4 ms·

Kripke is a good start. So is work by Jerry Fodor.

by keeler 9y ago

voidhorse 9y ago
As these folks have said, Kripke and Fodor are not bad entry points for analytic philosophy if recency is your only concern--they might be hard to digest or understand properly however, as they are working with very specific problems and drawing on knowledge with a particular history to it. David Chalmers is good for philosophy of mind on the more analytic side. Quine is also important. So is Searle. Scott Soames' two volume work on the history of analytical philosophy is a great introduction to that side of the field and will get you up to speed with the the trajectory the led to what contemporary voices in the domain are grappling with now: https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Analysis-Twentieth-Century-Dawn/dp/069112244X https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Analysis-Twentieth-Cent... But that's just one side of philosophical thought, continental philosophy is very important as well. A good historical sketch of that milieu can be found in Delacampgne: https://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-Twentieth-Century/dp/0801868149/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1505757829&sr=8-4&keywords=delacampagne https://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-Twentieth-Century/... Some important recent voices from the continental side are probably Foucault, Zizek, Slotterdjik, Gadamer, Habermas, the Frankfurt School. Finally you could just ignore everything prior and read Wittgenstein. Personally, if we're talking GIANTS among the Giants the list goes something like: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein. (I am of course, limiting myself to Western thought). As with any field there are plenty of voices who have contributed a legion of ideas with varying amounts of success, but I'd say those names are the heaviest hitters. Wittgenstein is arguably still the most recent philosopher to have affected a paradigm shift. (though I think one could make a fairly convincing argument for including Foucault in those ranks as well). Philosophy in general is a very interesting field because it often benefits from discoveries in other disciplines, in addition to having often motivated/been the birthchamber of said disciplines (see for instance, the often symbiotic relationship between linguistics and the philosophy of language).
- mcguire 9y ago
  Sartre? And how could any such list leave out von Hartmann? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Robert_Eduard_von_Hartmann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Robert_Eduard_von_Hartman... http://www.iep.utm.edu/hartmann/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/hartmann/ https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/eduard-von-hartmann/ https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/eduard-von-h...
  - keeler 9y ago
    Hartmann is certainly not a giant on anyone's list. Even if you were to compare him to some of the "lesser" giants, such as Berkeley, Schopenhauer, or even Thomas Reid, it's not even close.
    - mcguire 9y ago
      Aw, c'mon. He's single-handedly arguing the negative image of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
  - voidhorse 9y ago
    I thank you for bringing Hartmann up, as I hadn't looked into his work and this is a reminder to do so. But anyway, I wouldn't include him for the same reason I wouldn't include Pierce, James, and some other american pragmatists, or more enigmatic figures such as Cioran and Bataille--namely because while my personal perspective on their thought is that it's excellent and deserves serious consideration, and they are some of my favorite philosophers to read, their work hasn't had as great a historical impact on the world stage as these other major figures.
- Ngunyan 9y ago
  >Personally, if we're talking GIANTS among the Giants the list goes something like: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein. (I am of course, limiting myself to Western thought). I would drop Sartre and add Heidegger instead in that list. And I favor Suarez over Aquinas.
  - voidhorse 9y ago
    That's a fair substitution. I like to give a nod to Sartre and existentialism mostly because it's one of the few philosophical positions that's both accessible to those less familiar with philosophy as a whole, and as such it's had significant impact other cultural domains as well--though you are right, if our concern here is providing a list of those thinkers who made the most significant impacts to the field internally Heidegger is a much more important figure than Sartre (Nazism aside) and his thinking has spawned far more work and extensions than existentialism (as far as I know about anyway).

Kripke is a good start. So is work by Jerry Fodor.

by keeler 9y ago

Kripke is a good start. So is work by Jerry Fodor.

As these folks have said, Kripke and Fodor are not bad entry points for analytic philosophy if recency is your only concern--they might be hard to digest or understand properly however, as they are working with very specific problems and drawing on knowledge with a particular history to it. David Chalmers is good for philosophy of mind on the more analytic side. Quine is also important. So is Searle. Scott Soames' two volume work on the history of analytical philosophy is a great introduction to that side of the field and will get you up to speed with the the trajectory the led to what contemporary voices in the domain are grappling with now: https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Analysis-Twentieth-Century-Dawn/dp/069112244X https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Analysis-Twentieth-Cent... But that's just one side of philosophical thought, continental philosophy is very important as well. A good historical sketch of that milieu can be found in Delacampgne: https://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-Twentieth-Century/dp/0801868149/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1505757829&sr=8-4&keywords=delacampagne https://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-Twentieth-Century/... Some important recent voices from the continental side are probably Foucault, Zizek, Slotterdjik, Gadamer, Habermas, the Frankfurt School. Finally you could just ignore everything prior and read Wittgenstein. Personally, if we're talking GIANTS among the Giants the list goes something like: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein. (I am of course, limiting myself to Western thought). As with any field there are plenty of voices who have contributed a legion of ideas with varying amounts of success, but I'd say those names are the heaviest hitters. Wittgenstein is arguably still the most recent philosopher to have affected a paradigm shift. (though I think one could make a fairly convincing argument for including Foucault in those ranks as well). Philosophy in general is a very interesting field because it often benefits from discoveries in other disciplines, in addition to having often motivated/been the birthchamber of said disciplines (see for instance, the often symbiotic relationship between linguistics and the philosophy of language).

mcguire 9y ago
Sartre? And how could any such list leave out von Hartmann? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Robert_Eduard_von_Hartmann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Robert_Eduard_von_Hartman... http://www.iep.utm.edu/hartmann/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/hartmann/ https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/eduard-von-hartmann/ https://ethicsofsuicide.lib.utah.edu/selections/eduard-von-h...
- keeler 9y ago
  Hartmann is certainly not a giant on anyone's list. Even if you were to compare him to some of the "lesser" giants, such as Berkeley, Schopenhauer, or even Thomas Reid, it's not even close.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    Aw, c'mon. He's single-handedly arguing the negative image of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
- voidhorse 9y ago
  I thank you for bringing Hartmann up, as I hadn't looked into his work and this is a reminder to do so. But anyway, I wouldn't include him for the same reason I wouldn't include Pierce, James, and some other american pragmatists, or more enigmatic figures such as Cioran and Bataille--namely because while my personal perspective on their thought is that it's excellent and deserves serious consideration, and they are some of my favorite philosophers to read, their work hasn't had as great a historical impact on the world stage as these other major figures.
Ngunyan 9y ago
>Personally, if we're talking GIANTS among the Giants the list goes something like: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein. (I am of course, limiting myself to Western thought). I would drop Sartre and add Heidegger instead in that list. And I favor Suarez over Aquinas.
- voidhorse 9y ago
  That's a fair substitution. I like to give a nod to Sartre and existentialism mostly because it's one of the few philosophical positions that's both accessible to those less familiar with philosophy as a whole, and as such it's had significant impact other cultural domains as well--though you are right, if our concern here is providing a list of those thinkers who made the most significant impacts to the field internally Heidegger is a much more important figure than Sartre (Nazism aside) and his thinking has spawned far more work and extensions than existentialism (as far as I know about anyway).