Favorite philosopher?

[TheHolySword]

For those who are into philosophy do you have a favorite philosopher or philosophy? Or is there one that resonates with you more than others?

For a long time I always loved the mind of Nietzsche. I wanted to always have hope and believe in a better world. His aestheticism, existentialism, and anti-nihilistic viewpoints always made me feel a bit better in a way. It really helped me to understand life and cemented my beliefs for a long time.

Though within the past year I have grown really fond of Arthur Schopenhauer. This may be because I am in a downward spiral quickly crashing and I have decided to ctb but still his writings make me feel a way that I've never really felt. His words have reached me at my lowest and I feel seen and heard and understood. His teachings have relaxed my attitude about death and have helped me to feel more at peace about my decisions.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts!

 

[outatime_85]

I do not have a favorite philosopher.

Currently, I am reading Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.

I have some of Nietzsche's works, and some Schopenhauer as well as other philosophical works.

 

[TransilvanianHunger]

Well, my profile picture betrays my philosophical bias :)

I find Nietzsche quite interesting as well, especially when he criticises Schopenhauer—I read his arguments with an open mind, and I do agree with him on a handful of points, but he's not managed to convince me to join the Say-Yes-To-Life, Eternal-Return side of things, and so I remain more closely aligned with Schopenhauer than with anyone else I've read.

Sure, Schopenhauer championed the contemplative, aesthetic, will-denying life partly because he struggled to cope with his own drives. Here, I agree with Nietzsche—the ascetic life is one of cruelty directed inwards, and "denial of the will" often ends up as will-towards-nothingness rather than true non-willing. But I think it's rather unfair to judge Schopenhauer's philosophy by how well the man managed to adhere to it in his own life. Nietzsche's philosophy would not fare much better, if that were the case. I know his thoughts were way more nuanced than this, but at times I feel like Schopenhauer's pessimism simply became too much for Nietzsche at some point, and he went in the opposite direction as a means of self-preservation.

So, yes. Pessimism all the way for me.

 

[avalokitesvara]

Western philosophy: Spinoza
Eastern philosophy: Dogen Zenji

 

[Trex]

mine is Ramanuja and Vedanta Desika

 

[_AllCatsAreGrey_]

Gilles Deleuze

 

[moonlight gate]

Friedrich Nietzsche
Jiddu Krischnamurti

 

[Nothing Left]

Emil Cioran

 

[Blue Dream]

Diogenes the Cynic

 

[paredler]

Hobjaguella Cohen

 

[FinalVoid25]

Emil Cioran

 

[lamy's sacred sleep]

E.M Cioran

 

[missedmybus]

Dogen, Diogenes, Ted Kaczynsky, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius.

 

[LivingDeadTGirl]

Comedians are modern day philosophers that I can relate to way more as a severely depressed person

George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Bill Burr, Louis CK, Katt Williams, Bill Maher, David Cross, Joan Rivers.

But, if I gotta pick a favorite it's Ricky Gervais, despite the lame trans jokes in his last special.

 

[Adûnâi]

Savitri Devi by far. The only real philosopher who writes like Tolkien. I'm a sucker for that epic style.

(Technically, it should be Nietzsche, but I'm too stupid to understand him.)

 

[missedmybus]

Savitri Devi by far. The only real philosopher who writes like Tolkien. I'm a sucker for that epic style.

(Technically, it should be Nietzsche, but I'm too stupid to understand him.)

Savitri Devi is the NS/occultist one, right? What is a good entry point to get into?

 

[Adûnâi]

Savitri Devi is the NS/occultist one, right? What is a good entry point to get into?

Gold in the Furnace maybe? Her magnum opus is much, much duller to read. Reminiscences of an Aryan Woman are great as well.

I'd take an issue with describing her as an occultist though. She seems very chill, joyous but also serene and reasonable. One of the few explicit mentions of magic I encountered was how she had a dream about smuggling a pill into Goering's cell for his kindness towards animals, but she attaches multiple disclaimers not to take it as a proven materialistic fact.

