Asking for a friend.
Intelligentsia of DL: who is America's greatest living philosopher?
by Anonymous | reply 79 | October 6, 2024 1:47 AM |
Noam Chomsky
by Anonymous | reply 1 | September 30, 2024 10:50 PM |
Dolly Parton
by Anonymous | reply 2 | September 30, 2024 10:57 PM |
Robert Brandom.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | September 30, 2024 11:01 PM |
David Ehrenstein
by Anonymous | reply 4 | September 30, 2024 11:05 PM |
Judith Butler
by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 1, 2024 12:13 AM |
Bonnie Mace
by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 1, 2024 12:32 AM |
Martha Nussbaum or
Saul Kripke
by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 1, 2024 12:44 AM |
OPRAH !
by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 1, 2024 12:48 AM |
Deepak Chopra!
by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 1, 2024 1:39 AM |
Helen Lawson
by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 1, 2024 1:40 AM |
R5 is probably correct in the sense that Judith Butler’s work on Gender Theory has had the most influence/greatest impact on America society
by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 1, 2024 1:45 AM |
Dennett I suppose
by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 1, 2024 1:56 AM |
Robert Brandom or Saul Kripke
by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 1, 2024 1:58 AM |
r12 Dennett died in April.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 1, 2024 1:59 AM |
Even lightweight Peter Boghossian is included in the (trigger warning: Wikipedia) list below. He was one of the "Grievance Studies Hoax" authors. Many of the people listed are academics barely known outside their institutions. The number of *publicly known* philosophers is quite limited.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 1, 2024 2:13 AM |
I’d have said Saul Kripke but I think he just died.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 1, 2024 2:15 AM |
Correct, Kripke and Dennett are dead. TBH it probably is Butler.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 1, 2024 2:21 AM |
I read Butler's recent "Who's Afraid of Gender?" with as open a mind as I could muster, but (her global influence aside) the shoddy reasoning and willful omissions in that book cannot be the work of any country's "greatest living philosopher," even bearing in mind that this is her first commercial, mass-market work. And yes, I have read several of her other writings.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 1, 2024 2:32 AM |
Well, then it's me. I'm the only who sees that a service economiy is naturally oligopolistic because of the social conditioning of consumption. That's why m anufacturing is so important to not being trapped in a feudal state.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 1, 2024 2:32 AM |
If we expand this to the Americas one could mention Gustavo Gutierrez. I would have said Enrique Dussel but sadly he too recently died.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 1, 2024 2:36 AM |
Teacake
by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 1, 2024 2:42 AM |
My wife.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 1, 2024 3:01 AM |
Sharon Stone.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 1, 2024 3:12 AM |
The answers to this questions are pretty much the same ones as the ones to the thread about who attended Diddy's "freak-offs"!
by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 1, 2024 3:35 AM |
Supposedly Chamosky encountered the greatest inspiration of his life after attending a freak off.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | October 1, 2024 4:00 AM |
Donald Trump.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 1, 2024 4:27 AM |
Butt Head
by Anonymous | reply 27 | October 1, 2024 5:20 AM |
Carrot Top
by Anonymous | reply 28 | October 1, 2024 5:35 AM |
Susan Dey
by Anonymous | reply 29 | October 1, 2024 5:41 AM |
Noam Chomsky is dead, r1.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | October 1, 2024 5:50 AM |
Almost, that is.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | October 1, 2024 5:51 AM |
Noam Chomsky is still alive and kicking at 95, r30.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | October 1, 2024 5:52 AM |
I just realized that r32.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | October 1, 2024 5:53 AM |
Kellyanne Conway
by Anonymous | reply 34 | October 1, 2024 7:07 AM |
Chomsky suffered a massive stroke last year and spent a long time recuperating in Brazil, but thankfully he is still with us.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | October 1, 2024 7:25 AM |
I'd think that at least some part of being any country's greatest living philosopher would be contributing to the advancement of, and awareness of, the field. That also includes demonstrating the relevance of philosophy to everyday life. Butler's ideas are hugely influential (go into any of the minefields that is a DL trans thread, and you'll see people arguing for or against Butler's ideas whether they know it or not), but Butler's style of communication is unappealing to many people who might otherwise be interested.
It's odd to think that someone who's potentially "America's greatest living philosopher" not only uses they/them pronouns but also requires personal security and was burned in effigy and physically attacked in Brazil:
by Anonymous | reply 36 | October 1, 2024 7:45 AM |
We'd better put some dead American philosophers in there, just to gain some context. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, John Dewey, John Rawls. Betty Friedan, Ayn Rand, Thomas Kuhn, David Kellogg Lewis. I don't think of Chomsky as being primarily a philosopher. His field is linguistics, and he is a public intellectual, with very strong feelings about politics. political activism, and social criticism. However, some people do regard him as a philosopher. Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, Philip Kitcher, Daniel Dennet. and yes, Judith Butler. Probably your greatest American living philosopher would probably come from that group. But they are very different and their conclusions are different, so maybe only time will tell.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | October 1, 2024 7:58 AM |
Ayn Rand is neither American nor a philosopher.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | October 1, 2024 8:11 AM |
Nor living, thank God
by Anonymous | reply 39 | October 1, 2024 8:15 AM |
And Peter Singer is Australian (though has lived in the U.S. for decades), but good list otherwise. Ayn Rand became a naturalized U.S. citizen in her twenties, I think. We might despise her ideas and find them garbage, but technically she did develop "Objectivism" and is generally regarded as a philosopher.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | October 1, 2024 8:17 AM |
[quote]I don't think of Chomsky as being primarily a philosopher. His field is linguistics, and he is a public intellectual, with very strong feelings about politics. political activism, and social criticism. However, some people do regard him as a philosopher. Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, Philip Kitcher, Daniel Dennet. and yes, Judith Butler.
