Philosopher you would most like to have a beer with

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: Philosopher you would most like to have a beer with

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Suppose you don't drink?

--bkl

[BurtWorm]

4. Profound question...

:toast:

(Pretend it's water.)

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Maybe we could drink soda

... and then postulate that it's beer.

Yeah.

--bkl

[ronzo]

26. Who's the weirdest existentialist?

That'd be the one. The wife says Sartre....


edit:
seriously... I was in business school....

[BurtWorm]

2. I know someone's going to yell at me for not putting Nietzsche in there

so I'm taking Spinoza out and replacing him with Nietsche. Sorry Spinoza fans!

[villager]

3. but I just voted for Spinoza!

Now who will I drink with?

[BurtWorm]

5. Pretend Nietzsche is Spinoza.

Maybe some Nietzsche person will vote other for you?

PS: Now I know why I didn't want Nietzsche on the list. I always forget the z.

[Snow]

58. Besides, I don't think Spinoza was much of a drinker.....

[JVS]

6. Socrates, so I can find out of Plato faked the dialogues.

I can see it now, "I never said any of that shit! Plato is just pulling it out of his ass."

[BurtWorm]

9. My problem with drinking with Socrates

is you'd never be able to say anything without having it questioned.

"How 'bout those Mets, eh, Socrates?"

"How 'bout them?"

[JVS]

13. Actually, according to the rules of dialogue, that would be forbidden.

The person being questioned is obligated to answer each question as breifly and truthfully as possible. Questioning of the questioner is only allowed to ask for a clarification of the original question.

[Rooktoven]

7. Why do I think this was done with Monty Python in mind ;-) ?

o/~

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable
Heidecker, heidecker was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table
David Hume could outconsume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
and Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel...

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

42. And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart

I drink, therefor I am!

[Throckmorton]

43. Socrates himself is particularly missed,

A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

[mac56]

50. There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist

Socrates himself was permanently pissed...

[TXlib]

8. Don't drink anything with Socrates

[BurtWorm]

11. At least be sure you're the one pouring the drinks.

Good point.

[TXlib]

10. There's nothing Nietsche couldn't teach ya

'bout the raisin' of the wrist...

[BurtWorm]

12. Socrates himself was permanently pissed...

Right, Bruce?

[JVS]

15. Don't drink with him. As some point you'll get drunk, hit the brothels...

and get clap.

[TacticalPeek]

16. Gorgias.

His main points in his essay "On Nature" are:

* Nothing Exists
* If anything does exist, it is unknowable
* If anything can be known, knowledge of it is incommunicable


http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery/rhetoric/figures/gorgias.html


And was Heraclitus in the poll earlier, and it changed?

:)

[JVS]

17. Sophists would be good for getting into barfights.

You gotta love them.

[lpbk2713]

18. Other ..............

...... George Carlin.

[pocoloco]

19. Eric Hoffer

[pasadenaboy]

20. Kierkegaard

no one more interesting in my opinon.

[JVS]

21. Where is Schopenhauer?

[BurtWorm]

22. Under the table.

I just realized the guy I wish was on there who isn't is Epicurus. I would have voted for him.

[JVS]

24. Did he go on a crying jag before passing out? Ranting about how much...

life sucks?

[paradisiac]

34. yeah he got grumpy

later in life. I'll drink with the younger Shopie. :)

"Nature has done more than is necessary to isolate my heart, in that she endowed it with suspicion, sensitiveness, vehemence and pride."
--Arthur Schopenhauer; Manuscript Remains, vol. 4

[legin]

23. Difficult question this one

Nietzsche i always imagine in a classroom context, possibly too intense and brillient after you have had about 5 pints of beer.

Socrates no problem, good solid drinking partner.

But for a thoughly disreputable night out, where you come down in the morning and find a whole load of traffic cones in your sitting room, that would have to be Diogenes.

I'll vote Socrates though seeing as its on there.

[TreasonousBastard]

25. I suppose Socrates would rather have a beer...

if he knew what beer was.

But, how would we know?

No room for Sartre, eh? Or Barth, Augustine, or Confucious.

Could Siddhartha and Mohammed be considered philosophers in terms of the question? Why not, if you got Wittgenstein in there?

I'd like to sit down and toss back a few with all of them-- love to hear firsthand what Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Kirkegaard would think about what's going on now. Voltaire would be a pisser. Think of him on talk radio. Gotcher talent on loan from God right there. Then there's Hannity and More? Augustine and Falwell? Aristotle Country? Would the Pope have a beer with Aquinas?

But, I digress...

Given only one, I want to hear what Socrates thinks about these times. Would he still whisper "philosopher king" into Plato's ear?

Would he look around and have a beer, or still grab the other cup?

[MSchreader]

27. Marx

He was a real party animal when he was drunk. He and Engels used to get pissed and shoot out streetlights in London.

My kind of guy! :evilgrin:

Martin

[JVS]

28. Liked good beer and wine too. Lotsa fun

[JohnKleeb]

31. Krazy Karl Marx and Funky Frederick Engels

heh my nicknames for them kind of jokingly but yeah I wouldnt mind having a beer with Marx and I cant believe why he wasnt on the poll originally.

