/lit/ - Literature

>>11170542
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare desu

>>11170553
I wonder who is behind this post!

>>11170542
Kant

Plato

Nietzsche

>>11171559
this

>>11171043
This desu

>>11170542
David Hume. Why do you ask?

>>11171611
>>11171043
>>11171611
You are equally right. I wish Kant and Hume got to meet for some coffee or something or what.

>>11171615
fixed

>>11171621
>Murmer

Murmur

>>11171621
fix'd twice more

>>11171627
I know faggot, jeez! keep ya pants oan

Me > Wittgenstein > Kant > Aristotle > Peirce > everyone else

Nikolai Landovsky

>>11170542
Kierkegaard

>>11171651
He cannot even maintain a blog or his sanity properly.

>the unbearable Eurocentricism of /lit/
Upanishads > Western philosophy

>>11171683
More points to him then!

>>11171697
Go tweak some meth in yer lightbulb, gutterboy.

>>11171651
go to bed nick

My vote would go for any philosopher who posited anything yet retained the humility to doubt the conclusiveness of their positions and remained open to alternative interpretations. If there is such a person, I wish I knew who they were. I'd at least be able to read the work of someone not invested in self-promotion but rather interested in illustrating the biases of a self against a vast world of views.

>>11170542
deloser

>>11171710
so any fallibilist, which means basically everyone in the past 100 years

>>11171710
>>11171763
Which answers OP's OP. Unless someone is a deluded, mentally unstable autist, then they're rationally skeptical of the positions they hold and would abhor being labeled as "the greatest philosopher to ever live."
>the absolute state of childish bullshit on /lit/

>>11170542
Plato

>>11170542
Stefan Molyneux

>>11171710
>muh realitivism

Heraclitus

>>11171606
I seriously wonder if he has ever seen Evangelion.

Find a single flaw.
No? You can't? Color me shocked.

Adorno

>>11170553
But actually this might be the right answer

Plato is without doubt the greatest.

Marx

Proud Diogenes

Meaningless question.

Make way.

>>11172997
Honestly, this is the only right answer. Hegel put everything philosophy had said up until he showed up in its right place, and everything after Hegel is just either analytics obsessing over trivial linguistic phenomena or continentals spewing out unintelligible bullshit with no substance.

>>11171696
I agree but they are not really philosophy

>>11171710
Zhuangzi

King Ying of Wei made a treaty with Marquis T’ien Mou of Ch’i, but Marquis T’ien Mou violated it.9 King Ying, enraged, was about to send a man to assassinate him. Kung-sun Yen, the minister of war, heard of this and was filled with shame. “You are the ruler of a state of ten thousand chariots,” he said to the king, “and yet you would send a commoner to carry out your revenge! I beg to be given command of two hundred thousand armored troops so that I may attack him for you, make prisoners of his people, and lead away his horses and cattle. I will make him burn with anger so fierce that it will break out on his back.10 Then I will storm his capital, and when T’ien Chi 1l tries to run away, I will strike him in the back and break his spine!”

Chi Tzu, hearing this, was filled with shame and said, “If one sets out to build an eighty-foot wall, and then, when it is already seven-tenths finished, 12 deliberately pulls it down, the convict laborers who built it will look upon it as a bitter waste. Now for seven years we have not had to call out the troops, and this peace has been the foundation of your sovereignty. Kung-sun Yen is a troublemaker – his advice must not be heeded!”

Hua Tzu, hearing this, was filled with disgust and said, “He who is so quick to say `Attack Ch’i!’ is a troublemaker, and he who is so quick to say `Don’t attack Ch’i!’ is a troublemaker! And he who says that those who are for and against the attack are both troublemakers is a troublemaker, too!”

“Then what should I do?” said the ruler.

“Just try to find the Way, that’s all.”

>>11172997
would get my vote

>>11173762
Hegel a shit

>>11170542
the correct answer

>>11174191
he looks a little bit like the wizard frog in this photo

>>11173891
>not really philosophy
>it's only philosophy when white men in European universities do it, otherwise it's just spirituality or something else we don't have to take seriously

>>11174191
>>11174200
at first i thought that was a star of david tattoo on his arm but it's 100% a DMT (or maybe something like that) molecule.

hey joe rogan, you smoke weed brah?

Egoism is the final redpill.

>>11171710
>>>/reddit/

>>11174285
>muh retard nominalism
>muh modernist foundationalism
>muh false psychological claims

>>11174274
>it's only philosophy when white men in European universities do it, otherwise it's just spirituality or something else we don't have to take seriously

Philosophy is undeniably a uniquely western phenomenon. The eastern thought called 'eastern philosophy' mostly consists of discourses on the nature of and means to knowing timeless transcendental truths and their derivative applications while western philosophy aside from a few exceptions is a search for and debate over the exact truths of arbitrary and ephemeral sets of ideas which change according to culture and era.

