular among many that don't know a lot philosophy. I heard a great line about him on a "Philosopher's Zone" podcast. "And Dennett, who's I agree, one of the more clever characters in the second half of the 20th century and today, Dennett sort of dances a complicated dance around the ultimate nature of things. He doesn't like to be caught doing metaphysics really."

The real shittest has to be Alain de Botton, mainly because I don't like being told how I can be happy with my poverty by the son of a Swiss banker.

Dennett is good in his field, philosophy of mind, and his dislike for metaphysics is pretty much a result of his position in the whole monism/dualism debate. If you're a monist, metaphysics just isn't very interesting.

Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, and being a materialist isn't the only way of being a monist. There is a metaphysical element to the materialist position because it is an ultimate statement on the nature of reality, but Dennett is very careful not to stray into this area. He also spends a lot of time attacking a Cartesian Dualism that no-one else is really defending. There isn't really a monism/dualism debate in contemporary philosophy. I think that Searle and Chalmers are far more interesting and accomplished in Philosophy of mind and Dennett's output tends to consist of shady, obfuscatory rebuttals of their positions.

I aggree that Dennett is fighting a battle that finished over thirty years ago, and he took the Bertrand Russell approach a bit: as soon as his philosophy became obsolete, he went on to speak on all kinds of social issues, atheism being Dennett's subject of choice.

Chalmers argues for epiphenomenalism, right? I don't really like that position, as it requires one way causality. But what I remember from my course in philosophy of mind, his arguments were quite robust.

What about Karl Marks? I think he was pretty smart! Not his fault Lenin decided to apply the whole thing to Russia. So, the shittiest of them all was Lenin; you may object he does not qualify as a philosopher, but he wrote and wrote theories too.

I think Marx was a brilliant thinker and I don't even have that much of a problem with Lenin, it was Stalin who really screwed it up.

Dialectic materialism was a great idea, and has helped turn history into a real science, but his labour theory of value is just bullshit. What's worse, he should have known it was bullshit. Even a superficial understanding of Adam Smith would have shown him as much.

Oh dear, the competition is fierce and the field is huge. Yes, Derrida is a leading contender, and so are Kierkegaard, Barth, Anselm, Heidegger and Sartre among many others. For the record: I don't think Nietzsche is anywhere near the front.

I'm not that familiar with most continental philosophy, but Derrida did contribute significantly to the field of literary analysis. Looking for deviations from audience expectations and social norms is a good way to find social inequality, either in a text, in the society that produced the text, or the society that provides the audience.

Sartre's basis for ethics is very elegant. It's easy to misapply, like saying torture victims bear guilt for their own suffering, but that doesn't actually follow. According to Sartre, guilt is a byproduct of self-deception.

And Barth is quite sharp. It's a shame that he studies an imaginary subject, but his rationalisations of Christianity are among the most grandiose.

If I had to make a choice, I'd say Derrida is the shittest philosopher, not because his ideas are more stupid then the others', but because his ideas are relevant to my field, where the others' aren't.

[Blondie]

Anyone who says Nietszche is a clueless fucktard.

[Robert_S]

Anyone who says Nietszche is a clueless fucktard.

What about anyone who says "Nietzsche is a clueless fucktard"?