The greatest Philosopher

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I'll second that and also add Alan Watts who had an influence on Wilson.

Bertrand Russell

Quine

Daniel Dennett

all philosophers will eventually be randomly distributed atoms in future stars anyway, so i do not care what they say.

1. I am Sinistar

Marx? You mean Groucho, yes? Karl was so wrong it is pathetic.

ruveyn

Groucho taught me much of what I know today

Really? I'm assuming you are familiar enough with the tenets of Marxism as to fully elucidate me on what he was wrong about and to provide concrete examples?

Yes I am. It is pseudo scientific BS and philosophic muddle. two parts Hegel, three parts illogical nonsense. The dialectic is crap and it always has been. The world, both human and non-human is governed by the laws of physics and buszhwah logic.
If you want to see a Marxian revolution carried out to its "logical" conclusion, look at North Korea. Marxism in action.

Fact: there has been no workers revolution. Why not? Marx predicted it and it did not happen. The sure sign of a bad theory is that the predictions are wrong.

Real scientific theories are judged primarily by the accuracy of their predictions. By that standard, Karl Marx is a looser without a mazoozer.

ruveyn

Marx's historocist approach and the conclusions he made from it may well be
wrong, but he still has a lot going for him. He was a highly competent and
original observer of the status quo of his time. he was making plenty of
original and insightful criticisms, may of which still stand today.

maybe I should wait for your blood sugar level to drop



errr, no, North Korea was established effectively by UN fiat. They handed it over to the USSR and the Stalinists to run after Japan surrendered - how can you refute a 'Marxian' revolution by choosing a country that hasn't had a revolution?



aaah, you're a Popperian, right? Yeah, so far as I'm aware Feyrebrand kinda wiped the floor with him, amongst others. Well there have been a couple, the Europe wide revolutions around 1848 (the failure of which led to the Marx and Engels developing the theory of Permanent Revolution), the Paris Commune in 1871 also(i've gotten that date wrong on here before, doh!), the October revolution, the Hungarian in 1918 and the German in 1918 - we're also very good at explaining why each failed....using Marxism!



are you speaking of falsifiability (Popperian standards) again? I point you in the direction of Paul Feyrebrand's Against Method in that case

If they succeeded Marxism would be good at explaining that too.
Marxism is never wrong. That's the problem.

Unfalsifiability is the first mark of uttermost balderdash.

ruveyn

errr, no, it has been wrong in the past - it was then modified in light of experience - hence my reference to the theory of permanent revolution which the Stalinists argued vociferously against. This has been proven correct in China in the 1920's, then in 1949, in Cuba, in Chile before this was interrupted by the CIA, in Venezuala today and will be proven by Iran if the Iranian workers can beat the clerics.



quick and easy refutation - when Galileo argued that the earth moved around the sun the church falsified this with the 'tower argument', they were in fact acting with greater fidelity to reason than Galileo was and had falsified Copernican Theory - it was only with the emergence of new theories and developments, however, that Galileo and Copernican Theory was proven correct and the Aristotlean conception proven incorrect. This is not to say Marxism cannot be refuted, simply that Popperian Falsifiability is not a means by which to advance the human understanding of the world around them (*edit: us!). I can't remember for the hell of me where now but I have read somewhere that Poppers own method doesn't stand up to the test of falsifiability - however I can't find the bugger now.

Popper's method doesn't need to stand up to it's own test in the same
way that the Scientific Method doesn't need to be proven via the
Scientific Method or Occam's Razor to Occam's Razor. They are meta-
theories to be applied to theories, not applied to meta-theories.

Besides, if you think Marxism has been wrong in the past, that would
mean that it is falsifiable, so why argue against falsifiability as if
you think that it is incompatible with Marxism?

dude, I said I read something somewhere that i can't find now.



no, readjustment or modification is a fundamental part of any scientific practice. My aim is to reject falsification both on its own terms and as a method.

..."dude"?


Anyway, your example of Galileo and the tower argument:

Galileo was shown to be incomparable with the knowledge of physics at the time. However, that
does not necessarily constitute a falsification of Galileo; it's a falsification of either Galileo
or the knowledge of physics at the time.
If you start as a geocentrist, it falsifies Galileo; if you start as a heliocentrist, it falsifies the
knowledge of physics at the time.

Come to think of it, it's interesting that you mention Galileo and geocentricism. Geocentricism
may have benefited from a little consideration of it's falsifiability. Geocentricism was constantly
being modified by the addition of extra epicycles and sub epicycles to try and explain the path
of the planets. Every time a more accurate telescope came along, a new set of epicycles was
added. It became a theory that could never be proved wrong because even if Jupiter shot
across the sky and did loops like some UFO, it could still be explained by adding more epicycles
to the path it was taking around the Earth. It became unfalsifiable; a theory that can explain
any and all data presented to it.
In the same way, Marxism doesn't explain the political history the world has had, it explains
any political history.


ed: BTW, whilst he undoubtedly was one, I'm not sure Marx would like you listing him as a great philosopher.

Ok, fine, I'll post some minds.

Nietzsche, William James, Hume, Kuhn, Stirner, Dennett(ok, Master Pedant, I was thinking against the matter but your affirmation of Dennett changed my mind on the matter, as I really do like Dennett).

So, 6 people. Maybe I should cut the numbers down, and if I cut them down to 1 mind, I would just pick Nietzsche, but I think the others are good.