>>11175007
>while western philosophy aside from a few exceptions is a search for and debate over the exact truths of arbitrary and ephemeral sets of ideas which change according to culture and era.
back to r*ddit, please

>>11175016
prove me wrong

>pro-tip: you can't

>>11170542

Mya Diarangelou, desu.

>>11171710
what a faggot

Hegel desu basedfam

>>11170542
>Hume
How can one philosopher be so based?

>metaphysics: BTFO
>morality: BTFO
>religion: BTFO
>Rationalists: BTFO
>the Self: BTFO
>causation: BTFO
>induction: BTFO
>all scientific paradigms before and since: BTFO
>philosophy: BTFO
Where were you when the entirety of human intellectual history was kill?

JBP

Plato

>>11170542
I don't think you could really some one is, but you could get a list of 20 or so.

>>11175007
>Philosophy is undeniably a uniquely western phenomenon.
No anon. Just because it took the west 2000 years to work out what the Indians had one day one doesn't make it more important.
Stop being Eurocentric

>>11174891
>>muh
You need to go back.

>>11174274
To take it seriously is to treat it on its own terms and not superimpose culturally contingent presuppositions (adhering to 'philosophy') on it.

Eastern thought is not philosophy, because philosophy is a specific western tradition, beginning in a mediterranean city-state and institutionalized in the European scholastic system and carried on until today. As a tradition it carries the baggage of having its own set of well-defined questions, which are dealt with separate depending on conventional disciplinary subdivisions ('ontology', 'epistemology', 'ethics'), as well as its own vocabulary and stylistic standards. To recognize differentiality is not equivalent to eurocentrism.

Are they (non-western modes of thought) thinking, and should they be taken seriously? Absolutely, but that requires sober respect of their alterity qua their unique traditions. People who are conflating philosophy with thinking qua thinking and want Zhuangzi on the curriculum of philosophy in the institutions in name of identity politics are actually themselves exercising severe epistemic violence on the traditions they claim to defend.

>>11171710
>My vote would go for any philosopher who posited anything yet retained the humility to doubt the conclusiveness of their positions and remained open to alternative interpretations.
So literally 90% of the western canon except religious twits like Calvin?

>>11171810
>muh feefee

>>11172700
Punished Diogenes is better

Leibniz is his own category above all others.
Apart from him, I'd say Husserl.

>>11170542
has any philospher ever lived?

Pretty obvious.

>>11176566
don´t piss in the fucking well

>>11170553
>>11171043
lol

>>11171696
not philosophy

>>11172997
this + >>11176566

>>11176566
Aquinas's personal behavior betrays an ignorance by him of the true nature of god, despite his written works ostensibly elucidating otherwise. The fact that someone could eat themselves into such a state of obesity is only possible what someone has what the Hindus call a deeply Tamasic disposition. Aquinas sunk over the course of his life into a black pit of gluttony and sloth, becoming ever farther removed from direct transcendental knowledge the more he gorged himself and turned into a disgusting beast.

The most basic and entry-level step on the path to knowing god is to overcome base urges, leading to the uninterrupted perception of the transcendent at every waking moment, most wandering ascetics throughout history and in the present day have come closer to knowing god than Aquinas ever his. His entire body of work can be read as a cathartic attempt to rely on Aristotle and logic to attempt to prove the existence of the very transcendental realm he had ignorantly cut himself off from during his life, a sad irony.

>>11176658
low-tier pasta

>>11174098
>only criticism of Hegel is "he use da big hard words!!"
>Hegel BTFO his criticism in the preface to Phenomenology before he even voices his childish gripes
umm sorry, but I don't think so sweetie

>>11172634
This is the correct answer

>>11176685
I just wrote that myself several minutes ago, try searching for it warosu, you won't be able to find it anywhere else. Furthermore, its 100% the truth.

>>11176732
Every great writer suffered from profound contradictions between his works and his life. Think of Nietzsche, do you believe he was an ubermensch? Lol no, he was a miserable pussy. Think of Dante, do you believe he was a loyal christian? Lol no, he was constantly fapping to Beatrice and bullying his friends. Think of Hemingway, do you believe he was a strong brute? Lol no again, he couldn't even form a sentence without drinking gallons of rhum.

