- John West
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
(Looking back, I think you're underselling the number of Thomists, Charlie. A lot more people listed Aristotle, Thomas, or Thomists than not.)
- Etzelnik
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
John West wrote:
One thing this thread has shown is that a lot of us are influenced by Platonism (and I don't just mean in the broad sense in which even Aristotle is a Platonist). Jeremy, who didn't reply, holds a lot of Plato's positive doctrines; and I'm influenced by Plato and Socrates in my heavy use of the aporetic method (which sort of dominates my comments here the last few months). A lot of others included Plato or obvious Platonist influences in their replies.
I personally think Platonism offers more in the way of transcendence than Aristotelianism; it just seems a better match for a religious person.
Noli turbare circulos meos.
- John West
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
I see. Do you think ontic structural realism is a tenable position though, that we (and the rest of the world) are composed of relations and nothing but relations? Or is it more of an "academic curiosity" for you?
a wild deconstructionist
Come on now bruh
What, women don't use the internet in Brazil or something? 
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Thread Starter- John West
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
One thing this thread has shown is that a lot of us are influenced by Platonism (and I don't just mean in the broad sense in which even Aristotle is a Platonist). Jeremy, who didn't reply, holds a lot of Plato's positive doctrines; and I'm influenced by Plato and Socrates in my heavy use of the aporetic method (which sort of dominates my comments here the last few months). A lot of others included Plato or obvious Platonist influences in their replies.
I personally think Platonism offers more in the way of transcendence than Aristotelianism; it just seems a better match for a religious person.
Yes, I suppose. Even Aquinas is "an Aristotelian on earth, a Platonist in heaven".
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Thread Starter- John West
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
I'm going to be away for the next couple months after tomorrow. (I'll still be writing those posts for Ontological Investigations, and can be reached through PMs if needed.)
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Thread Starter- CharlieBlack
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
I'm going to be away for the next couple months after tomorrow. (I'll still be writing those posts for Ontological Investigations, and can be reached through PMs if needed.)
You never told us your three biggest philosophical influences!
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
You never told us your three biggest philosophical influences!
Nobody asked!
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Thread Starter- Hypatia
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
You never told us your three biggest philosophical influences!
Nobody asked!
Consider yourself asked! (When you have time for it.)
The one problem with Platonism compared to Aristotelianism is it can get a bit too otherworldly--I remember Pierre Hadot having that complaint about Plotinus, that it was like visiting a foreign realm divorced from everyday life. Which I can sympathize with, so I like paying attention to the Thomists because I need a good dose of common sense philosophy every so often. Otherwise the apophaticism and eliminative idealism creep in. Or worse.
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
My earliest influences are the Sydney empiricists—John Anderson, D. M. Armstrong, Keith Campbell, C. B. Martin—and the broader tradition of empirical realists—D. C. Williams, Reinhardt Grossmann. I also include Aristotle in the latter tradition. I was also influenced (a little) by Quine and Lewis.
After reading some of Armstrong's interlocutors, I took a skeptical turn. When one is a dogmatist, it's easy to answer questions like “Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?” You simply take stock of your beliefs and list the philosophers you got them from. But when you're a skeptic and don't have any philosophical beliefs, it's much harder. I could list Sextus Empiricus, Michel de Montaigne, and Pierre Bayle, but the skeptic who actually precipitated my turn is Bill Vallicella.
I'm also influenced by various Germans. Man spricht Deutsch.
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Thread Starter- Brian
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Re: Who are your three biggest philosophical influences?
The one problem with Platonism compared to Aristotelianism is it can get a bit too otherworldly--I remember Pierre Hadot having that complaint about Plotinus, that it was like visiting a foreign realm divorced from everyday life. Which I can sympathize with, so I like paying attention to the Thomists because I need a good dose of common sense philosophy every so often. Otherwise the apophaticism and eliminative idealism creep in. Or worse.
Interestingly, Plotinus didn't seem to have that problem if we are to believe Porphyry. He adopted orphans and stressed the (chronological) priority of the civic virtues over the intellectual/purificatory virtues. Definitely strange how the emblematic anti-worldly, head in the stars, Platonist was rather practical.