Last century's best philosopher?

As a non-academic in a technical field, of the names mentioned, of course anybody with decent math background knows Russell. Quine resonated with me quite a bit when he was discussed, mainly in grad CS logic courses and oddly enough security courses which were really number theory courses in disguise. So in term of "influence" I go with Quine and Russell. I felt like I understood where Quine was coming from the most. :-)

But I need a book! My favourite Quine is From a Logical Point of View which has the eternally quotable passage:

"Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic, but praiseworthy, tendency to die before reproducing their kind."

I cannot, no matter how I look at it or what perspective I assume, see in what possible respect Moore could be said to be "better" than Russell. Honestly. I would like to hear an argument.

David Lewis was possibly the most brilliant philosopher, and possibly the best writer as well, but I would hardly put him down as the greatest (on the other hand, he's got such classics as "General Semantics" ... - it is really a pity that many people still associate him mostly with realism about possible worlds (which, contrary to the commonly applied and severely misguided epithet, is a version of modal ANTI-realism!). At least philosophy would be better off if we could get ourselves to leave Quine behind; his philosophy is as dated and even less relevant than Carnap's. I know it is always nice to quote Quine - he had a way with words and phrasings perhaps only rivalled by Lewis - but even though Quine's philosophy thoroughly undermined some of the central tenets in Carnap, his own views are hardly less out of date or unproblematic.

Wittgenstein isn't even in the running, the way I look at it. Even if we only restrict our view to the philosophy of language, someone like Richard Montague is far more sophisticated, influential, important and correct (although their questions aren't exactly the same ones, Montague proved systematicity where Wittgenstein advocated fuzziness). That said, I am not an anti-Wittgenstein like some - Wittgenstein made some important contributions, and the rule-following problem for example is one which is systematically underappreciated in the U.S.)

If Tarski were in the running, I'd go for Tarski. Actually, I'll go for Tarski anyway. If not Tarski (and since Frege apparently doesn't count) choose between Russell, Lewis, Montague or Kripke. Dummett is endearing, but misguided. Davidson is excluded for all the worthless papers he spewed out regularly after 1976. If Evans had lived longer, it is not unlikely that he would have become the greatest.

Good books should be essay collections or at least based on already published essays. It's a long time since I've read a really good philosophy book of any other kind.

Sorry, I'm apparently a little exhausted. Long day of work ;)

"Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic, but praiseworthy, tendency to die before reproducing their kind."

I assume Quine had kids?

Best Philosopher? I don't know.. I'll write in John Cleese, since I suspect that reality is fundamentally absurd. Well, it makes no sense to me, anyway.

My inclination is to think that the primary things of lasting value that the twentieth century contributed to philosophy, at least on the analytic side, are in logic, a field that working philosophers often take for granted or treat as marginal; so Quine, yes, but Prior, Montague, Tarski, Kripke, Lukasiewicz, Lesniewski, Boolos, and so forth: these would be the real contenders (and, notably, it begins returning some balance to the slate, since analytic philosophy's major non-Anglo-American branches, the Polish especially, would finally get some of the respect it deserves). And thus the question would really be something like a run-off between logic and phenomenology in a contest over the question of how much of lasting interest they were able to generate over the decades.

It may well be unlikely that anyone in the generations immediately after Aristotle would have rated him as highly as we would in a list of the greats of the Socratic era; and while Hume was often recognized as brilliant, it took quite a while (and a number of purely unforeseeable events, like the rise of Kant in the nineteenth and the interest in naturalism in the twentieth) for him to come to be regarded as highly as he is now. History does not always ratify taste. Future generations might well hold that we massively underappreciated someone's brilliance, and people we only occasionally talk about might well be regarded as the greats of the century. (This is entirely possible: as noted above, our choices for greatness are limited by what we are likely to read and therefore overlook a lot of good philosophical work done in other languages than English, French, and German.) Or, indeed, it may regard the twentieth as largely a failed century as far as philosophy goes -- like the fifteenth century, filled with intelligent, hard-working philosophers whose names and ideas, with only a small handful of exceptions, almost no one but a specialist would bother to remember. That's genuinely possible, too. It's a major reason I like History of Philosophy: it reminds us that we are sometimes smaller than we think we are.

I think it's because Russell is probably the most familiar name to people outside professional philosophy.

For best book, I would go for Philosophische Untersuchungen, but then I haven't read Ãber GewiÃheit. (No prizes for guessing who I voted for.)

For GREATEST philosopher of the 20th C, I'd go for Russell: the stuff he wrote in the first three decades of the Century are full of very good things, and his influence is unparallelled. (Quine is unthinkable except against the background of Russell, as Lewis is unthinkable except against the background of Quine!)

But BEST? What does that mean? Ablest? One with the highest truth to falsity ration in his/her work?