>>11176658
>The most basic and entry-level step on the path to knowing god is to overcome base urges, leading to the uninterrupted perception of the transcendent at every waking moment

"Transcendence is to be distinguished from a union with the transcendent by participation. The metaphysical relation, the idea of infinity, connects with the noumenon which is not a numen. This noumenon is to be distinguished from the concept of God possessed by the believers of positive religions ill disengaged from the bonds of participation, who accept being immersed in a myth unbeknown to themselves. The idea of infinity, the metaphysical relation, is the dawn of a humanity without myths. But faith purged of myths, the monotheist faith, itself implies metaphysical atheism. Revelation is discourse; in order to welcome revelation, a being apt for this role of interlocutor, a separated being, is required. Atheism conditions a veritable relationship with a true god. But this relationship is as distinct from objectification as from participation. To hear the divine word does not amount to knowing an object; it is to be in relation with an Other overflowing its own idea in me, what Descartes calls its "objective existence."
(...)
To posit the transcendent as stranger and poor one is to prohibit the metaphysical relation with God from being accomplished in ignorant non-engagement with men and things. The dimension of the divine opens forth from the human face. A relation with the Transcendent free from all captivation is a social relation. It is here that the Transcendent, infinitely other, solicits us and appeals to us. His very epiphany consists in soliciting us by his destitution in the face of the Stranger, the widow and the orphan."

>>11174891
This sounds like it would be an interesting critique of Stirner.

>>11176764
But none of them really claimed to be elucidating the exact nature of the divine in the same way that Aquinas did and the way his fans think he did. For people who are simply writers that's not unusual or even a bad thing but for someone who defined an entire era of christian thought it's totally within the bounds of fair criticism.

>>11176940
He remains a genius in my opinion

>>11170542
>tfw you realized everything that Hume had throughout his entire life before 18 because of the internet
is the "greatest philosopher" the tallest giant that others see off the shoulders of, or the one who sees furthest?

>>11176097
>Eastern thought is not philosophy, because philosophy is a specific western tradition, beginning in a mediterranean city-state and institutionalized in the European scholastic system and carried on until today.
I think Foucault wrote a book about people like you.
You are describing Western philosophy, not philosophy as a whole. If you want to pretend it's a different thing because they say pramana instead of epistemology then go ahead. And if you want to imply some sort of continuity between ancient Athens and later European thought then that's your perogative.
But please continue to fight those pesky 'identity politics'

>>11176097
Who said anything about wanting it on the same curriculum? Even if we are to keep the two as different discursive fields (which I agree is a wise idea), OP asked for the best philosopher, not the best western philosopher. Call it "thought" if you want, many eastern philosophers meet the dictionary definition as well as the Presocratics and others who /lit/ accept:
a : pursuit of wisdom
b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means
c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs

Anyway my vote goes to Nāgārjuna. Hume fans should read his work as there are a lot of parallels.

Unironically unironically Ayn Rand

>>11176554
Hume played a lot of backgammon with his friends.

>>11172798
literallement moi

>>11170542
Aristotle, probably. I'd say Kant or Hegel otherwise, but not only are we missing a fuckton of Aristotle's writings, but the guy was way more interested in sticking his finger into sea creatures than doing philosophy. So, yeah, he was a genius.
If you wanted my favorite I'd go with Anselm.

>>11177048
>I think Foucault wrote a book about people like you.
I like Foucault.

>You are describing Western philosophy, not philosophy as a whole.
Philosophy is western; it's a western term denoting a western tradition.

>If you want to pretend it's a different thing because they say pramana instead of epistemology then go ahead.
It is different.

>And if you want to imply some sort of continuity between ancient Athens and later European thought then that's your perogative.
I am not implying IDENTITY or lack of rupture, but the trajectory of the history of institutionalized western philosophy is undoubtedly concerned with ancient Athens. What topics were literally all of scholasticism and renaissance thought concerned with? Commentary on greek/latin texts. And even modern philosophy upholds or re-work the classical framework put forth by an Aristotle. This does not reply ahistoricity though. I don't think Foucault would deny this.

>But please continue to fight those pesky 'identity politics'
I was literally criticizing idpol.

>>11177052
>Even if we are to keep the two as different discursive fields (which I agree is a wise idea), OP asked for the best philosopher, not the best western philosopher. Call it "thought" if you want, many eastern philosophers meet the dictionary definition as well as the Presocratics

Call it meaningless semantics, but I would be fine with the term 'thinkers'.
As for the comment about putting them on the same curriculum, this is a hot topic in student politics in my uni environment at the moment. Hence why I am pretty adament about my position.

>>11177334
>Philosophy is western; it's a western term denoting a western tradition.
>You see all this stuff stolen from the Persians? That's all western tradition

>>11177048
Btw, I well reiterate; I am not saying eastern thought of different regional traditions is not philosophy as a NORMATIVE statement.

