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Heh! I thought this perhaps was a better way to start out this sort of discussion guild. By which Philosopher do you recognize with the most, and why? And perhaps I could ask, by what philosophy do you often find yourself more intune with, such as I, enjoy Mechanistic Materialism...and now it is your turn!

I agree. Why should a long dead (if great) man define the way we think?

(I also find the fact that all the remembered philosophists were men a bit irksome)

These are all interesting thoughts, and I'll answer them each individually. I find the usefulness of philosophy to be something to fall back on when one is faced with a moral dilemma. Creating your own moral values and philosophies are wonderfully gratifying, but often one is posed with a conflict that cannot have an easy answer in your moral values, at which it is nice to fall back upon an older theory. To your second point, Tiger, I present this question... "If nobody ever DID follow someone else's ways of thinking, how would anything get done? How would anyone agree about anything?" For you, dear Tanwen, I ask you another question: "How can new things be done in the future safely without looking upon experiences in the past?" Past philosophies not only give us a backbone to our new ones, but also warn us not to make the same mistakes again... if nobody remembered Hitler and the Nazis, another Holocaust would start again as quick as you blink... people would be decieved again, they wouldn't learn anything at all from the past and they'd be the tools of evil designs! Who cares if Hitler is old and dead? He still gives us something important to remember and contemplate. Just like all the great philosophers.
Oh and to answer Sekoubi's question I'll say I'm an Empiricist all the way, and that my favorite philosopher is Marcuse, just for being so optimistic, Marxist, and Freudian.

Oh and also about the remembered philosophers being men thing I made a short list I got from my longer list of the top twenty remembered philosophers, and, granted, could only find a couple, Hypatia, de Beauvoir, Wollstonecraft, and Iragaray . I know that's just one fifth of the top twenty, but that's still some at all. You said ALL remembered philosophers were men... well, yeah you're wrong.

Yeah, different strokes for different folks. I sort of just like to accept everything that comes my way, whether it's bull headed idealogy or just passing epiphany. Everything should be considered, even WHY some people are so jerky and resolute about what they believe. I for one look towards what everyone's saying and shun nothing. But I mean, you don't really have to erase a bunch of past experience and ancient wisdom and logic just to make a point of being unique. If you don't like to agree, I'm afraid you're in for a very disappointing existance. It's not good (in my humble opinion) to be foolish just for the sake of being individualized.

I never said I was going to erase past experience, I merely said that I'm going to follow my own way of thinking. And I've been disagreeing my whole life. From birth I've been doing things different than other people and my existance has been dissapointing yet. Also, I'm not being foolish. A person can be an individual without being a fool. And if sometimes I do foolish things it is merely because I am human.

Ooh, good question! Actually . . . I'd say C. S. Lewis for me. Most wouldn't classify him a "philosopher," but boy, is he amazing in his philosophical ideas and the nonfiction books he writes!

I agree! CS Lewis is a genius. The Narnia books are unlike anything else. Of course, I haven't read them in a long, long time. But very good!

I've been trying to get that question out of her for like an hour. She's told me she doesn't believe anything anyone thought in the past is allowed to be agreed with if we are to be individuals...