Best Philosopher of the 20th Century

Brian Weatherson has a rant on the above — especially the place of Russell.

“But what really throws me in these polls is the level of support for Russell. I’m always struck at the disconnect between how little Russell is cited these days compared to his famous contemporaries, such as Frege, Moore or Wittgenstein.”

It’s a good point and makes me reconsider Russell. However I wonder if cites is a good indicator of who is the greatest. I think Russell is important simply because of how he got a lot of conversations going but not necessarily because of his relevance today. As Weatherson later says, Russell was very influential but not relevant. So Weatherson has convinced me to replace Russell in my list.

BTW – it’s interesting how little love people like Dewey got. Perhaps because after WWII pragmatism pretty much dried up. When it returned in Rorty and Putnam it really was much more Wittgenstein than Dewey or the 19th century figures.

Lewis, Russell, and Rawls didn’t even make the Monty Python philosophers song. Wittgenstein and Heidegger did, so I put them #1, #2.

Rawls is probably the most widely read philosopher in academia due to his perceived political relevance. There is also a matter of temporal curriculum bias. I heard of Rawls, Russell, and Heidegger years before I so much as knew Davidson and Quine existed. Unless the poll is restricted to a quasi-professional in crowd, I suspect such factors affect the result far more than a fair evalutionof philosophical merit.

[The back arrow based return from the missing email address message doesn't work in IE, btw. I prefer Chrome but it doesn't deal well with MoMt and some other blogs text entry areas for whatever reason.]

Any poll where responders select themselves is only a reflection of the responders’ choices.

Around 2001 Daniel Fidel Ferrer wrote a paper where he compared citations in articles published in the XXth century, and Heidegger was the most cited XXth century philosopher.

Today on googlefight.com we find Martin Heidegger (304000) beats Ludwig Wittgenstein (171000).

Just the facts.

Yeah, I’m not surprised by that Enowning. However I suspect that may also reflect a different way of doing philosophy between Analytic and Continental philosophy. (One tends to take up major figures more than the other) But this to me is why comparing cites to Russell isn’t helpful either. I think there has to be an other figure there.

So while I think Wittgenstein is clearly first (and he kind of crosses the typical boundaries between Continental and Analytic philosophy) I’d put Heidegger as second. Since I was disabused of Russell being so high I’d probably put Quine as third.

Well, not simply to be a contrarian, you can enter my vote for Etienne Gilson and a close second for Jacques Maritain reserving as alway a vote for their great mentor Thomas Aquinas and of course his, Aristotle. They all approached the reality of objects just as I and everyone encounters them in the real world day to day. The greatest should be one who is right not just long winded. The best pithy comment from Gilson, “I do not say that Aquinas was right…I say that Qauinas is right.” The greatest problem for any philosopher is not to recognize Truth but to humbly bow to its necessity when he does find it.

I suspect this will lead to a bias due to the very different ways Analytic Philosophy and Continental Philosophy work. Continental Philosophy tends to engage the great texts very much whereas Analytic Philosophy is much more engaged with the problems themselves and thus biases towards more recent work.

As such it isn’t a good indicator towards how those with an analytic tendency view the great names.

It’s odd you don’t have Davidson, Quine, Fodor, Sellars or the like in your list at all.

What about the Indian greats like Aurobindo, Osho Rajaneesh, J Krishnamurti? Each one of them have produced volumes of philosophical literature.

Comparing the number of volumes translated into another language is not really a good measure of the importance of a philosopher, as much as how prolific he was. Wittgenstein was notoriously sparse in writing, and in addition to Heidegger’s prodigious output, his lecture series across several decades were all transcribed.

I think who is being translated is a good sign of the importance of a philosopher — since it takes lots of time and energy for a translator to translate philosophical writings. Lots of different languages shows the international impact. You would expect Heidegger to be studied in Germany and in German; but when he gets translated into Chinese, I think it shows that the publisher thinks there a market for that philosopher. Universal importance – not just a local or national person. In my earlier study, I noticed another issue in the Heidegger vs. Wittgenstein. Heidegger was cited in many areas outside of philosophy which is another indicator of universal impact. Wittgenstein wrote less (Dorfman, question: 5000 pages of notes) – therefore, also has less impact. Koli wrote amoung “certain circles” which includes international based on lots of translations into other languages and impact in other areas in than straight philosophy.
Therefore – greatest philosopher?
Greatest world wide impact?
Answer: Heidegger.
He was a member of the NS. He thought philosophy was only ontology.
He was against metaphysics. He like poets. Etc etc.
You may not like him. But we are not talking about who you like or dislike or if you like ice cream. How do we judge greatest for a philosopher? Look at their impact is one way. Writing Ph.D is one example too. What is your methodology for greatest?
Data vs. reasons?

Where are we at with the 5000 pages of notes by Wittgenstein?
How much has that been translated into English?