Surely it is valuable and should be studied cross-culturally. But let's not jumble it up with or own preconceptions as westerners; THAT would be eurocentrism, however pure our intentions may be.

>>11177344
Persians are unironically Western, though.

>>11172997
greatest idiot

>>11177354
>own preconceptions as westerners;
>implying I'm a westerner
To reserve the label of 'philosophy' (and all the prestige and implied intellectual rigour of that label) purely for Western thought, and to relegate everything from outside those traditions to mere 'thought' (with the lack of prestige and intellectual rigour *that* implies) is so ridiculous and eurocentric I'm not even sure you're serious.
I confess I can't understand the process whereby Confucian ideas about eg the value of social obedience are merely 'thought' but when Plato has Socrates say very similar things it magically becomes 'philosophy'.

>>11177334
>>11177354
Don't get me wrong, I'm with you on the curriculum issue and I'm not trying to argue this from a representation/politics angle.

It seems to me that your issue is primarily a linguistic one with calling their activity "philosophy." Yes, there are naturally different discursive expectations and preconceptions, but can't you say the same for continentals and analytics, for example?

Do you think that Augustine or Aquinas shouldn't be considered philosophy either because they would count as "theology" instead?

>>11177428
>To reserve the label of 'philosophy' (and all the prestige and implied intellectual rigour of that label) purely for Western thought, and to relegate everything from outside those traditions to mere 'thought' (with the lack of prestige and intellectual rigour *that* implies) is so ridiculous and eurocentric I'm not even sure you're serious.

You are the one who revers the label of 'philosophy' as normatively better; implying prestige. I don't.

I agree that 'thought' is imprecise as a term and more nuanced terms are needed when discussing specific traditions. If we were to banish all non-western modes of discourse as simply 'thought', that would be tragic and violent. I am using the term in lack of any better, simply given the generality of our conversation.

>>11177430
>It seems to me that your issue is primarily a linguistic one with calling their activity "philosophy." Yes, there are naturally different discursive expectations and preconceptions, but can't you say the same for continentals and analytics, for example?

Yes and no, I think the analytic-continental divide is largely overplayed and the discursive product of specific 'power matches' within western philosophy moreso than a substantial divide of real size.

>Do you think that Augustine or Aquinas shouldn't be considered philosophy either because they would count as "theology" instead?
Tricky, given that the theology/philosophy divide wasn't as well established then; I'd say certain pieces of their works are of more or less philosophical/theological nature; but this act of differentation is of course one of scholarly re-construction.

>>11171763
>>11171710
there's a difference between denying everything and accepting nothing
vs being skeptic to everything but eventually actually finding truth (beyond nothing being true)

>>11177428
>implying I'm a westerner

Sorry for assuming.

>>11171710
BOOO COWARD

>>11177508
>If we were to banish all non-western modes of discourse as simply 'thought', that would be tragic and violent.
I think we're broadly in agreement. Ideally I'd like the discourse to move away from the Western/Eastern split. It's happened more in conventional historical understanding than in philosophy, presumably because of the differences in practices.
My own pet theory is there was a lot more intellectual cross pollination going on in classical antiquity than we generally assume. We know there was trade between the ancient Mediterranean and India, and people like Herodotus had travelled widely. It seems at least plausible to me that an intellectually curious chap like Socrates may have been to some extent aware of what was going on in the east, and visa versa.

>>11177656
Yes, the common goal I presume is a more nuanced and respectful engagement with the plurality of the modes of discourse and thinking of the world in its distinct situatedness and historicity.
I guess my point is that we are to be very careful in our language when going forward in this endeavor, so as not to reproduce the totalizing tendencies inherent to the western mode of discourse.

I, too, am NOT a fan of orientalism.

>>11177334
Derrida said the same thing in a speech. He said the Chinese do not have philosophy, only 'thought'. And yet hacks like Peterson are blaming him for cultural marxism or some shit lmao. It would be nice if people would actually start reading the 'postmodernists'.

>>11171710
its not science so this is nothing but virtue signaling

If by greatest you mean the most influential then there are only two candidates: Plato and Aristotle.

>>11177931
>its not science
Scientists are the most dogmatic people alive

>>11170542
Spinoza. how is this even close

>>11177941
please fuck off idiot, that’s not what i meant or was getting at, of course dark matter is fake and lamarck will be proven partially right, selfish gene theory is incomplete memes, quantum mechanics violates logic, singularities are stupid concepts but the point was that scientists provide constant rebuttals and doubts for their own theories and papers in the fucking journal studies they publish. ive never written a well done paper where there weren’t 3-5 provisions for opposing believable views from their field.

