Your five least favorite philosophers

[Bono]

Did any of you ever bothered to read the recent literature on the Ontological Argument, especially regarding Alvin Plantinga's modal version?

And Gully, if you don't count Ayn Rand as a philosopher, then you shouldn't count any other 20th century continental philosopher.

[Bono]

Here's my list BTW:
Plato
Nietzche
Hegel
Sartre
Rawls

I could add pretty much every 20th century continental philosopher, but I have to pick 5.
Thank God for Wittgenstein and Moore.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Did any of you ever bothered to read the recent literature on the Ontological Argument, especially regarding Alvin Plantinga's modal version?

And Gully, if you don't count Ayn Rand as a philosopher, then you shouldn't count any other 20th century continental philosopher.

How so? Rand was a bad novelist for all I can see (okay, I admit I was being presumptious - I actually haven't read her philosophical works, but there is nothing that interests me in them), while I certainly take Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault seriously.. just that they are wrong or too obscure on many things (or I don't share their complete rejection of metaphysics), also phenomenology interest me, though I have yet to take a dive in at the literature yet. It is one of the things I have been long meaning to do...

I admit I'm ignorant on recent literature on the Ontological argument.

[Associate Justice PiT]

What exactly is the problem with Nietzsche?

I don't particularly have a "least favorite", it's interesting to read their work. If I had to go with one I disagree most with, I might pick Hobbes. I'd go with Rand, but she wasn't a philosopher.

Most people get the Nietzsche they've heard about and the Nietzsche that actually existed confused.

You're almost correct: Most people have never even bothered to realize that there is a Nietzsche that actually existed.

     Yep. The connection that many people infer between him & the Nazis is especially humorous when you realize that except for his bizarre hatred of democracy & women, he was to the left of the left when it came to social issues (or it was likely that he was; he wasn't that much of a political writer).

... and if you read those bits more clearly you realize that he wasn't being 100% serious either (or rather that it was his 'perspective' not truth).

Btw PiT, I'm currently reading The Meditations for college, why Descartes (on this list)?

     There are too many philosophers that I kind of like, kind of dislike & too many that I don't know about to be able to come up with five that I really can't stand.

     Descartes was largely because of the sheer silliness of his ontological proof of God, as well as his statement of "I think therefore I am," which was later attacked by Lichtenburg. I'm probably not familiar enough with other things that Descartes did, though.

Ah yes. Though Descartes didn't invent the Ontological argument (that would be St. Anselm of Canterbury), but the argument was indeed silly and circular.

     Not to mention it was founded on the bizarre notion of there being "degrees of perfection" or of existence being more perfect than non-existence (how would one even begin to compare existence & non-existence in terms of "perfection?").

I just finished reading this an hour ago so it is fresh in my mind but all I can say is that I think in general it is a scholastic inheritance: must of his ideas about 'causes' seem to come from Aristotle despite his dislike of him (or it could just be that Descartes felt he needed God as to avoid accusations of atheism  - I'm not too sure of this myself though I have heard it before but he seems to rely an awful lot on God for his thesis.)

     The overreliance on God is also the reason that I put Berkeley on the list. While I think idealism definitely has its merits, Berkeley argues a reductio ad absurdum, ultimately requiring the existence of God for his argument to actually make sense.

Ah, but remember Berkeley was a bishop in the 18th Century Church of Ireland: Be greatful he wasn't like Bishop Ussher and claiming that the world began in October 4004BC or that the pope was "that man of sin" foretold in revelation (as long running CoI theology/pronouncements would have it).

     Indeed. Ideally though, he would have not been a bishop in the Church of Ireland.

[Earth]

And Gully, if you don't count Ayn Rand as a philosopher, then you shouldn't count any other 20th century continental philosopher.

What makes you think she even got close to analytical philosophy to compare her with them? Ayn Rand's thought is ideology with a mask of rigor.

[Bono]

And Gully, if you don't count Ayn Rand as a philosopher, then you shouldn't count any other 20th century continental philosopher.

What makes you think she even got close to analytical philosophy to compare her with them? Ayn Rand's thought is ideology with a mask of rigor.

Oh I don't think she's close at all. She's about on the level of continental philosophers, whose philosophy is also ideology with a mask of rigor.

Though even analytical philosophers can suffer from this occasionally, view Rawls.

[Eraserhead]

Thomas Hobbes
Edmund Burke
Ayn Rand
Leo Strauss

The last spot could be filled by one of any number of people.

[Earth]

And Gully, if you don't count Ayn Rand as a philosopher, then you shouldn't count any other 20th century continental philosopher.

What makes you think she even got close to analytical philosophy to compare her with them? Ayn Rand's thought is ideology with a mask of rigor.

Oh I don't think she's close at all. She's about on the level of continental philosophers, whose philosophy is also ideology with a mask of rigor.

Though even analytical philosophers can suffer from this occasionally, view Rawls.

Who exactly are we talking about in regards to ideology?

In Rawls' defense, he's nowhere near as hardline as Rand was.