"These were not the best philosophers of the past that we were reading. They were merely the greatest philosophers."
That's a very thought-provoking thesis, and rings true. Greatness here could be thought of as 'intellectual celebrity'. No philosopher's system will ever be bulletproof, because philosophy is not just logic, but literature, and therefore depends on the fallibility and inexactness of language. The 'greatest' philosophers are those who 'won' the contest for celebrity, but the winning in these cases is more like 'winning' a political campaign than 'winning' a 100m dash — that is, not so straightforward, and involving lots of cultural factors. The 'Greats' are more like stable nodes, or irreducible particles, from which greater networks and systems may be generated. Or they are like prospectors who secure a particular piece of earth for the rest of us to dig into and build upon.
bonobobuddha t1_j6n0xgh wrote
Reply to Great Philosophers Are Bad Philosophers by thenousman
"These were not the best philosophers of the past that we were reading. They were merely the greatest philosophers."
That's a very thought-provoking thesis, and rings true. Greatness here could be thought of as 'intellectual celebrity'. No philosopher's system will ever be bulletproof, because philosophy is not just logic, but literature, and therefore depends on the fallibility and inexactness of language. The 'greatest' philosophers are those who 'won' the contest for celebrity, but the winning in these cases is more like 'winning' a political campaign than 'winning' a 100m dash — that is, not so straightforward, and involving lots of cultural factors. The 'Greats' are more like stable nodes, or irreducible particles, from which greater networks and systems may be generated. Or they are like prospectors who secure a particular piece of earth for the rest of us to dig into and build upon.