I only have modest goals from this project. By creating the poll (which I hope to do soon, once I work out the technical specifics), I hope to gain a better idea of what the current academic community thinks about this. You might think this tracks the truth, or not, but this is where we're at.
I have another idea for how we could improve philosophy: listen a bit more carefully. Listen to other people's ideas and experiences, and don't just pretend you know all about their ideas and objections to your ideas. Not only will you become a better interlocutor, you may also learn a lot more along the way. I remember an assistant professor of mine was listening to the claims of another person and then this became the basis of a now famous publication. We have to listen to ourselves too. And this brings us back to the first guys to tell us that, the philosophers Plato and Socrates.
Frankly I think I would vote for Plato. His theory of the Forms is simply brilliant, and I know of no better theory in philosophy. We really are, as someone once said, all writing just footnotes to Plato.
ReplyDeleteI'd say Liebniz over Descartes because he had a deeper metaphysical feeling about him.