A philosopher could be overrated (i.e. generally being ranked too high relative to her peers) and still be underappreciated. I can't think of any philosopher belonging to the tradition who isn't underappreciated. This includes philosophers who I don't like much. It's a matter of contemporary culture. The same goes with classical music and literature. We could possibly make an exception for Ayn Rand, assuming that she merits the title of a philosopher. She likely is both overrated and over-appreciated.

I'd have to say Derrida, and I know he's an easy target, an obvious one, but I actually like continental philosophy. Quite a bit. I feel like I'm exactly Derrida's target audience -- & he still drives me crazy.

I was always kinda interested in his stuff, tho kinda skeptical - but then we did a reading group here a few months back, on his Voice & Phenomena*, and it felt like hardcore charlatanism to me. Which isn't to say he isn't smart, or capable- he is. But I think he sacrificed his talent totally for fashion and influence. Reading V&P, I got the sense he familiarized himself with the tradition just enough to cover his ass, to make a minimally plausible case for himself as a scholar. And, having done that, felt free to say whatever the fuck he wanted. His Glas is probably the single most self-indulgent piece of 'philosophy' ever written (at least the most self-indulgent piece taken seriously by others.) Really have no respect for the guy at this point. I think he's responsible for the worst excesses of us lit crit/cultural studies etc etc.

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* and V&P is the piece Derrida defenders point to when people criticize him. Supposedly, this is where he 'earns' all his later decadence, through serious scholarship and sharp argumentation. Which defense, if you actually read V&P, is mind-boggling.

I agree with your criticism of Camus. I never really got into him though, to be honest. I did read The Stranger, in high school, and I can't remember it all that well now, but I remember thinking it was unintentionally hilarious, in the same way Kierkegaard's aesthete was hilarious in Either/or (tho K was probably in on that joke himself, while writing it.) My mom died and I felt nothing. Killed that dude, and I feel nothing. Felt sometimes like a hyper-caricature of a bad western, or a bad noir.

Nietzsche's not so bad, but maybe we're in the same boat. I like some of his writing and some of his spirit, while not really feeling like he's some ultra-profound thinker. He's much more interesting on individual authors and passages, and the history around them, than he is on Big Ideas. He was trained a philologist and philology is where he actually shines. People like to say he registered the shocks of his time, like others, but that he alone was able to divine what those shocks would actually mean and where everything was headed. I kind of doubt that. I think a certain type of person NEEDS Nietzsche to be profound to justify other aspects of their life. Nietzsche himself was probably that type of person.

James Joyce - speaking of pretension - has a great treatment of a 20th century 'Nietzschean' in his Dubliners. It's pitch perfect. First quote is the 'hero' talking to a woman sincerely interested in him. Second is about his life after he pulls away from her. The two quotes are not consecutive in the actual story (called A Painful Case, totally worth checking out!) (In its way, its even a parody of Camus avant la lettre. Being schizoid isn't cool or profound or noble, it's just kind of sad.)

She asked him why did he not write out his thoughts. For what, he asked her, with careful scorn. To compete with phrasemongers, incapable of thinking consecutively for sixty seconds? To submit himself to the criticisms of an obtuse middle class which entrusted its morality to policemen and its fine arts to impresarios?

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Four years passed. Mr. Duffy returned to his even way of life. His room still bore witness of the orderliness of his mind. Some new pieces of music encumbered the music-stand in the lower room and on his shelves stood two volumes by Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra and The Gay Science. He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk. One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with Mrs. Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse. He kept away from concerts lest he should meet her. His father died; the junior partner of the bank retired. And still every morning he went into the city by tram and every evening walked home from the city after having dined moderately in George’s Street and read the evening paper for dessert. — Joyce

All that being said, I think this quote from The Gay Science is worth a hundred moral treatises.

What do you consider the most humane? - To spare someone shame. What is the seal of liberation? - To no longer be ashamed in front of oneself. — Nietzsche

H E I D E G G E R!!! Well, I couldn't resist.

X-)

At least you've read the guy and have specific criticisms to offer!

Hegel, with Nietzsche a close second. Historiography, past and present, is rife with both of them, even though guys like Kant and Schopenhauer provided far more incisive critiques of the world.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya about the raising of the wrist, but reading him makes me permanently pissed.

Ya wrong, Hegel's great.

Ya wrong, Hegel's masturbate.

Wait but why, though? His aphorisms are great.

Oh, his prose is fine, aye. I just remember never agreeing with anything I read from him.

My vote goes to Kant. He's generally credited for innovations that aren't his, and he was fundamentally a reactionary force against the subtler and more exciting British empiricsts. I also think many things he's celebrated for, like the Refutation of Idealism, are fundamentally confused.

But...but...my noumenon...

