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Which Philosopher Do You Dislike the Most?

Riva

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I'm sorry. Have you read his rational for dualism? It's ridiculous. You just have to. well. do about ANYTHING to a person to make dualism dubious. It's like 'are you hungry? How does that make you feel? GOT YOU DESCARTES! YOU SUCKS'

ok I'm grossly simplifying but going through his philosophy in details about a decade ago I remember rolling my eyes so much people around me started getting offended.
His LOGIC is good, but he cherry picks and creates a little system he likes. then he says this system is 'reality'. It's not. Anyone can make up an imaginary situation and say that it's how the world works. The thing is his arguments when looked at from 'outside' with some skepticism tend to show so many flaws it's crazy.
He's a great mathematician. Issue is the world is not mathematics, you can't just make up stuff, get your conclusion and call it truth.

The reason why I dislike him as a philosopher is especially because he wrote so much on epistemiology etc. Yet, to me, had such a small 'scope'. It's like a very clever blind man describing trying to describe a painting without touching it.

I haven't read Descarte's work.

Someone once said when people were attempting to type him and more people were typing him a INTJ that he is probably a Ti user because his philosophy had a tendency to assume that if the sentence made sense (or the word) that it was probably what it accurate. Something like if it sounds logical enough it must be probably true. He said it in a very consise condescending manner. I couldn't stop myself from laughing.
 

Forever_Jung

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I think it's weird everyone hates Plato, because he's supposedly the most important Western Philosopher ever. Alfred North Whitehead once famously said European philosophy was a series of footnotes to Plato, or something like that. I guess just because someone matters, doesn't mean you have to like them though.

I hate Heidegger, but it's mostly a knee-jerk reaction. I find him really hard to understand, and I don't imagine he's worth it anyway. I feel that way about a lot of the old-timey German guys. I like Nietzsche a lot, but he was a bit bombastic. It's also funny to see how philosophers, these brilliant people who seem to think they're the only ones who know what's up, were miserable, arrogant hypocrites who failed in love and life. And yet I can't help but admire them! They remind me of like super-brainy stand-up comedians, in that respect.

As for Descartes, it seems like everything he contributed just muddied the waters.
 

citizen cane

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I'm not an expert philosopher by any means, but I'm not exactly a fan of Kant.
 

Proctor

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Schopenhauer. It's no so much his work (though I'm not a fan) and more how one of my most visited websites seem to be obsessed with him. Just about every second article seems to link back to him. The website is focused on the philosophical interpretation of comic books. And a lot of protagonists in comics do have some sort of will to power struggle so I can understand why he keeps coming up, but it's getting really tired.
 

EcK

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I haven't read Descarte's work.

Someone once said when people were attempting to type him and more people were typing him a INTJ that he is probably a Ti user because his philosophy had a tendency to assume that if the sentence made sense (or the word) that it was probably what it accurate. Something like if it sounds logical enough it must be probably true. He said it in a very consise condescending manner. I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

Also people are so impressed with his whole "i think therefore I am'

COME ON.
I forgot the latin name for that but it's like saying I am alive on earth, therefore the universe has life in it.
We are alive on earth, therefore the universe can support life.

WOW. Brilliant insight man. Let's make thought experiments about a brain in a jar to show how brilliant it is.
As I was reading it my mind was going WTF every 5 minutes. They were 'nice' thought experiments but struck me as utterly pointless in what they were trying to demonstrate and ultimately easily falsifiable.

Of COURSE you have to have some kind of observer to state a fact. So he stated that his 'mind' was the observer and the rest of the world is falsifiable. By the same account I could state my mind is the observer and all he says is flying spagetti monster domain.
It's of course unfair to judge the guy based on current world knowledge, my point is that, while i understand what he was trying to do I expect that he at some level realized that by pushing his logic one step forward his whole argument would become meaningless as you could doubt and breakdown his argument about 'cogito ergo sum' using his own logic. So he made up a story about how the mind was 'special' hence it was under 'speshial rool' and therefore his whole shitty argument made sense instead of just realizing that there was no perfect answer to his questions and that his search for the perfect epistemological method was ultimately imperfect, as any epistemiology is bound to be.

I dislike him because instead of realizing it he suddenly made up stuff that made NO SENSE WHAT SO EVER. People only agreed to it because it fit their own biases and delusions about dualism, all abrahamic religions pretty much presupposing dualism.
So he got himself lots of fanboys because he was this enlightened man of logic who explained 'logically' why all the morons believing fairy tails were right.
While the very thing that got him all the fanboys was the one thing that to people who actually read him and had some ability to think for themselves the sign of his ultimate failure to 'love thought' over the protection of his fragile ego. He is a man who preached understanding the roots of knowledge to all but rooted his whole philosophy on the lies he told himself.

