NationStates Jolt Archive

These are my top 9 ...

You voted for "other" but you didn't say for what ...

These are my top 9 ...

They all look pretty thin compared to the ideas contained in the C19th and C17/18th lists.

They all look pretty thin compared to the ideas contained in the C19th and C17/18th lists.

Yup.

Yup.

I won't bother commenting on those which it is pretty obvious most will consider to be bullshit - Rand/Hitler - but I would think Wittgenstein would be more worthy of a place than Ayer.

Its still too early in the morning for my brain to get into gear, but I've found these lists interesting reading. Thanks.

I won't bother commenting on those which it is pretty obvious most will consider to be bullshit - Rand/Hitler - but I would think Wittgenstein would be more worthy of a place than Ayer.

Its still too early in the morning for my brain to get into gear, but I've found these lists interesting reading. Thanks.

Early Wittgenstein or Late Wittgenstein?

The reason I set it up the way I did was because the idea was to gauge influence ... in general, not just among philosophy departments (hence inclusion of Hitler & Mao) ... and I figured Ayer kind of paved the way for Wittgenstein.

Thanks for saying you found these of interest.

[QUOTE=Sankaraland]Early Wittgenstein or Late Wittgenstein?
QUOTE]

Oh, my inclination would've been to go with the late (Philosophical Investigations) W.

Early Wittgenstein or Late Wittgenstein?

Either is good - even the Early Wittgenstein contains all the interesting bits in section 6.x.x of the Tractatus.

and I figured Ayer kind of paved the way for Wittgenstein.

Well, Ayer published Language, Truth & Logic some fifteen years after the Tractatus, so I don't see how that follows, unless you mean that Ayer's work can be used as a relatively painless introduction to the way the Analytic tradition works (or in the case of logical positivism, doesn't work).

No specific work comes to mind, but the whole quantum mechanics/relativity revolution in physics has been the most influential body of work in the 20th century. Both in philosophy and in the exact sciences.

Russell and Whitehead, Principia Mathematica also deserves a mention.
(No Wittgenstein without this)

I really don't know the Tractatus ... I have to admit I was surprised to hear that it preceded Ayer's book; I'm not strong on so-called analytic philosophy generally, as you might have guessed. But I do like the Investigations, and what I like most about them is that they express the following spirit:

Wittgenstein wrote to Norman Malcolm, "What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life." I see this point as aimed particularly at logical positivism, or rather at the scholastic spirit of logical positivism, and it was in that sense that I made the comment about Ayer paving the way.

Also, and I know this is horrible given that I'm not familiar with him, I tend to use Ayer, because he DOES offer an accessible introduction to analytic philosophy in general, and because he seems to encapsulate the worst aspects of logical positivism, as a symbol for early attempts at applied analytic philosophy, especially when it seems as if Santayana is just ignored, and Russell didn't write any one book (on applied philosophy, not pure logic) with a similar recognition factor.

[QUOTE=Alien Born]No specific work comes to mind, but the whole quantum mechanics/relativity revolution in physics has been the most influential body of work in the 20th century. Both in philosophy and in the exact sciences.
QUOTE]

Yeah, good point.

Atlas Shrugged

I really don't know the Tractatus ... I have to admit I was surprised to hear that it preceded Ayer's book;

Written in the trenches during WWI. An old saw goes that students often find it recreating this experience.

Wittgenstein wrote to Norman Malcolm, "What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., & if it does not improve your thinking about the important questions of everyday life." I see this point as aimed particularly at logical positivism, or rather at the scholastic spirit of logical positivism, and it was in that sense that I made the comment about Ayer paving the way.

Wittgenstein does attempt to go beyond the purely analytic, even in the Tractatus for example:

6.431
As in death, too, the world does not change, but ceases.

6.4311
Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.

If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.

Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.

6.4312
The temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say, its eternal survival after death, is not only in no way guaranteed, but this assumption in the first place will not do for us what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

(It is not problems of natural science which have to be solved.)

Rand's philisophical work is called "The Virtues of Selfishness" I beleive, and I think her views are rather capitalist-extremist. I definitely appreciate her individualist style, but it has led to statements, and I am paraphrasing here "The american spirit is lonely, cold, compassionless, but above all things a killer."

Rugged individualism is a good thing, but Rand is individualism taken a bit too far. Rand would have killed herself had she become acquainted with Japanese culture.

I prefer bentham's "Principals of Morals and Legislation" as the work that has most influenced me, a second being "Two Treatises of Government" by John Locke.

Democracy is key, my friends. (A look at my nation won't say that :D but that's because this is fantasy land.)