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5/21/2017 4:20 pm  #1


What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

Just curious.

 

5/21/2017 7:15 pm  #2


Re: What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

I interpret this question in a couple ways.

First, there are my positive views, which largerly derived from study of Aquinas and Anscombe. It's somewhat tough to name a third. I suppose Aristotle is an obvious candidate (but I tend to study him through Aquinas), as is Philippa Foot, and as (in a different direction) is Wittgenstein, and as (in another sense) is Cardinal Newman. If I wanted someone to get a representative understanding of both my views and my interests, I guess it would be Aquinas, Anscombe, Newman.

The other way to take the question is in terms of philosophical development. I suppose Aquinas and Anscombe have also had an impact on the development of my views, but it's worth crediting here instead: Feser, Nozick, and Kripke. Nozick and Kripke were two of the philosophers I read fairly early in my study that I think has a large impact on how I think about philosphical problems, arguments, and prose, although substantively I'm not very close to their views. Feser of course exerted a substantial influence on the way I think about philosophy (and early on, taught me much of what I take to be Thomism). I don't list him as representative of my substantive views now, largely because many of the portions of Aquinas that most interest me these days are not the ones that he writes about (i.e. theory of action).

 

5/22/2017 5:53 am  #3


Re: What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

For a broad sweep of overall influence:
 
Alexander Pruss
Friedrich Nietzsche
Edmund Husserl
 
As blasphemous as it no doubt is I’m taking Pruss as the vector for far more iconic ‘Classical’ figures i.e. Aristotle, Thomas, Scotus and Leibniz. Eric Voegelin very nearly made this list as his analysis of the human relationship with the Divine Ground and the tension between immanence and transcendence was of great help in allowing me to properly formulate and explore a number of core intuitions about human experience.
 
In terms of historical development
 
Olavo de Carvalho
Edward Feser
Michael Loux
 
The last two need no introduction; the former, though prone to believing every inane political conspiracy pertaining to the USA, was a great influence on my early philosophical development – it was reading his articles in (bad) translation which first motivated me to study philosophy.
 
In terms of fundamental ontology and philosophy of religion I also owe a lot to Brian Leftow, E.J. Lowe, David Oderberg and J.P. Moreland.
 

 

5/22/2017 8:42 am  #4


Re: What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

Proclus
Gersonides
Leo Strauss


Noli turbare circulos meos.
 

5/22/2017 1:03 pm  #5


Re: What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

Plato
Augustine
CS Lewis

 

5/22/2017 2:24 pm  #6


Re: What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

Probably Plato, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.  Although Sextus Empiricus and Zhuangzi, the ancient Daoist, both get an honorable mention.

 

5/22/2017 8:09 pm  #7


Re: What three philosophers have influenced you the most?

Seneca also gets an honorable mention, as does (I'm not sure he counts as a philosopher) Plutarch.


Noli turbare circulos meos.
 

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