>>11177048
>And if you want to imply some sort of continuity between ancient Athens and later European thought
Mate, the medievals were constantly interpreting and reading the ancient Athenian philosophers including the great Arab/Persian philosophers. Avicenna was Aristotle's great commentator. Christianity was influenced by Platonism through gnosticism. After this the early modern philosophers all kept referring back to Plato and Aristotle. Descartes is literally a response to medieval scholasticism (Aristotelianism with a Christian flavour). Most philosophy after Descartes was at least in some way related to him. Heidegger started his question of Being by referring to Aristotle's metaphysics etc.

I absolutely hate this trend were academics pretend Asia/Africa have equally important thinkers. Yes, in Asia there was philosophy too but it is nothing compared to what the Greeks did in a small city state in a time span of 100 years. Their disgusting arrogance when they name some irrelevant Buddhist philosopher from the 8th century and claim he 'said the same' as Spinoza or some shit. The problem is that they (the 'anti-orientalists' so to say) know nobody will give them any counterarguments, because nobody knows about these philosophers. Who is going to study Prooptigoopta from the 8th century and see he does actually say the same as Spinoza? No one. I predict this is going to be more and moer a trend in academics: pretending Western philosophy 'wasn't that great' to begin with and that Buddhist monks or African shepherds actually said the same things but they actually didn't but who's gonna check it?

This 'there is no continuity between ancient Athens and the West now' is the biggest bullshit ever. For fuck's sake, even the words 'Asia' 'Africa' 'Mesopotamia' etc. are Greek.

>>11178027
Okay faggot, name one scientist then who reads philosophy. All scientist who enter the public debate pretend science is some sort of God and can never be ever wrong. The dogmatism lies in not seeing science as it is: the practice of describing the physical properties of the world. Scientists are dogmatic because they stretch their working place: scientists are constantly talking about stuff that is not science like beauty, happiness, wisdom, truth etc. American newspapers are magazines are full with

THIS PSYCHIATRIST EXPLAINS WHAT TO DO TO LIVE A HAPPY LIFE

WHAT MAKES A FLOWER BEAUTIFUL? IT IS ACTUALLY PATHWAYS IN THE BRAIN BECAUSE WE USED TO EAT FLOWERS WHEN WE WERE HOMO NEANDERTHALS

and all that shit

I want to add my two cents to this discussion. I think the anon that is saying that philosophy is a western phenomenon is quite correct, philo-sophia is Plato's creation and he called it philo-sophia to distinguish it from sophia, what we call "presocratic philosophy". The characteristic of philo-sophia is that is logical-argumentative and relies on the written text, whereas presocratics speaked through lived logos (VERBAL rhetoric was fundamental). Since eastern thought is rarely logical-argumentative it makes little sense to call it "philosophy". Now, what value judgements this implies is another matter: there have been thinkers who thought the creation of philosophy was a degeneration (Colli) or that westerners had always been inferior to easterners.

>>11178094
>The characteristic of philo-sophia is that is logical-argumentative
>Now, what value judgements this implies is another matter
lmao, the ironing

>>11178030

>Their disgusting arrogance when they name some irrelevant Buddhist philosopher from the 8th century and claim he 'said the same' as Spinoza or some shit.

The 8th-century Hindu thinker Adi Shankara is incontestably greater than Spinoza in every way

>The problem is that they (the 'anti-orientalists' so to say) know nobody will give them any counterarguments, because nobody knows about these philosophers. Who is going to study Prooptigoopta from the 8th century and see he does

Just because you are ignorant of them does not mean others are. Shankara is one of the most important if not the single most important historical figure of the 3rd largest religion on the planet. Spinoza was just an ant compared to him. Spinoza was only influential upon other philosophers, his ideas were not very original and were largely regurgitated neoplatonism, after a hundred years or so philosophy moved on to the point where he is not considered very important anymore and most people who don't study philosophy remain unaware of him. Shankara largely established the main orthodox understanding of doctrine for a religion followed by nearly a billion people, his importance being just a step below the prophets of the Abrahamic traditions.

>>11178463
I never implied that eastern thought is inferior

>>11178500
>his ideas were not very original and were largely regurgitated neoplatonism

>>11178544
>posting a reaction image instead of actually writing a detailed reply because you know you are wrong but have no good response
>focusing on one of the lesser points and acting like that invalidates the larger point being made when in fact in would remain true even if he was completely original

>>11178628
Spinoza's philophy is largely built on the galilean conception of the world as having only efficient causes whereas Plotinus is heavily mixed with eastern influences they are largely different and saying that S is a rehashing of P is reductionist and retarded and tells me you haven't even bothered to open the ethic because if you did you would notice that the two disagree even on basic stuff like the role of in relation to nature. The God of Spinoza does not resemble that of Plotinus and Neoplatonism: things do not derive from God by emanation, degrading in the course of this process. In the world of Spinoza there is not the supreme point of perfection and the lowest point, next to nothingness: as in the world of geometric entities, everything is strictly rational and as it should be.
Shankara is not a philosopher, he's a eastern thinker that shouldn't be prioritized over the teaching of the actual western philosophical tradition.