That animals were machines, that the soul existed etc. All based not on his theory, but on preexisting beliefs his whole body of works has no inkling off. Putting an unrelated belief at the end of a logical argument is just, wrong. (Thus spoke Ti)

I frankly would have to read through it again and take note of every 'wtf, LOGIC-MYOPIA' moments to give you details.
I do agree with you that he did seem to think that if the idea was pretty it meant it was right. Again I dont recall the details so couldn't say. I'm mostly left with an overarching memory of blue-screens-of-Ne-Ti-death in my mind and people making funny faces hearing me mumble insults to myself while listening to it in audio format going about my business
 

EcK

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Schopenhauer. It's no so much his work (though I'm not a fan) and more how one of my most visited websites seem to be obsessed with him. Just about every second article seems to link back to him. The website is focused on the philosophical interpretation of comic books. And a lot of protagonists in comics do have some sort of will to power struggle so I can understand why he keeps coming up, but it's getting really tired.

Schopenhauer is about will to live which is not exactly the same as will to power. Though similar in many ways, by its very coinage will to power has different conotations. Also will to power, is solely about humans while will to live is about living creatures in general and can be tied to darwinian drives (eat, procreate). Will to power is more complex/human a term. (he later went on to call everything will to power but I think he just fell in love with the 'brand' and went overboard)

In the translation of the original german it's important to know that the word for power used is I think "macht' Which doesn't mean power as sheer force (speed+mass/muscles, weapons etc.) but as a desire for a form of sublimation of one's actions into something greater. Its the human striving for "ascendancy", going from say, mechanical type training on the piano to a real mastery of the craft for example would be an expression of Nietzschean Will to Power.
 

Jaguar

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Also people are so impressed with his whole "i think therefore I am'

COME ON.

That would be Provoker:

Provoker said:
The simplest proof I can conjour is as follows. I think. What thinks exists; for to doubt this is itself to think. Therefore, I exist.
Jaguar said:
If you want to paraphrase the words of Rene Descartes, at least give him credit in your post.

Provoker was INTJ. I think he may have considered Descartes INTJ, so he lapped up his words and spewed them out as his own.
 

EcK

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Provoker was INTJ. I think he may have considered Descartes INTJ, so he lapped up his words and spewed them out as his own.
Not familiar with the guy
Perhaps it was a homage? I mean he pretty much quoted descartes. When I was younger I've often found myself coming to the same conclusions as scientists and philosophers on my own, though usually when that happens it doesn't look like im quoting someone.

Its interesting, when someone quotes someone else it is kind of apparent, their voice and posture slightly changes. etc.

See my issue with descartes is that he says this kind of things, and I think 'ok fair enough' I mean you can give counter arguments to anything right, and as far as this goes the argument is coherent.

And then he goes on to say some horseshit like 'therefore souls exist and animals are all machines that react exactly like humans to pain and that's proof they are machines'

and I go like 'wait, WHAT? What the hell, where did this come from you fruitcake':dry::laugh:
 

Ursa

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I would say Rand, but the term "philosopher" elevates her work undeservedly.

Derrida.
 

erm

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See my issue with descartes is that he says this kind of things, and I think 'ok fair enough' I mean you can give counter arguments to anything right, and as far as this goes the argument is coherent.

And then he goes on to say some horseshit like 'therefore souls exist and animals are all machines that react exactly like humans to pain and that's proof they are machines'

and I go like 'wait, WHAT? What the hell, where did this come from you fruitcake':dry::laugh:

There's a conspiracy theory that he only said the latter stuff to avoid angering the church, knowing that the former stuff would be enough of a seed to do what it did to the early modern philosophy that followed.

That's probably giving him too much credit (not that he doesn't deserve loads of credit, he can quite easily be attributed with starting modern philosophy and science as we know it, shaping the minds of everyone on this forum pretty drastically).
 

EcK

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There's a conspiracy theory that he only said the latter stuff to avoid angering the church, knowing that the former stuff would be enough of a seed to do what it did to the early modern philosophy that followed.

That's probably giving him too much credit (not that he doesn't deserve loads of credit, he can quite easily be attributed with starting modern philosophy and science as we know it, shaping the minds of everyone on this forum pretty drastically).

No. sorry. But alot of his ideas were pretty much around for thousands of years.
Yes i get what you mean in terms of methodology but I doubt that this claim would stand up to scrutiny. (ie: the mirage that makes it look like people from long ago were geniuses until we find out that there were 60 other guys saying the same thing for the last 150 years and that guy just slightly improved on it or other factors came into play in making them famous and attributing the whole thing to them)
 

erm

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No. sorry. But alot of his ideas were pretty much around for thousands of years.
Yes i get what you mean in terms of methodology but I doubt that this claim would stand up to scrutiny. (ie: the mirage that makes it look like people from long ago were geniuses until we find out that there were 60 other guys saying the same thing for the last 150 years and that guy just slightly improved on it or other factors came into play in making them famous and attributing the whole thing to them)

There's the counter-mirage that looking for a similar idea being said is seeking confirmation rather than contradiction, i.e. you're always going to find 60 other guys saying the same thing due to randomness/complexity.

(and then a counter-counter and side-mirages etc.)
 
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