Since he wasn’t on the list, I voted for the Scotsman. I was kind of torn between him and the Konigsberger.

I’ve always thought the Greeks were a bit overrated.

No Hegel, but Heidegger.
No Frege, but Russell.
No Adi Shankara (or even a single non-european), but Epicurus
No LEIBNIZ, but Schopenhauer (!)

What a dumb poll.

I’m voting for Barney.

Dummetf for “anti-realism”?

He has jokes too; just not good ones.

(Kierkegaard is really funny, though.)

“Prof. Ayer, your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”

Out of this list I’d vote for Hume, largely for the reasons Harry mentioned. I like a point Blackburn made about Ayer, one that applies to a lot of empiricists. A lot of the points Ayer made are things you get in Hume as well, and those have stood up well over time. And a lot of the points in Ayer were (relatively) new, and they haven’t stood up so well.

Though if we had some more contemporary options I’d probably vote for one of them instead.

There’s passages in Hume that raise a chuckle too.

“Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they every where rejected by men of sense… A gloomy, hair-brained enthusiast, after his death, may have a place in the calendar; but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself.”

Makes me laugh, anyway.

http://www.phil.muni.cz/fil/studenti/philosophers_song.html

Oh, and Firstest with the Mostest, surely – Plato.

Because I work for a living, of the twenty candidates maybe a third are open, active enemies, almost all the rest were loftily indifferent to my low crummy sort. From work I voted for the one and only positive advocate I’ve got on the ballot, Uncle Karl. At home I live my home life, such as it is. Natch, from there I could not vote for anyone else but my man Arthur, Socî malorum, compagnon de miseres, who writes:

…If now, from the standpoint of this last consideration, we contemplate the turmoil of life, we behold all occupied with its want and misery, straining all their powers to satisfy its infinite needs and to ward off its multifarious sorrows, yet without daring to hope anything else than simply the preservation of this tormented existence for a short span of time. In between, however, in the midst of the tumult, we see the glances of two lovers meet longingly; yet why so secretly, fearfully, and stealthily? Because the lovers are the traitors who seek to perpetuate the whole want and drudgery, which would otherwise speedily reach an end; this they wish to frustrate, as others like them have frustrated it before.

Not so! There’s lots in Leviathan for a start.

The Germans playing 4-2-4, Leibniz in goal, back four Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Schelling, front-runners Schlegel, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and the mid-field duo of Beckenbauer and Jaspers. Beckenbauer obviously a bit of a surprise there.

I still think they’re going to suffer without Hegel in central defence, though.