Using a poll to determine history's greatest philosophers leads me to believe that the author knows little to nothing about philoshopy. Also, it's simply an ass

Using a poll to determine history's greatest philosophers leads me to believe that the author knows little to nothing about philoshopy. Also, it's simply an assumption to say that most great philosophers are ancient. Further, the reason why the ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle are studied so much and may be considered so great in many philosophic circles is simply because many of the ideas they came up with are original to us--that is, we do not know of any older philosophers who had similar ideas and/or do not have those texts. Many of the philosophers that came after built upon those ideas. You'd be hard pressed to find many ideas in philosophy even in the last century that don't build on the ancients, many of them coming directly out of Aristotle for example and certainly not limited to Aristotelian logic and ethics. It's not about who is the greatest thinker or who has more raw brainpower. It's certainly not just about learning the history of philosophy. How can you understand any modern philosopher without understanding what context they are writing in and what arguments they are critiquing, without understanding the world they lived in and the world they were responding to (of which history is a big part but certainly not all)? Why would we have philosophers now that just rehash old ideas? Unlike in science, it would only make those ideas less clear, not more. Reading a modern synopsis of ancient philosophers will help with the history part but I doubt it would spark much interest in students or ideas and discussion. It'd probably confuse people unnecessarily as many ancient ideas have no place in modernity. Not to mention robbing them of the pleasure of reading original philosophy and understanding it. All that just to get a muddied, unclear version that misses a lot of the subtleties that make those philosophies great. No one would be able to build on ancient philosophers anymore because now we'd be interpreting a limited interpretation of the original texts that captured a fraction of the original meaning, not the original texts. We'd be unable to find new meanings in those original texts. This last part would indeed be a crime against philosophers--true lovers of knowledge--everywhere. What the author suggests that we do is indeed, truly monstrous and incredibly stupid: "we should expect the scholarship of Plato or Aristotle (or any ‘great philosopher’) to improve our understanding into the history of ideas, but not to excavate some hidden philosophical insight relevant to modern discussions" Thankfully Nietzche, Derrida, and [insert your favorite non-ancient philosopher here] did not subscribe to this stupidity and small-mindedness or they probably would never have written anything.