Moore, I have the feeling, isn't much read any more (gets classified with the English "ordinary language" philosophers of the 1950s and thrown out with them?) but he was VERY smart: if only he had written in Polish, and used some more symbols, we'd recognize him as a great logician! Seriously: his reply to F.P. Ramsey (in a P.A.S.S. volume in the 20s) wiped the floor with him, and his letter to Russell a few days after "On Denoting" was published asked a deep and central question that Russell had no answer to.

Gödel? (David Lewis put in a vote for him in a similar popularity contest held within the U of Melbourne philosophy department in the 1980s)

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As for best philosophy BOOK, that's hard: particularly late in the Century too much of the best work was in journal articles. I think Russell's "Problems" is the one I'd be most likely to recommend to a philosophy student as worth spending a long vacation trying to think through. Though in the past I've often recommended Austin's "How to Do things with words": specialized, but may broaden your understanding of what philosophy can be (this aspect tells in recommending it to non-philosophers!), and very, very good.

To illustrate the problem with the "best book" nomination: you cite Quine's "From a Logical Point of View" (which I think is better than "Word and Object," and was certainly my favorite for a long time), but it's a collection of papers!

Russell was the Carl Sagan of his time and discipline. His greatness is not so much that he was particularly great at philosophy itself; it is that he was (by far) the best ever communicator of philosophy to non-philosophers, and to people who later became philosophers.

As a non-Philosopher, I'd vote for Santayana if he was included, and Dewey among those that were.

I cannot, no matter how I look at it or what perspective I assume, see in what possible respect Moore could be said to be "better" than Russell. Honestly. I would like to hear an argument.

Brian Weatherson gives my view rather well. I think his rgument on realism set off a lot of fruitful argument.

I agree with Allen Hazen on Russell and would add that Wittgenstein, Carnap and quite a few others on the list are not imaginable without Russell and Frege, which brings me to the important question; why exclude Frege? He may have lived and done most of his productive work in the 19th C. but his work is the bedrock of both 20th century logical and analytical philosophy. On which point Brandon your list has to start with Frege, Russell and Schroeder.
John aren't Moore and Russell two sides of the same coin? They certainly regarded themselves as such but what the fuck do I know I'm just a historian!

Wittgenstein, the TLP. Philosophical Investigations is awesome, but the TLP is 114 pages of clear, concise elegance.

What about Husserl? He was quite an influential epistemologist, and phenomenology can be considered the foundation of existentialism.

There is no 'The best'. But the most influential philosopher outside philosophy is probably Popper. His ideas on the open society figure in political debates among non philosophers and non political scientist. And the idea of falsification is also as common as the Kuhn's paradigm shifts in philosophical debates among scientist.

Wittgenstein must be the most influential philosopher among philosophers.

I'm all for breaking the assumption that there's anything sacrosanct about 00 years; and certainly Frege and Husserl are the two who overshadow most of what was done in the twentieth century, with the exception of ethics, which has proceeded in its own way (and sometimes had influence outside of its own field).

Certainly Russell did some good logical work on his own, here and there, even if most of his influential logical work was either collaborative (as the Principia, which was done with Whitehead) or popularizing (as a major conduit for people in the English-speaking world becoming familiar with the work of Peano and Frege).

It would be nice to add Schroeder, who certainly is extraordinarily important; but I honestly don't think most philosophers would recognize the name.

As a random factoid, it is worth noting that Wittgenstein is buried in an understated grave in an understated burial ground just off the Huntingdon Road in Cambridge, which is also the last resting place of two of Charles Darwin's sons and numerous other notables:
http://www.findagrave.com/php/famous.php?FScemeteryid=859628&page=cem

Further random factoid. Ned Furlong, who was professor (that's the European sense: Professor, ordinarius, top dog) of philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin (and who kept a small bottle of water drawn from the well at the farm in Ireland where W. spent part of his last years on his desk) was curious enough that he wrote to Von Wright to ask if there had been any religious ceremony at the graveside when W. was buried, and if so, what kind: he showed me Von Wright's reply, which said, yes, Catholic, and that Wittgenstein had "always" (I think I remember this word, but it has been 30 years since I saw it) considered himself to be a Catholic. And, no, despite my Ulster Presbyterian ancestry this ISN'T why I voted for Russell.

Interesting. In the Monk biography, it says:

"Wittgenstein was not a Catholic. He said on a number of occasions, both in conversations and in his writings, that he could not bring himself to believe the things that Catholics believe. Nor, more important, did he practise Catholicism." p580

Hmm. I really like Karl Popper and Hans Albert. Maybe not the greatest, but certainly in the front ranks.

