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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Of the “12 Modern Philosophers,” Which Are Most Likely to Be Read in a Century?

Brian Leiter

So our poll based on the 12 Modern Philosophers book is now complete, and with nearly 900 votes, here are the results:

1. John Rawls  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. W.V.O. Quine  loses to John Rawls by 526–304
3. Saul Kripke  loses to John Rawls by 522–300, loses to W.V.O. Quine by 428–383
4. Others Not in the Book Are More Likely to be Widely Read  loses to John Rawls by 551–260, loses to Saul Kripke by 487–308
5. Donald Davidson  loses to John Rawls by 637–176, loses to Others Not in the Book Are More Likely to be Widely Read by 398–374
6. Derek Parfit  loses to John Rawls by 681–115, loses to Donald Davidson by 493–259
7. Peter Singer  loses to John Rawls by 720–97, loses to Derek Parfit by 381–346
8. Robert Nozick  loses to John Rawls by 743–73, loses to Peter Singer by 389–358
9. Bernard Williams  loses to John Rawls by 712–93, loses to Robert Nozick by 372–366
10. Thomas Nagel  loses to John Rawls by 746–78, loses to Bernard Williams by 373–343
11. Jerry Fodor  loses to John Rawls by 715–87, loses to Thomas Nagel by 376–331
12. John McDowell  loses to John Rawls by 704–94, loses to Jerry Fodor by 371–314
13. Richard Rorty  loses to John Rawls by 731–87, loses to John McDowell by 351–344

Pretty plausible results, in my view, though I think philosophers may underestimate Rorty's staying power–to be sure, he was not a significant innovator in philosophy, but he will benefit over the long haul from the resonance of his work in other humanities disciplines.   The top three strike me as right, I'm highly skeptical that Davidson will fare well over the long haul, but I'm most curious whom readers think would come in at #4, as it were.  My guess is many respondents were thinking of David Lewis, but I'll let readers have their say, as well as comment on the overall list.  Signed comments means signed comments:  full name in the signature line, and valid e-mail address.

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50 responses to “Of the “12 Modern Philosophers,” Which Are Most Likely to Be Read in a Century?”

  1. JP Smit

    My wild cards are Putnam, Searle and Dennett.

    Reply
  2. L.A. Paul

    Lewis!!

    Reply
  3. M.A. Cohen

    I don't think Dennett is a wild-card. I've made the switch from philosophy to neuroscience and am regularly (pleasantly) surprised by the impact he has had in cognitive science in general. You will not find many serious discussions about the science of consciousness without numerous references to Dennett – references which are so foundational to the discussion that I don't see them disappearing anytime soon.

    Reply
  4. Matt Lister

    I voted for "Others" as 2 or 3, but not because I had someone particular in mind, but rather as voting for "the field", so to speak. Given that I don't feel very confident about most of the choices, it seemed likely to me that some unnamed choice would be higher than many of the named choices, and so voting for "others" then seemed wise.

    Reply
  5. Matt Drabek

    In terms of folks not listed, I had in mind Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennett, and Hubert Dreyfus. All of them have had substantial impact in the wider academic culture (especially Dennett and Dreyfus), and all of them have contributed to debates in cognitive science and artificial intelligence that will surely still be raging for decades to come.

    Reply
  6. Barry Loewer

    Of course Lewis. He was systematic and set the agenda and took stands on most of the issues in metaphysics, mind, epistemology, an language. It was odd that he wasn't included in the original list since some of those on the list (both living and not) are far narrower and are currently much less read now than Lewis and much less than they were a few years ago. It is also odd that Putnam who has had so much influence (including influence on some philosophers on the list) was not included. …
    the other important question is whether this blog and the rankings will still be going strong a century from now….

    BL COMMENT: Remember that the list was set by the "12 Modern Philosophers" volume, not me! I have no comment on the "other important question," though I can say with some confidence *I* will not be doing either a century hence.

    Reply
  7. Aaron Garrett

    I think if the poll was done with Lewis as a choice he might have done better than 4. I would have him at 1.

    Reply
  8. Jon Cogburn

    Let me first say that one philosopher I think belongs high up on the list (normatively and descriptively) hands down is Robert Brandom.

    Generally, I think voters are confusing the immediate importance of a philosopher for their work with the qualities that make a philosopher last, which have as much to do with literary properties of their texts as anything else. For this reason (in addition to Professor Leiter's) I think Rorty will be probably fair better than anyone else on the list. "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" is just too good a read. Quine's work is not.