Some of her anecdotes I adored:
1) a French boy who killed himself over his parents getting rid of a dog;
2) her mom who burned her daughter's uni papers because "your Führer made our home cold" (understandable);
3) "you kill mosquitos but tolerate humans even though evil humans are much worse than mosquitos" addressed to some Jewish woman in India in the 1930s lmao.

 

[missedmybus]

Gold in the Furnace maybe? Her magnum opus is much, much duller to read. Reminiscences of an Aryan Woman are great as well.

I'd take an issue with describing her as an occultist though. She seems very chill, joyous but also serene and reasonable. One of the few explicit mentions of magic I encountered was how she had a dream about smuggling a pill into Goering's cell for his kindness towards animals, but she attaches multiple disclaimers not to take it as a proven materialistic fact.

Some of her anecdotes I adored:
1) a French boy who killed himself over his parents getting rid of a dog;
2) her mom who burned her daughter's uni papers because "your Führer made our home cold" (understandable);
3) "you kill mosquitos but tolerate humans even though evil humans are much worse than mosquitos" addressed to some Jewish woman in India in the 1930s lmao.

I guess I meant more esoteric rather than occult
Anyway thanks for the tip.

If you want to read some good fiction I can heartily recommend Louis-Ferdinanf Celine's Journey to the end of the Night. The anecdote of the french boy reminded me of him.

 

[Gustav Hartmann]

Basically I am a solipsist. But Ludwig Wittgenstein impressed me also.

 

[Nobodi]

Alan watts

 

[longtheriverrun]

Carnap and Ramsey. I'd also include Galois on the basis of mentioning Ramsey, given how young they died. It's a little tragic to think about how much more they—namely Ramsey—could've contributed to mathematics and philosophy if they didn't die so early

 

[Higurashi415]

Some of Wittgenstein's ideas challenged mine so much I began to love him.
Nietzsche also, Thus Spoke Zarathustra was the first philosophy book I ever read.

 

[SVEN]

Marcus Aurelius.

 

[Magi129]

I really love those logic guys like Russel and Wittgenstein, and existentialists like Heiddeger (despite him being a nazi). But among those alive today, certainly Júlio Cabrera, which can be found in English, Portuguese and Spanish as far as I know, and another one, more difficult to find, whose work is almost entirely in Romanian, called Ciprian Vălcan. His books of aphorisms, like those of Cioran, in whom he took inspiration, are a delight.

 

[amomentspeace]

Marcus Aurelius and Diogenes, there's something about ancient greece that I really like.

 

[Yonlux]

Die Philosophie der Erlösung - Phillipp Mainländer

 

[goldenbuddha]

If you really want to understand life on a deeper level my recommendation is the Buddha. I think you can get pretty far as well by listening to near death experiencers but to me its more like a nice addition.

Here is a little introduction if you want:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXfyyti3Z-M

 

[meso]

philosophy as a life stance : zapffe / stirner / kierkegaard

logic / knowledge : wittgenstein / quine / hacking

social issues : marx / foucault / deleuze / butler


although you can also place foucault & butler in knowledge, marx & wittgenstein in life stance, stirner in social issues

 

[quins]

I imagine there might be a few, but I gave up reading philosophy rigorously in my late twenties. In terms of recency, maybe Mamardashvili, that wonderful Georgian gnosiologist...

 

[gorillasdonothunt]

I really love those logic guys like Russel and Wittgenstein, and existentialists like Heiddeger (despite him being a nazi).

Russell & Whitehead were pretty good initiators although if we're on the topic of (codifying) logic: Boole, Hilbert, Frege and Lewis Caroll went considerably farther. Wittgenstein has a very special tension in work, though, I think he held a larger stake of what prospects dominated that flux of calculus and interpretative linguistics where Russell productively regressed. (I.E: Grelling's, Epimenides' paradox.)