The noumenon is just Lockean substance (Locke even calls it the I-know-not-which).

Well I mean I suppose you could say that Kant systematized everything.

My vote goes to Kant — The Great Whatever

I would say anyone who votes for Kant as being 'the most over-rated philosopher' is in a very exclusive club indeed.

Well, I thought 'overrated' meant large margin between praise/attention paid to versus worth. You can pick Kant because of the sheer amount of attention and praise paid to him. Obviously there are lots of worse philosophers.

So for instance, you could knock someone like Derrida, but he's less overrated than Kant because there is a large contingent of people who do not take Derrida seriously, whereas the same isn't true for Kant.

Definitely Descartes >:O Infinitely worth skipping, by any student of philosophy.

subtler and more exciting British empiricsts — The Great Whatever

Who? I agree /w regards to Berekely, but not with regards to Locke or Hume.

Albert suave-as-fuck Camus — darthbarracuda

Albert Camus is interesting, but not a great philosopher. He isn't considered that great either, so... not very overrated.

Nietzsche — csalisbury

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya about the raising of the wrist, but reading him makes me permanently pissed. — Thorongil

Probably adequately rated actually. Nietzsche is a very deep and profound philosopher even though I think he's wrong in many regards.

Schopenhauer — darthbarracuda

Underrated.

My vote goes to Kant — The Great Whatever

Probably I disagree.

H E I D E G G E R — Ciceronianus the White

Maybe - though even Heidegger offers good insight, but probably overrated compared to the value of his insights.

Hegel — Heister Eggcart

Quite possibly, though folks would accuse me of not having studied him enough... :P

Definitely Descartes >:O Infinitely worth skipping, by any student of philosophy. — Agustino

Ehh, I would disagree. Descartes is indispensable to any student of the history of philosophy. Studying philosophy isn't just getting what's important and what's not, it's also understanding the historical context in which these questions arose. Even if Descartes was fundamentally wrong about everything, he was fundamentally important to the Enlightenment and modern philosophy as a whole. For better or for worse, Cartesianism transformed philosophical thinking, and was part of the reason epistemology became so much more prominent in philosophy (again, for better or for worse).

I get kind of miffed when hardcore traditionalists try to argue that Descartes fucked everything up and that we just need to go back to the Scholastics or whatever and everything will make sense. Even if Descartes did fuck everything up, it can't just be all his fault. Political and social issues made Scholasticism decline, and the failure to keep it alive can be seen more as a fault of the Scholastics than of those who came after.

Typically these neo-Scholastic traditionalists end up advocating the metaphysical system of a single person or group, like Aquinas or Aristotle. Regardless of its truth, I find it nauseating and oppressive, and kind of cringy at times. There, I said it: I find most metaphysics to be nauseatingly totalitarian and psychologically limiting. People hold metaphysical views not simply out of rational consideration but out of a deeply-entrenched need for the universe to be some way. The value of a metaphysical belief is not simply its factual correctness but its causal role in the psychological unity. If you take my view on metaphysics, then, Descartes is just another instance of making the world seem one way.

Probably adequately rated actually. Nietzsche is a very deep and profound philosopher even though I think he's wrong in many regards. — Agustino

Generally, I agree. I've spent hours at night reading Nietzsche's Zarathustra and simply appreciating how I can fundamentally disagree with many of the things Nietzsche says but find real beauty and value in his work despite the fact. I like to think that both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer (and others) were tackling many of the same issues, but came to different conclusions. But mostly I just appreciate Nietzsche's obvious passion and mastery of language.

There's a difference between indispensability and quality. Kant is indispensable to the tradition, because you can't read a lot of philosophy without reading him. The same is true of Descartes, but Descartes seems to have been a genius of some sort, which I wouldn't say of Kant, who wasn't bold enough, and was too bookkeepery, for genius. Though Descartes' originality is also generally inflated, and most of his ideas, including the notion of the first person as epistemologically grounding, are in some way ancient. That's not his fault, though – there's nothing new under the sun.

Descartes is underrated and underappreciated.

Agreed! His presence in the curriculum is mostly to serve as a figure that's been transcended. But most of the people who take him to be passe are a lot dumber than him!

The same is true of Descartes, but Descartes seems to have been a genius of some sort, which I wouldn't say of Kant, who wasn't bold enough, and was too bookkeepery, for genius. — The Great Whatever

Descartes was my first unit of philosophy, in the course Modern Philosophy. He was 'the first of the moderns and the last of the medievals', and I think an under-appreciated genius, although there were some ideas of his that were catastrophically mistaken, first and foremost that animals are automata. But some of his contributions, not least algebraic geometry, were fundamental to the scientific revolution which could barely have proceeded with him.

