Who is the greatest alive philosopher?

Anonymous

Snoop Dogg. And I’m quite serious. I’m familiar with the ancient Greek philosophers as well as more modern ones. I’ll take Snoop Dogg any day. The man knows what he’s talking about. He’s figured it all out.

EndlessJester

There is no greatest among the dregs. Modern philosophy is a bathhouse of waste.

Chris Ancor

Alive? All the good ones are now dead.

j

Recommending Peter Sloterdijk; imho, no single individual is "greatest." Sloterdijk does systematic work, imho completing early Heidegger's "Being and Time" project. Also, it is possible that a person might benefit more by reading someone who works in an area of interest. E.g., David Chalmers in naturalistic dualism.

Anonymous

Weird Al

7Flightsup

Possibly Chomsky, but he's just political and doesn't think about Reality or God except to say that God is a sociological invention to placate the masses about dying. Since a person who never has experience God won't feel a desire to find Him, this is understandable. Most persons do not even suspect the existence of God and naturally they are not very keen about God. There are others who, through the influence of tradition, belong to some faith or another and catch the belief in the existence of God from their surroundings. Their faith is just strong enough to keep them bound to certain rituals, ceremonies or beliefs and rarely possesses that vitality which is necessary to bring about a radical change in one’s entire attitude towards life. There are still others who are philosophically minded and have an inclination to believe in the existence of God either because of their own speculations or because of the assertions of others. For them, God is at best an hypothesis or an intellectual idea. Such lukewarm belief in itself can never be sufficient incentive for launching upon a serious search for God. Such persons do not know of God from personal knowledge, and for them God is not an object of intense desire or endeavor. A true aspirant is not content with knowledge of spiritual realities based on hearsay, nor is he satisfied with pure inferential knowledge. For him the spiritual realities are not the object of idle thinking, and the acceptance or rejection of these realities is fraught with paradox.

Plogsties

Raymond Tallis has my vote.

Captain

One who causes a cease to the boredom of hiatus of unhappiness.

Tide

Kripke for logic. Nagel for philosophy of mind. Although David chalmers is very good too and is much more fun and lively writer. nick Bostrom- not a traditional philosopher. But he has original ideas about future based on probability theory...

Randy

Myself

Anonymous

Judith butler

ocean

greatest of them doesn,t exist now.

your

john mulaney

Mike W

Billy Connolly

Anonymous: 1) English lesson

1) English lesson: It should be either "Who is the greatest philosopher alive?", or "Who is the greatest living philosopher?" FAIL 2) Greatest in what sense? Most famous? Most published? Most respected? Most quoted? Most influential? 3) No one is greatest in all those categories. Be more specific. FAIL

Kevin7

I think American media personality Bill O'reilly

Glo

Chomsky

Name

Your mom

peter m

I recommend the Later Environmental philosophical work of Chomsky over that of the passive-wormlike^ Habermas.

Anonymous

Isaac Newton. He invented gravity

some_day_now

The wise philosopher once said; " C is for cookie and dats good enough for me."

Mountain!!

Garrison Keillor

Anonymous

there is no the greatest...Chomsky, Habermas and Chopra are all good

indyliberal

Deepak Chopra. (Although, I was a big fan of the late Doctor John C. Lily, Lenny Bruce, Abby Hoffman, John Lennon, Frank Zappa)

P

Malcolm Cass

James

Most people would probably say Aristotle or Socrates, but that's a hard one to call. There are different fields of philosophy and different people who have contributed to them. Like in science, someone might automatically assume that the best scientist was Isaac Newton because he might have been the best physicist and physics seems to take priority over other sciences like biology and chemistry. The same can be applied to philosophy.For example, I think that Giovanni Gentile was the greatest political philosopher, although I don't agree with his views or think he was the greatest philosopher of all time - just in his field. Others would say Karl Marx. My personal favourite philosopher of all time was David Hume because of his pivotal role in the Enlightenment era and his contributions to atheist philosophy and logic. But again, just in the fields he studied since philosophy is such a broad subject. In the field of logic some might argue the best was Bertrand Russel or A.J.Ayer. Subjects like ontology and metaphysics tend to take priority over subjects like political philosophy and epistemology. Ultimately it's all down to opinion and which field you value the most highly.

humpty

Lois McMaster Bujold. "The difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep."