Ars Regendi Forum

Philosophy is something I've really been getting into lately, so I'm just interested to know, what is you philosophy? What philosophers do you follow? What things and experiences have influenced your philosophy? And what is your favourite area of philosophy?

Well, there is no philosopher whom I follow, I simply appreciate some of them, and some of them partially. I studied philosophy for two years and mainly dealt with epistemology, philosophy of science and Buddhism. The lecture of one real good book made me stop to study philosophy or even read further philosophers until now. It was "The Embodied Mind" by Varela and Thompson and it made very clear, that our brain generates consciousness like the pancreas excretes enzyme. (But not in arbitrary way, what makes it different from the radical constructivism).

Other philosophers who influenced my thinking: first of all the early and middle Nietzsche and Siddartha Gautama, then Sartre, Heidegger and Schopenhauer. I dislike Kant and Hegel.

And thank you, you remind me that one of my next books should be one of Popper.

Finally an important hint: do not make the same mistake like I did! Don't read Cioran when you are young! Especcially "A short history of decay" you must not touch before you are at least seventy years old. Otherwise it might disintegrate your mind...

Oh yeah, Buddhism. I haven't really read any Eastern stuff yet. It will be interesting to compare and contrast the two - Eastern and Western when I get around to it. The thing about science is that scientists (and science nerds) seem to see science and philosophy as two different areas. Science is complete empiricism and they teach it in schools as the only way to find indubitable fact, indoctrinating us into empiricist philosophy (I'm sure Popper would have something to say about that!). I'm much more of a rationalist. I like Descartes, despise Locke not to fond of Berkely or Hume, and not to fond of Nietzsche either from the small amount I know about him. Of course I like Marx and Hegel and Kant as well. But you've got to love all the old school stuff like your Skeptics and of course St. Augustine. And cheers for the heads up I'll stay away from Cioran for the next 55 or so years!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

I read The Spectrum of Consciousness and was very, very impressed. That is exactly what you are looking for

[quote=Malone]
Other philosophers who influenced my thinking: first of all the early and middle Nietzsche and Siddartha Gautama, then Sartre, Heidegger and Schopenhauer. I dislike Kant and Hegel.


So what you not like is the philosophical stream of idealism.
The opposite of that is materialism (e.g. dialectical materialism).

In this point I agree with you completely
idealism of kant and hegel is too far away from our daily reality despite they are two genuine thinkers.

I am an advocate of Marx, but does not agree with him completely of course - but he had and has still strong influence on my way of thinking, and I hope we will attain one day the consciousness that makes us able to introduce communism in our society.

bye

For a long time I used to dislike Hegel, but who changed my mind about this was Slavoj Žižek, who is very fond of Hegel, although he uses him in a very special way. However, this has made me look into Hegel's books again and now I find that at least some of his thoughts could indeed be useful. A philosopher that still bores me is Kant, although I suspect that he also contains some useful ideas somewhere hidden behind his sentence monsters. Another philosopher I obviously don't like is Descartes. The philosophers most influential on my own thinking are certainly Marx, Wittgenstein and Derrida. Concerning Nietzsche, I have rather ambiguous feelings. He seems to me like some dark shadow from my own past. There was a time when I was very fond of him though.