Philosophical Schools of Thought and Books That Most Influenced You?

[Ederico]

Use this thread to mention your most influential philosopher and their respective beliefs. I have not read much about Philosophy so I won't mention anything myself. I acquired a book called "The Story Of Philosophy" by Will Durant, once I get reading it I'll post those philosophers whose thoughts most match mine or attract me to them.

[OnionPeeler]

Durant's book is a good one. Another is "From Socrates to Sartre: the Philosophic Quest ($9 US, Bantom Books) by T.Z. Lavine. Her left-wing politics weigh on portions of the book with her emphasis of Hume, Hegel and Marx but she presents the basic questions of philosophy in clear terms without the usual mumbo-jumbo.

Another, more extensive treatment, is "The Columbia History of Western Philosophy." Not all the contributors keep it simple so a dictionary of philosophy is good have along with this book.

A website with alot of good info is http://www.friesian.org

As for my tastes, I like Francis Bacon for his practicality in the face of extremism in philosophy. His first paragraph in Novum Organum sums up my feelings on the West's obsession with epistemology.

Of course, the enigmatic Nietzsche is always a love/hate topic for WN's. Nihilist on one end destroying ethical systems even while he creates his own 'system'

[Ederico]

I like the Will Durant book, I read the part on Nietzsche, I found it quite interesting.

What is epistemology?

[Calm Rain]

Originally posted by Nazzjonalista
I like the Will Durant book, I read the part on Nietzsche, I found it quite interesting.

What is epistemology?

Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge.

Simply..how do you know..what you know?

How do you know, I am not just a dream or that the sun will rise tommorrow.

Is truth obtained only by the senses.

Are the five senses reliable.

Descartes, of course started with the premise..doubt everything..and finally came to the famous phrase....I think, therefore I am...for that was one truth which he could not doubt.

From there he started upward...

Of course that then leads to the ultimate question is reality subjective or objectivce. Is there an absolute truth.

A priori....1 plus 1 equals 2.

If none of us were here..that formula would be true.

So yes, there such a thing as absolute truth.

Epistemology is a tricky subject, but a fun one too.

[shambler]

I am personally quite fond of Stoic philosophy. I'd recommend the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius highly, as well as the Golden Sayings of Epictetus.

Sadly, their writing is particularly poignant today, because both men were trying to live moral and upright lives in a world that was beginning to come apart, a world that was beset by threats from without and rot from within, the late Roman Empire.

Sound like any world you might know?

Even if you don't agree with all their ideas -- and I certainly don't -- their works are excellent. Like many of the other writers from ancient to late Classical period, neither makes any great division between religion and philosophy. This, candidly, put me off a bit to them at first.

shambler

[Ederico]

What are the basic beliefs in Stoic Philosophy, and is Epicurianism its opposite?

All these terms confuse me.:eek:

[shambler]

Originally posted by Nazzjonalista
What are the basic beliefs in Stoic Philosophy, and is Epicurianism its opposite?

All these terms confuse me.:eek:

This might be a bit overwhelming, but it does a good job explaining Stoic doctrine and thought. Personally, I think if you skip down to the section on Ethics, you'll get most of what you need to know. Like a lot of Ancients the Stoics had a great many silly ideas about the creation and function of the universe. This guy seems to what to detail each and every one, as well as throw in a ton of obscure political references.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/

What he also seems to try to skip past is the fact that some Stoic doctrines were seriously modified from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius, or at least a large shift in focus occurred. It is not a particularly unitary (if that's the correct term) system.

I hesitate to give the Catholic view on both schools, but the Stoic entry is short, sweet and well organized, and it actually HAS an entry on Epicureanism (not nearly as common on the Web), that is also not a gigabyte of useless babble, with what you really need to know buried inside it.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14299a.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05500b.htm

I hesitate not really b/c I was raised Catholic, simply that from about 150 CE to about 250 CE Christianity as a moral system was in direct conflict with Stoicism as a moral system. And, we all know who lost. Some variant of Mithraism was also common in the Roman Army of the late Empire, but I don't think it really had much in the way of a moral system. Mithraism was conqured by force of arms. Then the remnants of Stoic, Epicurean, and other miscellaneous philosophies/religions were slowly suffocated and finally the last followers were brutally supressed in 429 CE, which the Catholic encylopedia only refers to as the "closing of the schools." My point? Just be mindful there's some propaganda lurking in there.

Neo-platonism was another doctrine floating around, about the same time as stoicism and epicureanism flourished. Killed off at the same time, too. Some very odd beliefs, not really "Platonic" in my book at all, but there you have it.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10742b.htm

[Moody]

1
I would begin, predictably, with the Presocratics. Most especially with the Presocratic HERACLITUS.
His aristocratic philosophy of flux is the ancestor of fascist thought.

2
Next up I place MACHIAVELLI, mainly for his book The Prince. This is the expression of a Master Morality in political philosophy, totally opposed to all the liberal/libertarian stuff.

3
NIETZSCHE must be mentioned for re-activating the Aryan out-look, and for carrying on the work of the two above-named philosophers.

4
Nietzsche intended to begin a philosophy of world-history but did not live to take up the project. Therefore it fell to SPENGLER to make this task. His Decline of the West is a master-work which must be read closely by all those who consider themselves to be of the 'West'.

5
YOCKEY'S work brings forward all of the above in his 'Imperium' [written under the pen-name of Ulick Varange], and makes it all relevant for Racial Nationalists.

[Ederico]

Who is the Philosopher or Philosophers that mostly influence you and for what reasons?

[Jack]

Ok... First the names and then the ideas I've got off each of them.

Plato - military service as prerequisite for political citizenship
Julius Evola - Traditionalism
Nietzsche - Self overcoming, Übermensch
Franics Parker Yockey - European Imperium, Culture theory
Alexander Dugin - National Bolshevism, anti-"American" Eurasianism, Lyapunov Time
Ayn Rand - Psychology of values (I don't believe in rights though)
Lenin - Vanguard of the Revolution theory
Oswald Spenger - (indirectly) understanding of Cultures, Faustian civilization of the West
Ernst Jünger - Total Mobilization, the idea of the Anarch (the sovereign individual - an extension/evolution of the Übermensch ideal)
Georges Sorel - Syndicalism (aka "Neo Marxism - note syndicalism isn't the same as cultural marxism - Syndicalism is a modified version of the political structure of Marxist economics, without the economic determinism)
Adolf Hitler - Imperial Socialism (Yockey's interpretation of the economics combined with the politics)
Dostoyevsky - Man as irrational being determined to preserve his individuality against all conformist political systems.

There's more, but I can't remember them...