    I also think that some philosophers are badly served by their writing too much in a way that doesn't build an interesting system and/or remain rewarding for people to work through. While Chapter 2 of Word and Object and other assorted essays are of course central, I just don't think everything after Chapter 2 as well as latter efforts such as "The Roots of Reference," "Ontological Relativity" etc. is going to stick around. The actual arguments just transparently rely on too much bad philosophy of logic and science. I just don't think people are going to see an upside in reading very much of his texts a hundred years from now, and I also think this is already happening.

    Kripke does great in all four considerations. His prose is wonderful, his work is central by plausible stories of the history of philosophy, he doesn't presuppose views that have been shown to be radically implausible, and he hasn't written too much.

    I realize the fourth criterion (not having written too much) is somewhat perverse, but there is a real problem when you get a coterie of experts who master all of the great person's texts, end up talking in the weird idiom of that thinker, and then also beat up on anyone who wants to write about the thinker as philosophy as opposed to a historical figure. It's probably safe to say that this is a real danger of happening with Heidegger. If you publish every lecture series he ever gave then the people who only work on Heidegger have a strong incentive to argue that you can't understand his work without attending to all of that (see the recent I think pretty ridiculous claims people have made about the Beitraege, "enknowning" etc.). The problem is that moles get an a priori ability to beat up on anyone else with the temerity to use Heidegger's work in doing actual philosophy. Ironically, I think if Heidegger sticks around this is going to be almost entirely a result of people like people like Dreyfus, Okrent, and Graham Harman who aren't afraid to claim that parts of the corpus are irrelevant who also aren't afraid to apply Heidegger's ideas in ways that the master would have disagreed with.

    Derrida, on the other hand is almost certainly going to be destroyed by the constant publication of various interviews, lectures, and occasional pieces that the true believers take to be essential. I'm not going to spend my life reading all that stuff and it irritates me when people suggest I should. But more importantly if I can't say anything intelligent about Derrida without doing so, then I'm just not going to say anything about Derrida (I should note here that I think Martin Hagglund's recent pretty fantastic book Derrida provides good evidence that Leiter is at the very least *a bit* too negative in his assessment of the extent of Derrida's sophistry).

    My real worry is that Putnam and Lewis will suffer from being crowded out by having written too much (though hopefully the high quality will balance it out). On the other hand, I think Putnam will stay around because he was the first to really clearly make arguments with the upshot of Quine's without any of all the other weird Quinean commitments (in addition to their other manifest virtues, Stephen Stich, Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and Mark Wilson are important for just these reasons too). I think the historical sorting will move Putnam and others forward and push Quine back because of this.

    Finally, I think another interesting issue is which historical philosophers deserve to be more central now than they are. I would nominate Maimon, Schopenhauer, Cassirer, and Vaihinger. (1) All were extraordinarily important in terms of non-trivial ways they influenced people we still take to be central, but they are rarely studied as part of the standard story we tell in undergraduate classes (in analytic or continental philosophy). (2) equally important, all produced texts that are still genuinely philosophically interesting even given where we are now in the dialectic. I would be interested in people who know more history than me nominating other thinkers who fulfill (1) and (2).

    Reply
  9. Tuomas Tahko

    Putnam, certainly. Lewis seems likely as well.

    Reply
  10. Marinus Ferreira

    No, really, David Lewis.

    Reply
  11. Dan Speak

    I think Alvin Plantinga has a puncher's chance.

    Reply
  12. Ravi M. Singh

    Oh dear, students will forever be contemplating whether or not we as humans will ever understand what it is like to be a bat. In all honesty, though, I think Nagel's paper is a great eye-opener and a great introduction to one of the great problems in philosophy of mind. It also initiates some of the most bizarre and amusing comments and observations from students than any other work I've ever come across.

    I'm surprised not to see HLA Hart anywhere on the list, as I can't imagine legal philosophy ever being without him. Perhaps I'm missing something about the criteria for making the list. That being said, I suppose he would be my insertion for #4. I might be inclined to stick Hilary Putnam in there as well like some other commenters have suggested.

    Reply
  13. Landon Schurtz

    Whether or not anyone thinks Gettier cases are actually a problem in epistemology, the discussion of whether they are or not has had such a profound impact on the discipline that it would be basically impossible to understand the development of epistemology without talking about Gettier. Plus, since his paper is so short and straightforward, there's little incentive not to just have the students read the original when trying to explain what a "Gettier problem" is. So, my vote is, weirdly enough, for Gettier.

