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Hmm. I don't need to.
I'd tell you to browse back over the thread and see it's you who always misses the point or ignores it but there wouldn't be much point.
Can you expand on this? It's difficult to make it into a meaningful statement. You could just as easily say that technology is the practical manifestation of philosophy...
Furthermore, if we're going to end up saying that all fields of knowledge are inseperable from philosophy (and we may well end up at that conclusion) can we really say that a philosopher, whose contributions to the field are entirely based in the political sphere and have led to half the world creating practically unnworkable societies (whether by misunderstanding, misappropriation or downright mismangement of his ideas), is the greatest when many who went before were able to produce philosophies spanning the political, ethical and metaphysical AND have them last for hundreds or even thousands of years?
That's what makes me suspicious of this poll. In all honesty, I can't see anyone with an in-depth knowledge of philosophy, voting for Marx. His ideas just aren't of the magnitude of so many other thinkers and their impact has been largely negative (with the best will in the world).
We also seem to be saying that anyone with very little idea of the ideas put forward by Marx, would've voted for one of the bigger names such as Plato.
Which all begs the question, why Marx?
Yes and I disagree on a number of levels.
Most obviously, have Marx's theories actually changed anything for the better? However good you think they are as theories, they have the disadvantage of having been put into practice with some fairly disasterous results.
Now...you might say to me that that is because they weren't put into practice properly - that the gradual change Marx talks about, never happened and that people didn't properly observe his ideas, but I might equally say that humans are not predisposed to act in the way Marx suggests, and I don't think they are.
Furthermore I maintain that a critique of capitalism is not philosophy in any meaningful sense, except inasmuch as we might claim that the theory of relativity is philosophy.
I agree he was a great philosopher - far better than I'll ever be - but most of what he did, Hegel did better and earlier.
You could also make a case for stating that what Marx pointed out stopped it from happening. If you tell humans what the future holds, it won't.
As to the most influential philosopher I think I'd have to go with either Plato or Aristotle mainly for reasons already mentioned.
And although I don't want to get into or re-start Blagsta and groovechampion's argument . . . it does say something for BBC 4's audience intellect that they didn't vote Descartes up there despite how well known he is.
Hegel and Marx were very very different, except for dialectics. Hegel was basically a mystic, Marx a materialist.
Without Hegel, there would've been no Marx. Hegel pretty much invented the concept of alienation. Trouble is, Hegel's writing is even more turgid than Marx's (and that's saying something!) so nobody reads him (I was subjected to him as an undergrad...Marx as well).
Marx's views on human nature were way off beam - that's the main reason his philosophy falls down in my view.
Of course Marx built on Hegel. So what? All knowledge builds or draws from other knowledge - thats the nature of knowledge, it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
What is it about Marx's views on human nature that you disagree with?
Either way, Marx is undoubtably, IMO, the most influential thinker.
Just to show how shit it is, (My parents read it. Sigh.) I was reading an article about the scrapping of a Jaguar squadron. The Picture was labeled as a jaguar. It was a motherfucking Tornado. Front page. "Police Officers carrying Machine Guns". I hope not. They are rather heavy and inacurate unless deployed. They would hit shit. Those are SMG's, or Sub Machine Guns.
Sorry if this post is a tad shit. I've been drinking. But I hope you get the point. I might complain.