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Karl Marx voted greatest philosopher
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1530250,00.html
Yes I did you monkey.
I'm not critsising Marx. The poll is more telling of who radio 4 listeners have heard of I reckon.
If a similar poll was done amongst philosophy departments in the top 50 universities I don't think Marx would come out top. Wittgenstein wouldn't be above Plato either.
the more well known ones normally do win public voting based ones, as you cant vote fro someoe you havent heard of
I couldn't say for sure. But I do think that that poll reflects who radio 4 listeners have heard of.
personalyl i dont liekplato, hes famous but thats aobut it in my opinion...
if im mistaken ill have to do some more reading
I'd think it reflects who they think was the greatest philosopher.
Marx's analysis of capitalism was spot on though, so he's one of the most relevant philosophers IMO.
Well you'd be wrong then.
I would have said Plato too. Marx would be up there definately but not many philosophers would put him as the greatest philosopher of all time.
Personally I think it shows that Marxists are more likely to ring up Radio 4 and vote than anything else (though God knows how David Hume came second)
Sorry, what? Who are you to know the reasons why people voted as they did?
It wasn't a poll of philosophers was it? It was a poll of the Radio 4 audience.
Plenty of people support Marx's analyis of capitalism. George Soros, John Cassidy the business correspondent for the New Yorker, journalists for The Economist etc.
He obviously has some support - however I suspect its not as high as this poll would indicate or else socialist parties would do much better in the UK (assuming that you don't class Labour as socialist)
The problem with an analysis of fiction is that accepts that the fiction is real at it's base. It's like describing the "little Mermaid" disney movies in perfect detail and showing how Sebastian the lobster will ultimately prevail over the half human fishes etc. Logically great, but fucked once the base is exposed.
Yeah, mainly that it's offical face has a "right winger" in charge. At some point the whole thing was taken over and turned into organised oppostion to the status quo, making the right noises and so on but doing fuck all.
It's rather nicely diffused any effective and potentially effective resistance by leading it from the off. See also Live8, Al qaeda yadda yadda.
I think it reflects more about the philosophers that they may have read/heard of. Do you want to drag up other Radio 4 polls to see if you agree with them...? I think you would be surprised by many of the results.
Because of the results you jobby.
The reason why they voted the way they did was probably heavily influenced by who they had heard of, a poll of people who know a little more would have had different results.
Yeah exactly, you plop-monkey. So it won't really be indicative of the greatest philosopher of all time then. It's probably more likely to be based largely upon who the majority of Radio 4 listeners have heard of.
But would this work have existed without philosiphers before it. Marx seems to be influenced by More in a lot his ideas about common items and the lack of ownership. And in turn More was influenced in ways by the philosophers before him. Political Thought as we know It can almost be traced in a direct like back to Aristotle and Plato before him.
Taken from this article
The editors of the Daily Mail really are are daft if they think Karl Marx is directly responible for those guys and would have advocated mass killings. It's like saying it's Neitzche is responsible for the holacaust and would have liked it to happen.
Why would I neccesarily agree with other Radio 4 polls? I just thought the results of this one were interesting and might generate a good discussion on here.
People who are likely to vote on Radio 4 polls are likely to be well educated. I doubt people only voted Marx 'cos they've heard of him. I'd have thought more people would have heard of Plato or Socrates.
A lot of economists and capitalists do accept it, as do a lot of historians.