    Reply
  14. Kaija Mortensen

    For the sake of acknowledging that women do exist as powerful players in modern philosophy, I would like to cast my votes for Martha Nussbaum and G.E.M. Anscombe. I can only hope that as more and more women enter the field of philosophy, they (and their students) will have increasing interest in the work of those intelligent women who have gone before them.

    Reply
  15. Richard Moore

    Paul Grice's work has inspired a way of thinking about language and communication that has been very influential in the fields of linguistics, cognitive anthropology and psychology. I'd be confident that his work will be discussed 100 years from now. I'm less confident that his work will be read 100 years from now because it can be somewhat impenetrable, but until someone writes a good book on his work, perhaps there's no alternative.

    I'm a little surprised that Chomsky isn't on the list. I would have expected him to be near the top, maybe even second after Rawls. (Perhaps he's classed as a linguist?)

    Reply
  16. Eric Schwitzgebel

    As suggested above, Lewis alone would probably have ranked above 4. Philosophers too are subject to the conjunction fallacy.

    Reply
  17. Karen Margrethe Nielsen

    Kaija Mortensen puts in very polite terms what I would put much more bluntly. If this list represents (a) the twelve "modern" philosophers most likely to be read in a century then this discipline has its head so firmly stuck down its Y-fronts that it will be entirely obsolete in a century. If it merely represents (b) a ranking of twelve quite influential thinkers, randomly picked, then why should we care? Most of all, the list would seem to reflect the narrow-mindedness and historical parochialism of some of its current practitioners. Here's a more upbeat list:

    Martha Nussbaum
    Susan Wolf
    Susanna Siegel
    Tamar Gendler
    Judith Jarvis Thomson
    Rae Langton
    Delia Graff
    Sally Haslanger
    Barbara Herman
    Janet Broughton
    etc etc

    Reply
  18. Justin Capes

    Well, if having a famous (or is it infamous) and widely discussed "counterexample" to a thesis is enough to get Gettier in, we should probably mention Harry Frankfurt, too. Indeed, my impression of the Gettier cases is that discussion of them is declining (though since I'm not up on that literature I'm willing to be corrected), whereas discussion of Frankfurt-style cases is–much to some people's chagrin–still flourishing. Moreover, Frankfurt's influence extends beyond the examples that bear his name. He has made important contributions in ethics, moral psychology and other areas of action theory.

    Also, I agree with Dan Speak that Plantinga has a puncher's chance.

    Reply
  19. anon

    prefacing female candidates with "for the sake of acknowledging that women … " sure seems like taking something away from their achievements or philosophical significance. would they be important to you even if they weren't women?

    Reply
  20. Justin Vlasits

    Gettier is definitely not guilty of publishing too much!

    I also second Putnam, Anscombe and Dennett although I'm surprised that Williamson and Wright have not come up since the original post.

    Reply
  21. T. Parent

    Speaking of women, I would have thought Millikan would be an obvious choice.

    Reply
  22. Jenni Ernst

    Thank you, Kaija. While I am not sure which female philosophers I would add because I haven't had time to think through it carefully, I am glad someone else noticed the lack of female philosophers on this list (as well as other lists that have popped up from time to time on the various philosophy sites).

    Reply
  23. Simon Keller

    We shouldn't confuse the question "Who will still be read in 100 years?" with the question "Who is the best philosopher?" A good philosopher whose work is very clear may not be read in 100 years. A good philosopher whose work contains lots of apparent contradictions, obscure jargon, enigmatic suggestions, etc, may well still be read in 100 years, because that philosopher is more likely to spawn an industry of scholarship.

    To use two examples, which I'm sure are tendentious, but make the point. Peter Singer has come up with several of the most influential and world-changing philosophical arguments of the last 30 years, but there will never such a job description as "Singer scholar." And Kant would not be read so widely today if his work did not lend itself to endless cycles of reinterpretation and attempted clarification. But that does not mean that Kant is more important or a better philosopher than Kant. (He might be, but not for *that* reason.)

    Reply
  24. Lani Roberts

    In addition to Nussbaum and Anscombe, I'd include Arendt.