>>11172798
James Dean lookin ass

>>11178670
>Shankara is not a philosopher, he's a eastern thinker

Agreed.

>that shouldn't be prioritized over the teaching of the actual western philosophical tradition.

What makes you say that? Shankara was way more influential and consequential for the world. Unless someone has already committed to studying western philosophy and wants to understand it well, I can't see a good reason for prioritizing Spinoza over Shankara.

>>11178710
because he isn't a philosopher

>>11178718
>because he isn't a philosopher

So? That has no bearing upon anything

>>11178729
of course it does

Who was the greatest philosopher to never live?

>>11178732
Why and how? Philosophy is just one special mode of thought particular to one regional culture. There is absolutely no reason to give it more importance or precedence over the entirety of humankind's thoughts.

>>11175562
Kant fucked him in the ass tho

>>11178749
The teaching of philsophy should only include philosophers.

>>11172634
Has any othe modern philsopher written as much as K did?

>>11175562
humanity has yet to recover

>>11178886
*blocks your path* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_L%C3%B6with

>>11178883
>The teaching of philsophy should only include philosophers.

the conversation was clearly about what thought generally should be studied, not specifically within the specialized domain of philosophy, that was clearly laid in the post made here >>11178670 where you said:

>Shankara is not a philosopher, he's a eastern thinker that shouldn't be prioritized over the teaching of the actual western philosophical tradition.

Now, instead of providing actual reasons what western philosophy should be prioritized over the non-philosophical (either eastern and western) you are giving a copout answer by pretending that we were just talking about what was worth studying within the domain of philosophy.

Is this guy just for edgy teenagers?

>>11178953
He's edgy Spinoza

>>11170542
I keep reading over and over again in contemporary work that Hume's view of causality is causality as "constant conjunction". They then proceed to point out that this obviously isn't what causality is and then say that they have BTFO'd Hume's view of causality.

But wasn't Hume's point that we can never know that, in any event we observe, causality was actually present, and that we only have the concept of causality as a result of observing what seems like a "constant conjunction" of occurrences?

I feel like I'm being fucking gaslighted. Is this just a cheap trick to get around Hume's skepticism about causality?

Taking advantage of this thread to ask you guys how to get into Hume.
Should I read An Enquiry on Human Understanding before Treatise?

>>11178094
>Since eastern thought is rarely logical-argumentative
That's not really true. The Analects is written in dialogue form, just like Plato. Indian philosophy has and had a large number of competing schools of thought.
Part of the problem is that little gets translated, so you get isolated texts with no sense of the vigorous intellectual process that created them.
Another is the colonial mindset, still sadly with us, that Eastern philosophy is mere mysticism and spiritual woo rather than the supposedly 'rational' scientific methods of Europe

>>11179062
Hume is very readable, pleasant, clear and easy prose so jump straight into the Treatise. It's great (and I'm the one of the anons banging on about India)

>>11179410
so is Zen and so are most of the Buddhist sutras lol

>>11171710
Imagine being such a fucking pleb.
Leave my board.

general lit discord

https://discord.gg/kEmXQYW

>>11179419
I read his enquiries are easier to read than the Treatise. But either way, I'm just gonna jump straight into his works.
Thank you.

>>11178733
underrated

>>11172768
This is the correct answer.

>>11173762
>implying Hegel wasn't spewing out unintelligible bullshit with no substance

>>11170542
There are none who can be considered the greatest because they are all equally bad.

>>11174098
>If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right.

>>11170542

George W. Bush knew the correct answer to this question, and upon supplying that answer, he was roundly mocked by fools. Not a single person in this thread thus far has supplied the answer.

It's very, very obvious. Even you, whoever you are currently reading this post, are now reminded of what the real answer really is.

>>11180387
let's admit that it was a surprising choice

Diogenes.

>>11180343
>>11174098
Glad to see some fellow intellectuals on this place

>>11180387

>>11171606
I would really like to see a Zizek analysis of Evangelion

>>11179410
Also a bunch of the old Greek philosophers don't survive in any comprehensible logical-argumentative form but are still taken seriously. You can't say that Heraclitus can be studied in a more logico-argumentative way than say, Nāgārjuna or Mencius.

