My favorite people, all listed together.

I own everything written by all of them.

Add to that list the practical applicators of those ideals:
Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
Samuel Adams (no relation to the above or the beer)
James Madison

And some of the older chaps:
Plato
Socrates
Adam Smith

Hmmm... sounds good. I'm not a math person, so I figured it would be like you said. Thanks, I know what to take for sure now! lol


Heh... The polar extremes of right and left have more in common than everything close to the center. It's more like a circle than a line. If you start to equal out in the center, then you should be worried!

Just to clear up something with the forum: The Italians were Fascists. The Germans were National Socialists. Calling one the other is like going to Ireland and calling a Protestant Catholic or vice versa. It isn't very accurate and they probably wouldn't like it.

I think I an going to have to go with this answer. My sig demnands it.

So, I now realize that I only mentioned ~ 1/3 of my total philosophical views.

When it comes to all forms of the supernatural, I believe that (1) nature, as we understand it, has no mechanism for autogenesis, and so there must (have been) (be) some sort of supernatural, but (2) except for the very start of the universe, nothing must be ascribed to the supernatural, and so (3) the only thing I can reasonably say about the supernatural is that it is in its nature to create the universe.

Politically, I believe that no mentally healthy advlt is better able to decide for another mentally healthy advlt than that advlt could decide for him or her self. Liberty is paramount, but for liberty to be protected, power of all sorts must be restricted. Monarchies were essentially just family-owned real estate companies who heavily invested in military contractors, but they're more accurately described as anti-liberty governments. As such, we cannot simply allow private citizens to amass as much power as they wish. Unions are really important. It's in everyone's best interest to be nice to each other, and a rational selfish person would feed his starving neighbor.

Do you admire Machievelli, or the views he parodied? Either way, I respect your views and the fact that any source can be a source of genuine inspiration. Rock on.

The concept of Natural Law proposes that all people are naturally born in a completely free state (usually with the "endowed by their creator" tag). These completely free people then choose to surrender certain liberties in order to form societies. These surrendered liberties become powers of the governing entity. This leads us to two primary and conflicting sources of governmental authority:

Consent of the Governed - In which the collective surrendered rights bestow power on the government to administer the society that the participants have chosen to belong to.

Divine Right - In which the government assumes all power and delegates power to the people as rights as it sees fit. The "Divine" part is simply a hold-over from the era of emperor/king/pharaoh worship as well as the "God made me King, therefore you must listen to me" method of rule. It just as correctly applies to military dicators who put a gun in place of a god.

Most people nowadays disagree with divine right, and the question becomes "what should we consent to?" I've already given a vague description of my answer.

Seneca, Lucretius, Sartre (well, the more practical world view that's in his plays ), Camus, Diderot, Rousseau (at least for Le Contrat Social), Camus, Alain, Pratchett.

More of a "world-view from stories" here, really. Don't pick up much of the heavy stuff.

You can't honestly expect to declare your support for one of the most destructive, failed ideologies of all time then go "don't hate me for what I believe!"



Yeah, because Irish protestants and catholics joined forces to subjugate Europe.

I'd say this isn't a personal attack, but it is. You want a survival of the fittest style society, but there is a big chance that you'd be one of the first people up against the wall...

Not as many people disagree as you would think... they may not overtly agree with it, but if you dress it up enough you can convince just about anyone to surrender all of their rights to you.

Fear is a powerful god and can be used to establish a Divine Right government.

@ Hoermius Mora: You're welcome to PM me for the survival of the thread. That was the reasoning behind quote number 1. As for Protestants & Catholics subjugating Europe... I'm assuming you were meaning that they didn't? In which case, I'm not sure what to say. If they didn't, what did they do then? What was a crusade or an inquisition? What is excommunication? Witch trials? I'm not sure I follow your logic here.

Edit: Either way, PM me if you care to discuss, for the sake of the thread.

<--[prev page] I'd want to see your argument in public not via PMs, if you can.

As for me, I don't subscribe to any particular philosophy, or I don't think I do anyway. I don't know much about philosophy, nor do I care about it.

But how can you go through life without knowing about the non-reductive position of anomalous monism? Or epiphenomalism?

I dont like nazis, but in his defense. Is it any different to religion ?

I judge them all equaly, all are ideologies with morals, one just says "god wills it" or "god told me too say this" at the end.
Yet I dare criticise the religious groups and im a biggot. Yet if I criticise the political groups its fine.

Like I said, I dont like those people, my reasons may be different to most others. But if equally destructive, and hate filled groups are protected, why not this one ?

