chant

hello, i'm new here, so please forgive me if these questions have been asked before, but, which philosophers writing today do you respect? and are there any new ideas coming through that are having an important impact on modern thought?

Neilium

Richard Rorty
Daniel Dennett
Umberto Eco
Julia Kristeva
and, although maybe not a philosopher (simply because I don't think he calls himself one): Marshall Blonsky

-neil

Pyrrho

Most "philosophers" today are not very respectable, in my opinion. Many write arcane garbage for the sole purpose of impressing others who imagine that complicated and/or unintelligible sentences that employ a gross misuse of words are a sign of intelligence rather than a sign of poor writing skills.

Most of the good philosophers are dead, and the very best ones have been dead for over 200 years. But I'll add one person to consider for your list of apparently living philosophers:

A.J. Burger

See his (or her) web site at:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/ethics.html


No.

Orin

If you included some that passed away in the last five years Karl Popper, Carl Hemple and Thomas Kuhn may be worthy of mention. Some areas of Philosophy, such as Philosophy of Science, are seeing substantive debate and new ideas. Whilst I wouldn't put them in the same league as Popper and Kuhn, people like Ian Hacking and Larry Laudan are alive and contributing some interesting ideas.

matthias j.

I really like Martha Nussbaum. Although I don't really agree with all her ideas, her Poetic Justice is a book everyone interested in politics should read. (and if that "thing" currently president of the USA would've read it, we wouldn't have been in the shit we're in now...)

Pyrrho

If you just want something very recent, rather than something from someone still writing, here is an excellent book to consider:

The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies by David Stove


It is a book that many "philosophers" today desperately need to read.

Neilium

I haven't read this book by Stove but if his "Against the Idols of the Age" is any indicator, he's capable of little else than sneer quotes, insults, and straw man arguments. I found his tactics cheap.

-Neil

ex-xian

I second the Popper and Kuhn, as well as the comments about recent philosophy. I dislike post-modernism with a passion, however Alistiare MacIntyre is wonderful. I recommend After Virtue among his other works.

Clutch

Of course there are many philosophers doing interesting work. How much of it will end up having a significant popular impact is never predictable in advance; check out Hume's remarks explaining why Addison would be famous long after that lame old poseur Locke was forgotten...

Just a few accessible and maybe "less travelled" suggestions:

Liberalism, Community and Culture, Will Kymlicka

Being There, Andy Clark

Relevance, Dan Sperber and Dierdre Wilson (An anthropologist and a linguistic pragmatist, but squarely in the tradition of Gricean philosophy of language).

Frotiw

I think your forgetting that judgeing todays philosophers is siginificantly more difficult that judgeing those from the past. Sure many of the big famous and briliant philosophers were "bigshots" while alive but the opposite was also often the case. I think there are plenty of great philosophers though they may not be very famous. Also where I attend the post-modernistic bla-bla-philosophers are not really represented. I mean some of them might have some great ideas and be truly brilliant writters but not necessarily fit for structured academic work.
I don't want to judge him as I don't know enough of his works of philosophy but consider him an example. I have read alot from Umberto Eco and his book are great but I know and enjoy him for his skill of litterature. I wouldn't want to write a phD in philosophy on him. I mean a person like e.g. Umberto Eco shouldn't be counted as a representive for philosophy. Actually he is proffesor of semiotics not philosophy and like e.g. Kafka he is a writer before being a philosopher. Again I repeat I don't mean to dish him. My point is just that the well known public intellectual academics are not representive of academic philosophers. Concept like Postmodernism I hear alot more from e.g. students litterature and journalism but very very rarely from student of philosophy.

As for philosophers today. Well Rawls died in 2002 but he pretty much revived political philosophy. Also his college Nozick unfortunately also died in 2002 but was also a great contributer(opposing Rawls) in political philosophy. Also the entire "philosophy of mind" and "AI" -debate is bluming with lots of ideas from varius positions. Even the borders of math, science and philosophy are twisted in those areas. I have persons like R. Penrose in mind who might be a proff in math but who contribute both within science and philosophy. I think it's a great time for philosophers way better than e.g. 60years ago. Now scientist can also aproach realms of philosophy speaking of consciousness without instantly and dogmatically being labeled superstitious semi-religious metaphysicians. Also as for the edge between frontieer work of theoritcal science and astrophysic the edge between science and philosophy is getting somewhat blured. I mean science is not consuming philosophy nor the other way around but e.g. theoretical scientist draw on old well known philosophical arguments and philosophers are getting more intersted in the subjects of theoritical science and bring new perspectives. I an not talking of a unification just a realization that at core many philosophers and scientist share the same motivation and urge for knowledge and wisdom. I think this was actually more how it used to be. Remember e.g. Leibniz and Descartes where actually natural scientists BESIDES beeing philosophers. Descartes was actually considered a very serius contender to Newton within NATURAL SCIENCE highly independant of his far more well known skill in philosophy. I think more recent slowly climbing realization of mutual intersted and perhaps a rewarding work of complementarity today, is evident especially from Einstein and Bohr. E.g. Bohr "The theory of complementarity" is almost purely philosophy. The discussions of the consequences of the Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty is for a large part philosophy and bring consequences in classical areas of philosophy. As the possibilites of empirically investigations are narrowing down** theoretical enquiry and old problems of onthology vs. episteme raise again. I think we are slowly recovering from a "dark age" evidently represented by dogmatism and narrow-mindness to a more healthy situation. In this new situation it should be possible to actually make enquiries about all sorts of rational sound fields without -pre-inquiry- beeing labeled irational. Logical Positism*** did serve a usefull purpose rooting out much mumbeljumble, folkpsychology and bad metaphysics but by core they were far far too crude and eager. Not only did they root out much good philosophy they also rooted out the fundamental of rational thinking including their very own verifibility principiel on which Logical Positivism was buildt. Not only did they kill themselves as a rational position but they also turned more fanatical and unrational than those they meant to oppose. This "dark-age" we are now recovering from from hopefully maintaining a delicate border between rooting out the irrational while refraining from the fanatism and dogmatics of e.g. logical positivism.


Ok I know my post almost developed into a personal perspective on the health of philosophy and science as academic disciplines but for the original question:

Summing up. The great philosophers are not necessarilly superstar celebreties but in time their effort might(hopefully) be appreciated. My point is that Britney Spears is widespread as a musical/cultural person but don't accept her as a representive of music of our time. If you were to be presented to music for the first time she might be first you would hear but that does not mean she is representive of music and that other musicians will value her high*.

*Perhaps unreasonable presupposing that music is a skill like e.g. woodcarving and tailoring instead of some abstract art but my point should still be visible.

** As the actuall concrete subject of investigation becomes smaller and smaller(sub-quantum physics) or larger and larger(astrophysics).

*** The Vienna Circle, Logical Empirism or Scientific Empirism will all count as naming the movement I have in mind.

Cheers Frotiw