>>11180331
t. Brainlethauer

If you mean most influential and comprehensive, then easily Aristotle.

If you mean the philosophy is the consistent and fleshed out I'd say Kant or Hume.

What do you really mean by the question?

>>11180387
Jesus? This is ridiculous, there aren't even enough Jesus quotes in the bible to constitute a moral philosophy let alone a political one.
>muh parables
>muh father in heaven
>muh godly pacificism, non-violence, rich<<<poor etc

>>11180387
also
>fools
Only christian manchildren use this term

>>11177656
>intellectual cross pollination
It's funny there's been lots of discussion about Spinoza in this thread. I remember when I first came across him my initial reaction was 'this guy thinks like an Indian philosopher'. The way he talks about matter, god, reality and so on, it's like it's straight out of the Vedas. And then you look at the period he was writing and it's the same period where the Dutch were all over south Asia. And I wondered 'did this guy read something or speak to someone from India?' I guess without evidence you've got to consider it a coincidence, but it's a big coincidence.

>>11172997
>>11173762
Hegel is shit tier.
#1 Pseud of all time.

>>11170542
armchair intellectuals>aurelius>camus>schopenhauer>aristotle>plato>person with severe autism>nietzsche

>>11180343
what cumbersome shit, i'm glad i don't have to read philosophy in eternal angloish

Sean Goonan who wrote The Foundation for Exploration

>>11170542
>Classical
Aristotle
>Mediveal
Occam
>Early modern
Hume
>Contemporary and overall
Wittgenstein

>>11184151
based

>>11184151
This.

>>11170542
Plato. Almost all other philosophers were/are trash.

>>11178965
It's interesting to see how Schoppe and Neetch are basically Spinozas but with the Will in place of the Substance. Even more interesting is how they went to complete opposite conclusions in morality, Schoppe holding that will-renunciation was the only real choice we had, while Nietzsche embraced a fideism of an affirmation of the will. And even more interesting is how they are both seen as "right-wing" philosophers, at least recently.

>>11179007
Yes. I haven't seen a single "refutation" of Hume that doesn't boil down to "well, this OBVIOUSLY isn't the case a-am I right???". Kant was the only philosopher who managed to work out a coherent response to him (and what a response it was) and even then he was forced to massively constrain pure Reason to make it work at all, even Kant admits that he can't prove the existence of the noumenon.

>>11170542
Diogenes

>>11171621
Is that the reincarnation of sigmund freud?

>>11185262
>Yes. I haven't seen a single "refutation" of Hume that doesn't boil down to "well, this OBVIOUSLY isn't the case a-am I right???"
And this is why we need to go back to Kant and kill every Nietzschean, Bergsonist, Heideggerian, Hegelian, retarded Thomists and burn all of Schopenhauer's books and delete their internet copies.

>>11170542
this lovely fellow

>>11171710
Everyone is responding to this post and I just want to be part of this. But I don't have anything to say

>>11176658
Ascetism is shit

Jaden Smith T B H XD

general lit discord

>>11179618
Hume is mostly very straightforward and walks you though everything point by point. You won't encounter much requiring esoteric leaps of thought with him.

Definitely not Hume. The Ecclesiastes guy in the Bible is the real OG, DESU

What's the difference between 'DESU' and 'DESU'?

>>11170542
If you're asking "what's the best ever" about art, you don't understand it a bit.

>>11171710
Get the fuck out of here you pretentious faggot.

>>11176951
Good album lad.

>>11178733
me desu

>>11177146
based Hume

>>11170542
For me it's Diogenes, intelligent, Nihilistic and with a Wicked Sense of Humor

Why, the philosopher of course.

>>11171696
>dude lmao everything is one we are all part of the universe experiencing itself duuude

It's Nietzsche. People are not yet ready for him, his influence will only grow larger as we collectively start losing our Christian, compassion-based morality.

>>11187500
Explain how this is not true.

>>11187508
He got a lot of shit wrong though, I'd say a mix between Jung and Nietzsche is probably the best.

>>11187543
>The other idiosyncrasy of the philosophers is no less dangerous; it consists in confusing the last and the first. They place that which comes at the end--unfortunately! for it ought not to come at all!--namely, the "highest concepts," which means the most general, the emptiest concepts, the last smoke of evaporating reality, in the beginning, as the beginning. This again is nothing but their way of showing reverence: the higher may not grow out of the lower, may not have grown at all. Moral: whatever is of the first rank must be causa sui. Origin out of something else is considered an objection, a questioning of value. All the highest values are of the first rank; all the highest concepts, that which has being, the unconditional, the good, the true, the perfect--all these cannot have become and must therefore be causes. All these, moreover, cannot be unlike each other or in contradiction to each other. Thus they arrive at their stupendous concept, "God." That which is last, thinnest, and emptiest is put first, as the cause, as ens realissimum. Why did mankind have to take seriously the brain afflictions of sick web-spinners? They have paid dearly for it!