Brandon, whilst I probably have a higher opinion of Russellâs abilities as a logician than you appear to have (damming with faint praise!) I will actually concede your point and say that your list should include âWhitehead and Russellâ, Frege and Schroeder; although one must be careful to point out that the PM Whitehead is not the âprocess philosophyâ Whitehead who was included in the original pole, biologically the same but mentally a completely different kettle of fish. On the question of philosophers knowing or not knowing Schroeder, I very much doubt if most philosophers really know who Lukasiewicz or Lesniewski are.

Tough question. How to define best? If it's 'most ground breaking' at the time, then sure, Wittgenstein must be a contender. If it's 'impact on philosophy of the time', Wittgenstein, Moore, Lewis, Quine all step up.

But if it's 'lasting significance and contribution to our understanding of truth' then they're all pretty much abysmal. Except perhaps for Russell.

At the end of the day, the 20th century was a pretty sorry one for philosophy.

Wittgenstein was brilliant, but far from transparent. I hear more people debating what he said than what it means for philosophy today.

Quine and Lewis made great technical advances, but I don't know if they necessarily (no pun intended) translate to delivering results today. And modal realism is awesomely absurd.

Moore, well he utterly borked moral philosophy for a century. It's only in the last decade that I think moral philosophy has started to make progress - and only by taking naturalism seriously.

The rest was overly bogged down in philosophical distractions and metaphysical dead ends (ever read a book on metaethics?).

So, my vote goes with Russell. At least he made some progress, changed some minds and left a legacy we can aspire to rather than aim to avoid.

I did metaethics back in the 80s. It was interesting. But you are right - Moore strode over the field everywhere you looked.

As to naturalising ethics, it seems to me that no matter how we explain the origins of ethical reasoning (and we do, as an evolved trait of a certain group of apes), we are never able to establish a justification for ethical values naturally. This is because, to mix the soup a bit, justification is a separate, and self-standing, language game...

And for the nineteenth century, there's no debate: Peirce.

[Runs and covers self with sheet metal to wait out the storm.]

Thony,

Fair enough about Whitehead, although I can't resist pointing out for the sake of balance that (1) the early Russell is very, very different from the late Russell, also; and (2) the process philosophy Whitehead was still doing serious work in logic (right in the middle of Process and Reality is a brilliant, although incomplete and imperfect, attempt to work out mereotopology).

I wish I could contradict you about Lesniewski and Lukasiewicz, but I'm afraid you might be right.

Re: Wittgenstein as putative Catholic. It all sounded pretty strange to me, but Furlong showed me the letter. As between Furlong (an Anglican, I think, and probably, given C. of Ireland, fairly low church) forging the letter and Von Wright lying about Wittgenstein's religion for fear of being murdered by Anscombe... you choose!

And I hope there's room under your sheet metal for two: I'd vote Peirce for 19th C's greatest philosopher too.

Brandon, I nearly added the same comment on the diffent Russells to my last post.

John S. Wilkins wrote:

And for the nineteenth century, there's no debate: Peirce.

[Runs and covers self with sheet metal to wait out the storm.]

Having spent ten years of my life at a German university studying philosophy (if I'm honest that should actually read; pretending to study philosophy), when I hear the concepts "philosophy" and "19th century" together it conjures up nightmare visions of masses of depressingly Germanic, unreadable, indigestible metaphysical gobbledygook. In comparison Peirce is a breath of fresh air; rational, logical, full of stimulating new concepts that are actually useful and productive so Iâll go with your choice.

However Brian Leiter banned Frege to the 19th century and I am a student of one of the worldâs leading Frege experts so; I'll see your Charles Santiago Peirce and raise you one Gottlob Frege.

Or I'll just declare them to joint winners and order a double portion of Peirce and Frege with a side order of William James for whom, like Peirce, I have always had a soft spot.

Best Philosopher? I don't know.. I'll write in John Cleese, since I suspect that reality is fundamentally absurd. Well, it makes no sense to me, anyway.

Then you'll have to vote for a bunch of quantum physicists, most recently and prominently Feynmann -- scientists, not philosophers.

I don't know enough about any philosopher to cast a vote myself, but I've always been partial to:

- The Wittgenstein quote "1.0. Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist." -- makes me giggle every time: a blatant banality, pronounced with a thundering voice from on high, and not even wrong... actually, you can consider it a contribution to science theory if you're generous.
- The other famous Wittgenstein quote: "Was sich nicht klar sagen läÃt, darüber muà man schweigen." That's a case where the obvious really had to be stated. It's also an important part of science theory (it leads to "ignore every idea that isn't parsimonious enough").
- Popper, for basically discovering science theory all by himself (another case where the fairly obvious had to be stated at last), even though it took him a long time to recognize his one great mistake (which is the erroneous idea that experiment, not simply observation, is required for science); and for the open society (yet another long overdue case of finally stating the fairly obvious).

I don't mention Hennig; Hennig probably thought he was doing philosophy to some extent (I don't know), but all of his contributions outside of science are best forgotten (and largely have been).