re: top ten philosophers of all time

found through old wizard is this list of the top ten philosophers of all time. *drumroll please*

10. Rousseau
9. Hume
8. Hegel
7. Heidegger
6. Kierkegaard
5. Kant
4. Descartes
3. Nietzsche
2. Husserl
1. Plato/Socrates

is it just me, or is this list heavily biased towards the continent? it's not that the continental tradition hasn't added somethin to philosophy, but there are some names in there that, although somewhat important, have had their thoughts culminated in the philosophies of others on the list. Say kierkegaard, his thoughts could be expressed mostly by heidegger. same for husserl. Roussaeu was barely a philosopher, more of a political-and-economical theorist in the style of marx. i imagine hegel to be important, so i'd keep him in. nietzsche, on the other hand, was also culminated in heiddeger. and nietzsche was more of a self-help writer anyway. so i'd strike out Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Hursserl, and Nietzsche.

in their places, which would i put in? i'd definitely include wittgenstein, for one. also aristotle. those two for sure. but who else? i'd be inclined to include peirce, probably as a result of my heavy bias in favor of him. but i figure russell might deserve to be in there, also kripke, or even quine, or locke. possibly hobbes or marx. rawls. even sartre. maybe frege, or even foucault. anyway, here's my list.

15. Chomsky

a little out of left field, i know, but his philosophical underpinnings for his linguistics work, combined with his political commentary based in philosophical justifications for a communist anarchism, make him the most cited person alive. he will be read for a long time.

14. Quine

scientistic through and through. his radical empiricism reminds one of hume, but his logical tools and his subject choice of language distinguish him and establish his importance. tried to dissolve the analytic/synthetic distinction.

13. Kripke

an essentialist in the spirit of aristotle, he provided much of the logical structure of modal talk, and his kripke semantics for modal semantics, combined with his influential view of proper names, make him among the best.

12. Peirce

charles peirce, modicum of clear thought, founder of the american school of pragmatism. along with frege invented mathematical logic as we know it today, along with the logic of relations.

11. Russell

wanted to establish the logical basis of mathematics but filed. nevertheless, his political philosophy, his philoophy of language, and his philosophy of mathematics make him virtually unavoidable in philosophy.

10. Sartre

one of the major thinkers in the existentialist schoo l yet wrote a bit more clearly than the rest of them. his interestes were wide and influential, including "meaning", "existence", and various issues in the mind.

9. Frege

revolutionized basic deductive logic and ultimately began the analytic tradition, the "linguistic turn".

8. Hegel

idealist extraordinaire, pretty much started the continental tradition. notorious for being very difficult to read. ontology reserved for ideas.

7. Wittgenstein

i'm pretty sure i should have included wittgenstein twice here, once for the tractatus and once for the investigations. either way, both times he set out to prove that he didn't solve philosophy, he dissolved philosophy. the first, by saying that all philosophical pseudo-problems could be gotten ride of by rigorous logical analysis. the other time by realizing that there are no essences behind words, just uses. very, very influential.

6. Heidegger

extremely rigorous analysis of ontology. i couldn't read him when i tried. but he took ideas from nietzsche, schopenhaur, etc.

5. Kant

one of the first to synthesize the rationalist and empiricist schools. made epistemology respectable. ethics were also highly influential.

4. Hume

very precise philosopher, for the most part. also one of the last great and true skeptics. empiricist to the extreme, made us question our own rationality.

3. Aristotle

hugely influential on all respects. his theory of predicates took the idea from his famous teacher, but made it less creepy. anyway, there are threads of this guy in every other philosopher (except #1 maybe)

2. Descartes

cogito ergo sum

1. Plato/Socrates

the guys who really started it all. forms, justice, love, examined lives, and all that. no need to justify this one, really.

whaatchathiink?