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Anybody want to back me up on my vote? Or at least share in my admiration for [Donna Haraway]?
I love her, although I can't see her as the "greatest" philosopher of any time, much less of all time. However, that's not because she's not great, but because no one ever seems to read anything but the manifesto. It's incredible, one of the most important essays of the last 20-50 years IMHO, but there is so much to her that no one ever bothers with.
The "problem" with the premise of this vote is that "greatest" is so indeterminate. If we're talking about the most influential, then my vote would be for Plato (who more or less invented the discipline) or Kant (in terms of modern philosophy) or Hegel (whom no in the twentieth century can seem to get over). If by greatest we mean who had the best ideas or opens the greatest possibilities for thought then my list would include Duns Scotus, Francis Bacon, de la Mettrie, Leibniz, Margaret Fuller, Nietzsche, Bergson, Deleuze, Agamben, Benjamin, Arrendt, and quite a few others. (Sorry they're mostly men. There just weren't a lot of women doing it before the mid-20th century, or at least very few that I am aware of. As for recent women, I like some of them, but none have been terribly influential to me save for the aforementioned Haraway.)
However, the greatest philosopher for me personally is Spinoza, whose ethics and politics are still vastly understudied, even with the publication of Hardt and Negri's Empire and Multitude. If we could come to terms with his notions of democracy and becoming, the world would be a much better place. He offers religion without dogma, democracy without corruption, ontology without a stifling metaphysics. By far my favorite and, to quote D+G, the "prince of philosophers." |
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