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Who are your philosophers?

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posted on Oct, 30 2011 @ 01:49 AM
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A very simple question: Who are your philosophers? Who are men/women of intellect with a strong philosophy that you enjoy? Perhaps you find yourself enjoying their books, their articles still found online, or just reading about them in general? Who are these people and why are they ‘your philosophers’? They can be famous men like Plato and Saint Thomas Aquinas or perhaps a little known writer that you take time to read his insight.

My philosophers are Edmund Burke, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, Paul Gottfried, Thomas Fleming, and Joseph de Maistre.

You can also provide some quotes of theirs if you would like, it always makes them more interesting and provides us with a little knowledge of them without spending hours reading pages of information.

“But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” – Burke

“It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men, such as General Gordon, have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.” – Chesterton

“O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.” – Eliot

“You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred — like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.” – Lewis

“Among the most dangerous of our theoretical illusions are the political fantasies that can be summed up in words like democracy; equality, and natural rights; the principle of one man, one vote and the American tradition of self-government. No one who lives in the world with his eyes open can actually believe in any of this.” – Fleming

Now the most controversial philosopher whom I often read and do enjoy, although find points of large disagreement with, is Count Joseph de Maistre. I would bet that 85%+ of people could not read his works entirely without being consumed with some negative emotion of him to their very core. But he is not for the ordinary person, if you can stomach his work, well that is great, if you enjoy his work then you are one of a few.

“Thus, from the maggot up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living things is unceasingly fulfilled. The entire earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be immolated without end, without restraint, without respite, until the consummation of the world...." – de Maistre



posted on Oct, 30 2011 @ 07:11 AM
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Some of my philosophers are ... Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, M. Scott Peck, Anthony de Mello, Eckhart Tolle

“Walk with those seeking truth... RUN FROM THOSE WHO THINK THEY'VE FOUND IT. ”
― Deepak Chopra

“When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”
― Wayne W. Dyer

“Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity. ”
― M. Scott Peck

“If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.“
― Anthony de Mello

Be present as the watcher of your mind -- of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react. Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.
― Eckhart Tolle



posted on Oct, 30 2011 @ 08:02 PM
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Might I add a couple? Peter Kreeft Has been compared with Lewis as an orthodox, popular, philosopher. He teaches at Boston College.

Another is Mortimer Adler. There is an article on Adler at Wikipedia



posted on Oct, 30 2011 @ 08:14 PM
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Laz sez:

Socrates taught Plato. Plato taught Aristotle. Aristotle tutored the son of Philip of Macedon, and this boy went on to become Alexander the Great, largely by killing a lot of people. That Philosophy.

I do like Lao-tzu. He may have been the first libertarian.



posted on Oct, 31 2011 @ 05:29 AM
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nietzsche of course.

Then there's Henry David Thoreau.

"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it." - Thoreau.

World would be a much better place if people realized that.




 
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