>>11187508
Nietzsche was a romantic poet, not a philosopher.

>>11184151
you started off well and then named three sophist hacks

>>11187500
>>11187814
And your point is...?

>>11178094
This is correct. Philosophy is indeed a degeneration, but the greatest of them is Plato.
The history of philosophy is just a repetition of Plato's mistake which largely misses what Plato did get right.

>>11170542
Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is the buddha of 19th century.
unfortunately, anybody around his and his culture has no eye to see him, too busy on praising plato.
The only person who could see his true worth at that time, was Nietzsche.

>>11187830
>define God as "everything"
>say "God" "exists"

>>11179410
>>11180678
Eastern thinkers have used rational argumentation, but who embodied the rationalist principle of Plato, i.e. who made discursive reasoning their principle guide?

>>11187846
>the rationalist principle
It's an inherent aspect of Sāmkhya to rely on reason.
We don't really have the name of a particular philosopher who developed things, it's a bit like Homer where some of it may be one guy, other bits may have been added or developed by later writers. They didn't have the same emphasis on getting credited as the author

>>11186929
Agreed, Koheleth is so underrated (perhaps the Ecclesiastes is considered to be too "short" to be real philosophy?)

Kant is the only answer.

>>11187975
The problem with indian philosophy is they started from too high a tier and had nowhere to go.
Europeans started with Plato and Aristotle which is great. Those two are wrong about almost everything, so let a thousand flowers bloom and we can have two thousand years of intellectual battle in a race to prove how wrong they were.
Indian philosophy essentially starts with Spinoza on day one in 500 BC. Where do you go from there?
It's like that old fifa game where there was a bug/trick that let you score direct from the kick off. Indians never had to learn to play the game properly because they started with the winning move.

>>11170542
Objectively best is Kant.
Personal favorite is Schopenhauer.

>>11187508
N.'s power of clairvoyance proved he was the greatest mind to have lived hitherto

>>11172997
Kant is all about Cataract surgery, but Hegel turned the mind inside out.

>>11170542
Comparing the philosophers already meant that you're missing the point and instead chasing some useless triviality.

I know we like to make fun of Nietzsche, but as far as I know he's the only philosopher that at least tried to talk to a woman once.

>>11170542
>>11170553
>the virgin Rationalist vs the chad Empiricist

>>11176015

The indians have said nothing of note.

Bookchin

>>11190320
At their highest peaks European thought is at best entry-level vedic thought

>>11171696
>hating yourself

>>11191383

>This is what the indian nationalist actually believes

Are you this upset that your millenial civilization got conquered by a tea company?

>>11191456
bodied lmao, how will poos ever recover

>>11191456

We are discussing the realm of ideas and thought, and not secondary considerations such as cultural and historical circumstances. The way in which you casually make such poorly considered comments betrays your ignorance of the subject matter.

European and Indian culture arose out of the same bedrock of Proto-Indo-European civilization. The ennui that characterizes western thought, the preference for action over contemplation, the very existence of philosophy and trying to pin down and discover the ultimate meaning of everything (implying it was ever lost in the first place), all these things fundamentally reveal the nature of the differentiation of European thought from the primordial tradition and the accompanying teachings of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. At the exact moment it begins to emerge as a unified whole, European thought is marked by the absence of any notable figures and groups expounding the timeless transcendental truth which has remained the case up until the present day. All of the ostensibly impressive and unique aspects of European thought are actually tragicomic examples of the disastrous consequences of when the traditional teachings are lost to history; leading people to search around and grope in the darkness searching for something to replace what was lost. Philosophy itself can be considered as a consequence that arises when knowledge of the Absolute ceases to be taught within a given era's culture.

I'm not even Indian but am just someone who is well-read enough to understand the exact relation between and the exact nature of eastern and western thought, I couldn't care less about the historical developments and have no dog in the fight. From one perspective the colonial governing of India was a great thing insofar as it allowed for an infusion of eastern thought into western as never before.

since it's obviously hume or kant I'm going to mention the most underrated who is duns

>>11170553
FPBP

>>11170542
What you really wanted to ask was, "Who is your favorite philosopher, /lit/?"

>>11177379
Not really fampai, they are the embodiment of the Orient, but that's not to say they weren't influenced a lot by the GREEKS at points in their history (even after Islam)

>>11170542
We'll likely never know and his work was probably destroyed by the pass of time.