[jobycom]

29. Plato, it's all Plato, the rest are just pretending to know him

Of course we don't know who Plato was ripping off.

Why no Lao Tze? Confucious? Winnie the Pooh?

[BurtWorm]

30. Why no Professor Irwin Corey, for that matter?

[TacticalPeek]

59. That's presuming Plato.

And reification, to boot.

:)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

32. Sartre

We could :beer: till we :puke:

[MissMillie]

49. He gets my vote too

but I have no desire to :puke:

[Raenelle]

57. Jean Paul here also, especially if he was accompanied by

de Beauvoir.

[ArmchairActivist]

33. I'm not sure about a beer with any of those fossils...

... but a doob with Henry David Thoreau might suit me... :evilgrin:

-AA

[stickdog]

35. Democritus (nt)

[psychopomp]

36. Jurgen Haabermas

I think he may be easier to understand once we both have a few.

[Dirk39]

61. He's easier to understand than every other philospher...

but he's not worth it. How many beers would you need to understand Adorno? Although Jürgen has just one A. as in Jürgen Habermas?
Dirk from Germany

[dbt]

37. Two Words:

Mark Twain!

:beer:
dbt

[alphafemale]

39. I'm with you!

Imagine the stories he'd spin half-lit!

[Mari333]

38. Dorothy Parker

geesh I dont see any women on there.

[Richardo]

47. i'm with you, Mari333

She's one of my favorites...and would probably drink me under the table.

[trigz]

40. Socrates! Diamond geezer! (nt)

[Guaranteed]

41. Nietzche? Dude had worms in his brain.

Kant's the most important philosopher since Aristotle and Plato. He brought it all back round to reality, full circle. And his system of ethics is as close to correct as anyone could possibly be (with some minor adjustments by those who came after him).

[noonwitch]

44. Bertrand Russell was cool. I'd like to drown Nietzche in his beer

Sexist pig. He probably wouldn't even want to talk to me, since being just a reflection of the men that I've known in my life, I have no real intellectual worth of my own. But Charles Manson would want to talk to him.

[felonious thunk]

45. Machiavelli

It would be a fascinating conversation. Find out if he really was a calculating evil bastard, or if he just recognized that people could be controlled by calculating evil bastards. It's a horrible concept, but no one can deny the influence of The Prince over the centuries.

[THUNDER HANDS]

46. Who's paying for the beer?

If they're paying, I'll sit with anyone.

:)

[markses]

48. Gilles Deleuze

But instead of a beer in a bar, it would have to be mescaline on the edge of a crowded desert city, with a sandstorm blowing up, sliding over the full body of the earth, and carrying a distant techno bass thump: the beat is rhizomatic this beat is rhizomatic this beat is rhizomatic this beat is rhizomatic, while birds swoop down in formation, hitting the cobble stones and cracking their bones to become embryonic tortoises, and Deleuze calls out the ghost of poor Spinoza, smothered in molecular glass shards:

We STILL don't know what a motherfucking body can do! :-)

[Dirk39]

60. mescaline? wasn'T his famous drug...

water?
Dirk

[jonnyblitz]

51. michel foucault n/t

[markses]

53. "Do not ask who I am

and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order; at least spare us their morality when we write." - Michel Foucault, "The Archaeology of Knowledge"

[SOteric]

52. I voted for Kant, but

it's perhaps worth noting that I'd also enjoy the opportunity to sit down with Kierkegaard over a couple of beers and sort out his perspective on women.

[Seneca]

54. my namesake

Then we could discuss how to overthrow Bush.

Of course, Seneca is metaphorical for me the way Nero is for Bush. Seneca was exiled for plotting to overthrow Nero.

I wouldn't mind exile at times, especially if it meant a one-way ticket to Canada.

But I'd rather fight than switch, as they say. :-)

I will skip the part where Seneca poisons himself in the end, Socrates-style. One does have to be stoic to endure these times.

[KittyWampus]

62. A Fellow Stoic!

Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how
to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers. - Seneca


It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult- Seneca

[Character Assassin]

55. Heraclitus, perhaps.

[Faygo Kid]

56. John Marshall

Don't think he was a philosopher? Think again, and look at the record of his interpretation of the Constitution and judicial review in light of the human condition and philosophies of self government. Threw great parties; a regular bon vivant and known as good company. Would love to have sat down over a beer with him.

[Droopy]

63. Rene Descartes

Maybe he could help me out with my philosophy homework by putting it into plain language what he was talking about. His stuff is real hard to understand.

[qwertyMike]

64. Bertrand Russell

[CanuckAmok]

65. Emma Goldman, I think. n/t

[Ilsa]

66. I'd like to ask Jesus Christ

if he thinks his church is too far gone for reformation.

[cosmicdot]

67. Epicures and Henry David Thoreau

just to add 2 others to the thread

[Kat45]

68. Frank Zappa n/t

[TrogL]

69. Wittgenstein

There's a few things I don't think should be passed over in silence.