To include Christian theologians like Augustine and categorically exclude eastern thinkers like Confucius and Nagarjuna is a remarkable double standard. Confucius' philosophy was secular: he referred spiritual questions to the Taoists. Nagarjuna, like Augustine and your other theologians, is also rightly called a philosopher because he, like the Christians, practiced philosophy in the context of a particular spiritual tradition.

To define philosophy as a science is a mistake. Gosh and others have mentioned plenty of reasons why this is so. I will leave that to them.

But I am also interested in this by definition separation of philosophy and theology. Is divine revelation any less a human experience than those experiences which inform philosophy?

As for the original list: no serious objection if we take it to be a list of western philosophers exclusively. Avicenna should probably get a spot. If we take the list to be a top 20 of world philosophers, I can only shake my head at those academics who feel such cultural superiority.

Didymos, when you show me a very clear argument which finds its origin solely in the natural light given by Confuscius, I will consider changing my position.

Otherwise, it should be obvious that the Easterns are not philosophers.

No matter what your understanding of philosophy is, it's undeniable that philosophy begins and ends in "the natural light."

I'm unfamiliar with Nagarjuna.

As I said earlier, I threw in the Christian philosopher/theologeans that I did strictly on account on their philosophical content, that is to say, the content which begins and ends in the natural light. Seriously, man, St. Augustine and St. Anselm are very largely Platonist, and St. Thomas Aquinas is very much an Aristotelian.

I disagree with the 19th/20th century and contemporary philosophers who call philosopy an art as opposed to science. In philosophy, there's clearly a set of right answers and then a set of wrong answers. If we understand "philosophy" as a means to getting the right answers, and getting rid of the wrong answers, then it's very clearly a science.

Divine revelation by definition originates outside of the natural light. Philosophy involves the reason unaided.

Whatever is revealed to me by the natural light - for example from the fact that I am doubting it follows that I exist - cannot in any way be open to doubt. This is because there cannot be a faculty both as trustworthy as the natural light and also capable of showing me that such things are not true.

Nobody here heard of Socrates?
Just because he invented the dialectic and saw no nead to write anything down, is no need to ignore him.

Yes, I know you Platonites would like to suggest he did not exist. Do you have a time machine to prove it?



My list

1) Jesus
2) Moses
3) Socrates
4) Homer
5) Descartes
6) Bob Marley
7) Bill Gates
8) Yeats
9) Shakespeare
10) Churchill
11) Solomon
12) Sun Tzu

;-j

Just wondering - did some people not notice that the list is concerned with the most important philosophers of all time?

I doubt Bill Gates breaks the top ten thousand.

I didn't even notice the Bill Gates addition. Now that is too funny. You could maybe make the argument that Henry Ford should be put on the list due to the revolution in the philosophy of production and manufacturing. Bill Gates was essentially one of the first hacks, and became famous through his ability to manipulate the system. Had it not have been Bill Gates, it would have been someone else doing something very similar.