The In Our Time show on BBC Radio 4 in the UK is about to run a vote on the greatest philosopher. It seems they are still taking nominations until noon (UK time) tomorrow June 2nd, then the 20 names with the highest number of nominations go through to the vote proper with an academic putting the case for each of the 20...(Read more...)
I gather those 'celebrities' whose choices are shown are known in the UK. (And I thought celebrities in the US were silly... as usual, the Brits outdo Americans in yet another way.)
Widdecombe and Kennedy are politicians, most of the others are British journalists or tv/radio personalities. I thought that Will Self was known in the US?
Marcus, Granted I did seem to be making a blanket statement. I only spot checked a few. Charles Kennedy's statement I found particularly ludicrous, but I was mostly joking.
(By the way, you might not gather it from the form of my statement, but I was actually expressing my Anglo-philia. I love the UK!)
AYN RAND I've lived by many philosophies through my life, from Christianity, to post-modernism, to nihilism, and then finally discovering objectivism. I have created a goal for myself to live a long and happy life, and through my perception of reality and my use of reason I have been achieving it. My friends, colleges, and I have extreme gratitude towards Ayn's insights into how to live and our relationship with reality.
I said that Ayn Rand re-established the relationship between empirical evidence and reason, i.e, between the analytic and synthetic, i.e., between the external and internal worlds.
AYN RAND While Aristotle is the greatest known philosphical trailblazer throughout history--it was Ayn Rand who completed his project of the enshrinement of reason and its natural result: human happiness.
Well, at first, I was disappointed, of course, that Ayn Rand was not more prominent on the list, but, really, that would have been a contradiction. I mean, if Rand were popular in Europe, it would not be Europe, it would be America.
Michael! Stop swearing, Britain isn't part of Europe in that sense yet! (Philosophy) On the other hand I do not know anyone personally who has read Rand so I guess you are right.
Does anyone know how to get to the raw numbers for this poll? The hyperlinks (available at the link) only provide for a limited, perhaps edited (Rand-excluded!), summary of the "results" of all choices--about 20-40 results are shown; none of them included Rand.
If you're talking about the "summary" I think you are, then it does include one entry for Rand, from Joe Macare as discussed above.
As for the full figures, the next stage of the vote starts next week so perhaps they will be made available at that time.I'm assuming at least one edition of the actual In Our Time radio show will be given over to the philosopher stuff, so I guess the results could be discussed on air.
Well, as Christina has pointed out to me, Rand is not popular in Germany - too many want something for nothing, and/or to be taken care of as 'dependent persons'.....
