Welcome to Gaia! ::

She's just stubborn. I believe she is influenced a lot more than she leaves us to believe.

We like to think of ourselfs as individuals but totaly ingoring the history of the world, so that you'r mind isn't currupted isn't indivial at all. I think it's a bit ignorant. (no offence ment)

So.... stubbornness is the only thing making you an individual? You're right, M.C., sounds ever so slightly ignorant (again, no offence meant).

Well... philosophy IS, after all, about answering the Archetypal Questions. There is an answer to each one, we don't relish in the idea of making up questions that don't have answers... why would we try to answer them, then? Why are you here if you don't like philosophers? Plus, not all philosophers are based around that. Many of them just try and launch a new way of thinking into the world, like Nietzche. Others, like Descartes, preferred to question everything around them. There are more than just one type of philosopher you know. Also, there's no taking back that you said you saw no reason to ever agree with what anyone long dead has said in the past... As for your history predicament, I think you HAVE found use for the history you've learned, and it HAS helped you make decisions, just subconsciously, while you weren't even thinking... one time I was betrayed by a friend in a very personal way... I thought of how during the Pellopenisian (sp?) War, the Spartans were betrayed by local Greek farmers and linked it to my problem. The last time one of my friends did something suspicious, I immediately remembered the betrayal of King Leonidas and played it extra safe. That sort of thing. Remember, most of what we know has been discovered in the past. Gravity is a thing from the past, so whyever read Isaac Newton's books anymore? That's the kind of thing you're saying.

It's okay, it's okay, we're all friends here, dyoods. We're not here to bicker, just to argue! And maybe discuss a bit, too. New posts are going up nicely. This place is growing by leaps and bounds already! I'm so glad.

Cool. You might take an interest in Aquinas' works from the Middle Ages, or some of the other great Christian philosophers, then. Everyone has some very interesting ideas to put out there. Do a google search on Aquinas or something, I'll bet you'll get some pretty interesting stuff.

I don't really have a favorite philosopher. I kinda pick and choose to my liking, as if every philosopher's ideas are a giant buffet and everyone can take what they want as long as they can handle it. Picking up a philosophy you cannot defend in all situations is miserable. Standing by something, even when it's unpopular, gives you a firm grounding and more self-confidence. When you can fully defend your ideas and fully trust in them even when they break a societal norm, then you can say you have truly adopted a philosophy.

Another thing: Many ideas I have taken come not from real philosophers, but from people without a set agenda for promoting a moral ideal. Kafka, for instance, wrote highly personal things, but they can be molded to any idea, though most of them are translated to the idea of the unatainability of a higher power (i.e. God). People who focus on overtly obvious philosophers miss out on smaller ideas that pose even more of a mental workout than could ever be provided by Socrates or Plato.

I recognize most with the philosopher Nietzsche. His life was great, and his accomplishments dispite his physical limitations are even greater. He's a great man, who even wrote his thoughts down on paper when doctors told him to stop or he would die. He truly is an artist. Not only that, but he hated himself, because he couldn't be what he saw as a greater person. His entire book 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' was about a hero he created that was everything he wished he was but wasn't.

But that aside... he wasn't the great man he wanted to be. He was a great man, but no shining god, no bringer of revolution... he was a great man of thought that revolutionized philosophy... but still... as he put it, "Human, All too Human".

I like Kant's philosophy because he brings sense to why I belive that there's something more to life then what we experience. plus I got an A+ on a presentation i did thanks to my opinion on his philosophy.