The other day I put up my Top 5 Philosophers. This was in addition to my Top 5 Desert Island Philosophers. Johnny-Dee included in his discussion the greatest philosophers with underdog position. Unfortunately he didn't really clarify what he meant by underdog too well. For instance he included Thomas Reid. However during his lifetime Reid was pretty prominent and his ideas very influential. I think most quickly realized that a naive realism was unworkable, but many still adopted his views in many ways. Indeed I think Reid an indispensable figure in Scottish philosophy in terms of influence.
I think I'll call the underdogs those philosophers whom everyone agrees are great philosophers, but whose actual positions seem adopted by few. So this is a different question from say, neglected philosophers. While Reid comes close, I think far there were far too many direct realists to call his an underdog position. So here's my list.
1. Berkeley This is the grand-daddy of all underdogs. I'll confess that I simply don't know the history of British empiricism and idealism enough to know if he was an underdog during his life. I suspect he was. However despite the fact no one that I know of really took his conclusions seriously, everyone seems to have taken his arguments seriously. Further the fact that he is still so talked about today shows just how prominent a figure he was. Pretty impressive for a figure whose ideas are almost universally rejected.
2. Russell The 20th century equivalent of Berkeley in that his papers are still often required reading, despite no one adopting his positions. Didn't everyone read "On Denoting" in their philosophy of language class, for instance? Occasionally his ideas will make a temporary comeback, like his bundle theory, only to get discarded again. For a figure everyone agrees as one of the greatest of the 20th century, it's quite impressive to have so little by way of a following.
3. Davidson Not quite as badly rejected as Russell, Indeed he is still enormously influential in certain ways. However how many people do you know of who adopt Davidson's positions? In the recent book Donald Davidson: Meaning, Truth, Language and Reality basically go through and argue that none of his arguments work. And those are his prime interpreters at the moment. (I should add I've not yet purchased the book, so my comments are largely based upon Gilbert Harman's comments on the book. But I honestly don't recall his positions being that widely adopted, Harman's attempts to show influence notwithstanding.
I could have listed others. But most of them were either more widely accepted in their lifetime or else simply weren't famous "great" philosophers. So I decided to stick with the three who really illustrate the underdog position for me.
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