If you're going to be rigorous regarding academic definitions, then Cornel West isn't really a philosopher either: his field is the study of religion.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | October 1, 2024 2:00 PM |
Melania Trump.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | October 1, 2024 11:28 PM |
Marjorie Taylor Greene.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | October 1, 2024 11:31 PM |
If we want to include the recently deceased then the answer is Richard Rorty.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | October 1, 2024 11:49 PM |
It's Chomsky by an impossibly wide and huge margin. He won't be around much longer. He's recovering from a stroke and the public statements have been optimistic but I don't buy it. He hasn't made a public statement in over a year, I think. We've never needed him more. Tragic.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | October 1, 2024 11:58 PM |
47 responses in and no
Yogi Berra ??
by Anonymous | reply 47 | October 2, 2024 12:03 AM |
R46 disclaimer - i'm sickened and ashamed but admit guilt and full responsibility for using the phrase 'public statement' twice back to back. datalounge demands the highest standard of writing and i accept all legal consequences.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | October 2, 2024 12:03 AM |
John Searle
by Anonymous | reply 49 | October 2, 2024 12:04 AM |
Wait, Yogi Berra is dead.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | October 2, 2024 12:17 AM |
My husband, who is 86, took a class with Chomsky when he was a grad student at MIT. Also one with Baba Ram Dass.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | October 2, 2024 12:19 AM |
R51 my stepdad claims to have taken ted k's math class at berkeley. the years line up but he lies about everything so i don't really believe it. just like how he fucked janis joplin. what a thing to brag about.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | October 2, 2024 12:26 AM |
And I took a class with Immanuel Kant!
by Anonymous | reply 53 | October 2, 2024 12:29 AM |
"Ayn Rand is neither American nor a philosopher."
She was American enough to cash those social security checks from Uncle Sam, though, wasn't she?
by Anonymous | reply 54 | October 2, 2024 12:34 AM |
Robert Greene. He's a brilliant writer, too.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | October 2, 2024 12:40 AM |
Sam Harris.
Though I don't think he calls himself a philosopher.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | October 2, 2024 1:01 AM |
R46: I miss seeing Chomsky. He was very generous with his time, granting interviews in recent years even to obscure YouTube channels with a few thousand subscribers.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | October 2, 2024 3:28 AM |
R56 Sugar Don't Bite
by Anonymous | reply 58 | October 2, 2024 3:32 AM |
John Rawls was far superior to all these.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | October 2, 2024 4:33 AM |
r59 I'm a great admirer of John Rawls as well. His work on Fairness and justice is very fine.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | October 2, 2024 6:43 AM |
Ayn Rand is most certainly a philosopher. You see this is why people do not like the left. Just because you don’t agree with that bitch does not mean she isn’t a philosopher. And I don’t agree with her either. And she also was an American citizen so you aren’t even as smart as you think.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | October 2, 2024 7:15 AM |
not Butler.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | October 2, 2024 7:24 AM |
She was a novelist, and not dealingon the plane of reality.
by Anonymous | reply 63 | October 2, 2024 9:34 AM |
I’d add Elizabeth Grosz. Though she was born and raised in Australia (where she also taught until about the mid-1990s), the bulk of her work has been produced within the American academic world. She may even have US citizenship.
Whatever he nationality, she’s certainly one of the greatest philosophers working in the US at the moment.
by Anonymous | reply 64 | October 2, 2024 10:32 AM |
Joe Rogan. Certainly the most influential. And he’s someone the country truly deserves.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | October 2, 2024 4:05 PM |
Not my country.
by Anonymous | reply 66 | October 3, 2024 1:47 AM |
Thanks for that insightful contribution, r66.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | October 3, 2024 11:27 AM |
Susan Sontag
by Anonymous | reply 68 | October 3, 2024 11:52 AM |
Andy Cohen.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | October 3, 2024 1:54 PM |
Moi
by Anonymous | reply 70 | October 3, 2024 2:07 PM |
Yes, this is THE place for Miami’s intelligentsia.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | October 3, 2024 2:09 PM |
Judith Butler is directly responsible for Gen Z not knowing what a woman is.
by Anonymous | reply 72 | October 3, 2024 2:21 PM |
Julianne Moore, seriously.
by Anonymous | reply 73 | October 3, 2024 2:33 PM |
Cheryl. But unfortunately what she espouses stinks!
by Anonymous | reply 74 | October 3, 2024 2:34 PM |
Assuming you're equating "greatest" to "influential" vs. some abstract notion of quality or degree of insight or some such, Graham Priest, Saul Kripke, Alvin Plantinga, Peter Singer, and Peter Van Inwagen would all be named in discussion on greatest living philosphers (assuming they're all still alive - I haven't really checked on that recently).
Kripke is probably the most influential living philospher when it comes to metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | October 3, 2024 3:18 PM |
I missed the "living " part.
yes, Chompsky
by Anonymous | reply 77 | October 3, 2024 3:19 PM |
Harlan Crow
by Anonymous | reply 78 | October 5, 2024 12:13 AM |
Joel Osteen!
by Anonymous | reply 79 | October 6, 2024 1:47 AM |