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Philosophy is difficult, a demanding mistress. I state the obvious. Who do I think responded best to its rigors? My top three are Thomas Nagel, Michael Ayers, and Bernard Suits—each in their different ways. They each managed to scale a high tree, swim in deep water, breathe a finer air. I won’t here summarize their contributions, but they are the three that have made the biggest impression on me. Historically, I nominate Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Reid—for obvious reasons. Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Anscombe have had their moments, as have Peter Geach and Sydney Shoemaker. Brian O’Shaughnessy deserves a special mention.
I have not read Ayers, but will on your suggestion. I’m not familiar with his theses regarding the origin of knowledge but I take it he would in some manner want to frame the story about this in a Lockean way. Do you regard his view as substantially at odds with your own, but like it as a useful foil to your own nativism? Or do you find your respective views compatible, the apparent irreconcilability being more a matter of terminology than substantive philosophy?
The work of his I have in mind is not about nativism versus empiricism, but about what knowledge is. You can find a summary in my “Perceptual Knowledge” and “Non-Perceptual Knowledge” on this blog. His book on Locke is first-rate but very long.
I like Galen Strawson, Chomsky, Bertrand Russell and you. Any other suggestions?
Some big names, to be sure–I wonder why you put Galen S. on the list. Chomsky is not really a philosopher, though his work has philosophical implications. I’m glad you didn’t mention certain obvious big-shots.
FWIW completely agree with admin on Strawson Jr. His last book Stuff Quality Structure: The Whole Go is a an unreadable pretentious nonsense. Here is a typical quote: “I’ve given up trying to persuade any philosopher of anything. This means I can say straight out what I think is true.” And no, this is not a joke, just browse through the thing. I returned it.
Dismal. He used to be a friend of mine.
Presumably it (the friendship) went horribly wrong for some reason
You could say that. It was part of a pattern I became depressingly familiar with. Not as bad as some.
May I ask your views on the philosophy of science literature, and philosophers? , as that was my entry point into philosophy.
As it happens, my entry point to philosophy was also via philosophy of science, because as a psychology student we were required to take a philosophy of science course. My first published article (age 22) was on Mach and Husserl. I’ve also read a lot of history of science. I have nothing special to add to the usual suspects: Grunbaum, Reichenbach, Popper, Poincare, etc. I did like Russell’s Analysis of Matter quite a bit.
Strange you don’t include Leibniz. And even Galileo, while I’m at it..
It’s just that Leibniz isn’t a favorite of mine, as Kant is not also.
Has philosophical exchange always exuded such testiness, not pointing fingers, rather making a guess from observing discussions online. I thought in my naivete that philosophy was a gentleman’s game. Some of these discussions on your blog and on the internet come off like in court or the letters page of the Times of London. Is it the nature of online discourse or how philosophy is done nowadays?
That’s a good question. Philosophy didn’t used to be like that. There is a lot of accusation and politicking. I blame Americans.
I’m not sure philosophy is a gateway to knowledge; it is heavily mind dependent and the mind is attached to a personality and very intelligent people can convince themselves of crazy things or worse or that trivial hairsplitting is somehow is the gold at the end of the rainbow
Philosophy is not the gateway to knowledge; it is more like the endpoint. Too difficult.