Atleast nazis arent a problem now, too few, too hated. They will never cause as much trouble as before.

I'm kind of the same. I do wish I was a bit more knowledgeable, but a lot of it just goes over my head.

I don't know if this guy really counts as a philosopher exactly or not, but I have a total mancrush of Marquis de Sade. Total lunatic.. but that might be why I love him so much.

The issue I think is that many people confuse Nazism as practiced by Germany during the Third Reich with the concepts that Fascism relies upon. It was originally theorized as a "third way" between the excesses of unrestricted capitalism and the rampant poverty and stagnation of communism.

It is an interesting study in political and social theory to trace the movement of Fascism from its inception as an economic model to its implementation as a government (and the nastiness that resulted).

The Marquis de Sade appears in http://www.dead-philosophers.com/comics/2011-02-28-Epicurus%5B1%5D.JPG so he definitely counts! He's also one of the best characters, along with Nietzsche and his large boil, Hubert.


Religions don't have a history of being criticized and attacked that political ideologies do, which is the main reason.

Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. - Sir Terry Pratchett

Been a while since I read the Inferno, but shouldn't Epicurus be in the first circle of Hell with the other "noble" unbelievers?

The only philosophy I ever really subscribed to is Marcus Aurelius's Stoicism. I once stayed after school with my Latin teacher before track practice, and she was probably my favorite teacher ever. She started telling me about the philosophy and it seemed so much like something that would help me, because I always got in tough situations by trying to fix situations that were simply not fixable. The idea that problems should come to you and that you should fix them, and you deal with life only when it deals with you seems unambitious to some but it works for me.

The premise of heaven in this comic seems incredibly easy to get into - hence why Nietzsche got in. http://www.dead-philosophers.com/comics/2010-10-25-neitzschegod.jpg

Hilarity

Firstly, from experience and observation I can tell you that it is hardly ever in my best interest to share my views in a public setting. I do not talk about my views in social situations when asked to share & debate our(the class's) beliefs because the society I live in doesn't accept it. Most of my view-sharing occurs in my academic papers or behind closed doors.

I once was in a government sponsored setting that promoted freedom of speech and taught multiculturalism. There were all sorts of quotes posted concerning things like "Never let anyone tell you that your beliefs are wrong." or "Whenever anyone denies you the right to speak what you believe, shout it instead." and other liberal sayings. They had sanctioned a Martin Luther King Jr. essay competition (oh look it is MLK day) in which you were supposed to write an essay on MLKjr incorporating 15 words from a list of 30. Best written essay wins. Without vulgarity or slander, I wrote the best essay. In fact, I wrote the only essay that could be considered passing in even a Middle School setting. (I read the others). My essay was disqualified for being "not socially acceptable" on the grounds that, because the winner gets to read his/her essay at an assembly, people would would riot and kill me. I argued that, though I would like to be martyred in such a way, I understand, so just say that I won, and I won't read it. Of course they couldn't do that, and it ultimately came down to "This is my facility and you can't do anything about it, even though you followed all the rules, and should have won the competition."

America preaches acceptance and promotes diversity and multiculturalism in every regard! (Except when your opinion differs!) It's nothing but hypocritical nonsense.

Of course I don't care if people attack my views. This is good ol' Nazi-hating America. I understand that. It's just looked down upon by this site and they'll close the thread if people do it. Again, I don't associate with any form of Neo Nazi garbage, and if I ever went to prison where their presence was great, they would end up killing me.

National Socialism is a political-religious philosophy to me, which is what it was at its conception. Just because the founders of it ran it into the ground, that's just a matter of their own vices. I don't go around denying the Holocaust or beating up helpless people in my spare time. That's usually hard for people to comprehend, but so be it.

Why would you? Load of 'dem jewz got killed, surely that's what you'd want?

Liberalism has given the world everything it has now. Facism (which is what National Socialism, actually is) has only destroyed it.

/sigh
When you start telling me what I would want, I begin to think that you beginning to flamebait.
As far as "Liberalism has given the world everything it has now."... what the hell do you mean by that? Democracy? Communism? Genocide? Muslims? Mormons? iPhones? Ford F-150s?
What did Fascism destroy? From what I understand, it was the Nazi technology that brought us into the rocket and jet age.

Thats a very poor reason.

Since we are already talking about this, and to avoid the reich being in my browsing history. Whats a reich and who were the first 2 ? (If it sounds stupid I dont cre, im asking anyway).