But I don't understand why you keep downplaying Kant (who unfortunately wasn't on the curriculum for my two years of philosophy). The Critique of Pure Reason is often said to be the key philosophical text of the modern age, and I firmly believe that to be true. I think, overall, the two most influential philosophy texts in Western culture were The Republic, then the Critique. Why? Because Kant turned the focus squarely onto the 'conditions of knowledge', what it requires to say that we know something, what the conditions are for us to know anything whatever. I think hardly any scientific materialists understand the Critique - because if they did, I don't see how they could remain materialists.

I certainly don't claim any expertise of Kant, in fact I would think the effort involved in becoming expert in Kant would be roughly the same as getting a professional degree in any subject. But I think his 'copernican revolution in thought' is indubitably one of the fundamental philosophical insights of our day.

My two cents.

The Critique of Pure Reason is often said to be the key philosophical text of the modern age, and I firmly believe that to be true. — Wayfarer

I think it's a reactionary text that systematizes the thoughts of more innovative thinkers, and in doing so reduces them to make room for more traditionalist Christian moralizing and speculation.

None of these accusations can be leveled at Descartes. He was a madman!

Because Kant turned the focus squarely onto the 'conditions of knowledge', what it requires to say that we know something, what the conditions are for us to know anything whatever. I think hardly any scientific materialists understand the Critique - because if they did, I don't see how they could remain materialists. — Wayfarer

Epistemology is an ancient discipline, and had always been concerned with these questions. It's a sort of historical revisionism to suggest otherwise, as it is to suggest Kant was a 'destroyer of metaphysics,' etc. None of these things are true.

It's kind of funny, I read an intro to the Critique once that made fun of some of its early reviewers who 'failed to grasp' how revolutionary it was and so on. But I tend to think, no, those early reviewers saw it for what it was, and of course once something becomes influential it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and its own influence spirals out of control, until all kinds of attributions of innovation are ahistorically attached to it in retrospect, because people read the Critique and don't read much of anything else.

Modernism is also a lie, btw!

I think it's a reactionary text that systematizes the thoughts of more innovative thinkers, — The Great Whatever

such as?

None of these accusations can be leveled at Descartes. He was a madman! — The Great Whatever

Descartes was an idiot - probably the vast majority of his ideas are worthless (dualism, homonuculus etc.). I don't know of anyone else in the history of philosophy who has had no virtually good ideas, and so many terrible ones >:O

I think it's a reactionary text that systematizes the thoughts of more innovative thinkers — The Great Whatever

I agree - a lot of Kant is prefigured in the combination of Berkeley and Hume to a large degree. But Kant was original in the way he thought about space, time etc. Berkeley et al. didn't conceive of space as synthetic a prioris.

But I tend to think, no, those early reviewers saw it for what it was, and of course once something becomes influential it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and its own influence spirals out of control, until all kinds of attributions of innovation are ahistorically attached to it in retrospect, because people read the Critique and don't read much of anything else. — The Great Whatever

>:O

I know I'll catch hate for this, but it's Noam Chomsky.

Don't get me wrong, I find myself almost always agreeing with Noam, but he is just too highly rated.

As a linguist, no he is not over-rated; he has set the bar regarding the philosophy of language. As an all around philosopher though (such as that which applies to morality and science) I don't see him really making any great strides. Don't get me wrong (again!), Noam seems pretty damn moral, but his ability to verbalize a clearly coherent moral foundation seems labored (at least from what i've been exposed to) or in other words not too refined.

Some have called him "a gatekeeper of the left", but I've not been exposed to any of his philosophies which pioneer any sort of social or economic reform. He is definitely a champion of many worthy causes, and that is entirely laudable, but he is not a philosopher of these causes as he is in the minds of many (or else, so too is Bono?). I think the main reasons why an appeal to Chomsky works so well in average discourse among the left are A, because we know that he is in fact a genius of language, and B, because his moral causes are very and laudably progressive.

Just to make this point again, I'm not here trying to say that Noam is by any means stupid when it comes to moral philosophy and politics (or even that i disagree with him on anything in particular), just that his astronomically high rating/status in philosophical fields other than his own makes him a good candidate for the most overrated philosopher.

The Critique of Pure Reason is often said to be the key philosophical text of the modern age, and I firmly believe that to be true — Wayfarer

WWR is probably deeper than CPR, in that it contains the same insights that CPR does, and more. CPR is more original and revolutionary but not the deepest. TLP is probably also superior, as is Spinoza's Ethics.

Because Kant turned the focus squarely onto the 'conditions of knowledge', what it requires to say that we know something, what the conditions are for us to know anything whatever — Wayfarer

So? Why is this so significant?

For me, Noam is a puny ant, he hasn't even come under my radar, that's how (un)important he is