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Are we talking philosophers we've read or philosophers that we've read about?
If it's philosophers we've read then I'm going with Satre. He writes with such punch and a detatched intellectual passion that it's hard to ignore what he says. His ideas are hardly new or original (his metaphysical philosophy especially - nothingness, facticity etc. - borrowed very heavily from that of Heidegger) but what he has to say about freedom, responsibility, existence and many other things has sent a shiver down my spine many a time. If I had to choose one philosopher who best represented my personal philosophy, I think it'd have to be Satre.
Camus is another one who I've enjoyed reading, but he's more a strong literary author with a knack for philosophy than anything else. The absurd is interesting to read about - and L'Etranger and The Myth of Sysiphus are quite inspiring pieces of work - but it doesn't really say much as a stand-alone philosophical theory.
If we're talking philosophers we've read about (so we're talking more about their ideas then their literature) then I could bore you all day with names. I'm fond of John Locke's ideas on politics and human rights (it was his work - written some 100 years earlier - that more than any other shaped the American contribution), Hume's metaphysics or rejection thereof, Hegel's dialectic and Descartes for being arguably the most influential philosopher of all time (he, more than any other, changed the entire course of philosophical and scientific enquiry forever, in my humble opinion).
I could probably go on, but these are the one's worth mentioning for now.
| quote: | To be honest (even though I disagree less and less with each passing day with this person)
Ayn Rand |
It's interesting to note that some publication did a survey at a series of American colleges about the most influential piece of literature they'd ever read, and Atlas Shrugged was second to only the Bible. Personally I find her objectivism mean-spirited and awash with self-contradiction (see here - and that's actually a parody yet it actually ends up being a pretty good summation of Rand's philosophy) but I've only ever read about her ideas rather than actually anything by her, so I'm prepared to reserve judgement for the time being. 
| quote: | | Anyway, to answer your question: Kant. Although not a great writer, his clarifications of what can be known and what can only be believed in, somehow comforts me. It seems like a the "right" worldview for me - at least at this stage of my life. |
I think that Kant's views on morality are simultaneously the most accurate and the most useful I've ever encountered. The "universal maxim" - even though it's fairly easily rebutted I think - is about as good a litmus test for moral behaviour as I've read and the "categorical imperitive" is one of the few arguments I've ever read as to why we should act morally as opposed to how (duty became responsibility in Satre's works). His metaphysics, however, seems to just merge Cartesianism and Empiricism without every really adequately addressing the failings (or unanswered questions) of either. And I've tried to trawl through Critique of Pure Reason as well, but that just made it worse (what an incredibly unreadable piece that was  ).
| quote: | | However, I must confess that I like Leibniz if only because of the optimism apparent in his thinking |
Heh, funny you should mention that actually. I just finished reading Voltaire's Candide a couple of days ago, and I don't think I'll ever be able to take Liebniz seriously again.
It's hard not to admire him, like you say, for his optimisitc if somewhat naive way of thinking, but his system of metaphysics was probably the weakest of all the great philosophers (that monad thing is truly bizzare  ) and what is left of his philosophy (sufficient reason, best of all worlds etc.) was canned pretty well in Candide. If you like Liebniz, then I reccomend you read it to see what you make of it (if you haven't already). It's short, so it can be read in a day.
Izzy:
| quote: | | side question: seems like the prevailing controversy in western philosophy is whether reason is based on our preception of the world (we know because of what we experience) or whether our preception of the world is based on our reason (we know because of our reasoning)... which do you think it is? |
It's undeniably both, and, somewhat contrary to what I said before, it's Kant's attempt at reconciling the two view points (rationalism - Descartes, Liebniz, Spinoza etc - and empiricism - Locke, Berkely, Hume etc.) that made him so great in that regard. Where Kant fails though, is his inability to reconcile the "ontological rift" necessitated by the dualism of the Cartesian world (that is, how does the external - the world of objects - come to be in the internal - the mind - and how accurate is this "translation"?). I think that the current trend in philosophy, though, is to reject this dualistic way of thinking, and to say that the mind and "external" objects are really two different facets of the same thing (the deistic monoism of Spinoza would be possibly the closest example I can think of, except instead of being unified by the omnipresence of God, all things are unified by "nature" or - more broadly - by existence itself). Still, even by redefining the problem in this way, we still have no real "epistemic foundation" upon which to claim anything near absolute knowledge of the world.
I'll continue this discussion later on when I have more time though. Good to see a philosophical discussion in here btw, for the first time in ages.
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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who's your favorite philosopher?
) Fukuyama's book whi right now leaves biotechnology aside and deals with the "human nature" and terms like "human rights", and "human dignity" in their philosophical context. Quality read. Especially the question of human rights with its central conflict between positivistic and natural laws. It basically says how before Kant and Hume, people argued (especially Platon) that what is natural is legitimate. A direct connection between is and should. Kant and Nietzsche, however, dissociate themselves from this thesis by virtually rejecting "human nature" and consider it a state whish must be overcome by REASON. Kinda interesting for a law student like me 