    Reply
  25. Brian Leiter

    Given that the comments are veering off track, may I remind readers what the editors of the "12 Modern Philosophers" book said about the 12 they included (which I quoted originally):

    "There are 12 philosophers represented here, all writing in English, and all of them active in the last third of the twentieth century…..They are all highly important figures in philosophy now: widely read, initiators of debate. Are they the top 12 philosophers of our time? Of course we make no such claim. But were someone to give a list of, say, the 20 key players, then, probably, the 12 here would be among them."

    This pretty much rules out several of the names that have started to appear, above (e.g., arguably Grice, clearly Arendt, probably Anscombe).

    Reply
  26. R. M. Farley

    I agree about Lewis and also had Chisholm in mind.

    Also, I take issue with Jon Cogburn's attack on Quine.

    First, Quine is a fantastic stylist. I suggest re-reading "Pursuit of Truth".

    Second, I am not sure what "weird Quinean commitments" are, but I'm assuming the trouble is supposed to be with Quine's behaviorism. But to what extent is Quine, a guy who makes room for something like introspection, really a behaviorist in the classic Watsonian sense? On that matter I suggest Roger Gibson's essay in the Cambridge Companion.

    Reply
  27. Lukasz Krawiranda

    And what about Sellars? Nobody has mentioned him, but I think Brandom may be right, saying that Sellars is the greatest American philosopher of the 20th century. I would have Sellars (at least) at 4.

    BL COMMENT: Sellars would also not fit the criteria. I'm going to stop approving comments that reflect failure to read the selection criteria.

    Reply
  28. Enzo Rossi

    The reception of philosophical work–especially in fields like political philosophy–is greatly influenced by the general course of history. Especially if Western dominance (and liberal democracy with it) wanes significantly, Rawls will come to be seen as the late 20th century equivalent of what Robert Filmer was for the 17th century. I just can't help thinking that there is something disturbingly ideological in all of Rawls' three main books.

    Reply
  29. dankaufman!

    three words: 'david', 'k', 'lewis'

    (and here are some more: enzo, i'll bet you everything i own in the whole wide world against $50 (US) that rawls will NEVER become the 20th-century robert filmer. seriously, this is in writing, and i expect all of brian's readers to hold me to this bet. if you are not willing to make this bet, which has a worst worst outcome for you of losing $50, you shouldn't say such silly things.)

    Reply
  30. Jon Cogburn

    Professor Farley,

    For what it's worth, I've read both of Gibson's excellent books on Quine, and didn't mean to be griping about behaviorism issues, but rather Quine's extensionalism, scientism, a prioristic explanations of how language learning must work, continuous reliance on something like a deductive nomological theory of explanation, focus on logical truth instead of inference, and his views of ontological commitment. Obviously there are good philosophers that agree with any one of these, but the way they are all piled together in Quine just makes a book like "Roots of Reference" almost inestimably weird from a linguistics perspective. And you don't need them to get to what people like Putnam take to be the upshot of Chapter 2 of Word and Object and the think on analytic/synthetic. I mean, in this regard I can teach Stephen Stich and Mark Wilson and Dennett for genuinely naturalistically motivated philosophy of mind and language, and not have to get into radical translation or "gavagai" or what we would quantify over in a finished first order axiomatization of natural science (as if that were possible) or made up stories of how a child might acquire first order logic as their language.
    .
    On the other point, perhaps philosophical style is sui generis, but I think the same general rules for writing decent, accessible fiction (the kinds of thing that Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis championed) apply also to philosophical writing. If you agree with this, then Quine often comes across very badly, as his prose swims with what English professors regard as typical examples of badly read adolescents attempting a "literary" style, for example: (1) overuse of alliteration (e.g. "to call a posit a posit is not to patronize it" "fancifully fanciless" etc.), (2) a kind of grating, breezy familiarness, and (3) over reliance on catchphrases exactly where the argument is least clear (e.g. "indeterminacy is underdetermination twice removed").

    I'm not trying to deny that Quine is one of the most significant philosophers of the previous century. I just think his considered import will recede because we've rightfully moved past so many of his presuppositions and because he is such a bad prose stylist.

    Reply
  31. Brian

    I would gladly take Dan Kaufman's bet if I were more confident that his net value exceeded the amount in question…but seriously, surely Enzo Rossi is correct that Rawls's work is highly ideological and, one might add, parochial. And surely Rossi is correct that historical developments will have a significant impact on the longterm reception of philosophical work, perhaps especially in political philosophy. Suppose the model of authoritarian capitalism at work in Singapore and China comes to dominate the world. Will the intuitions central to the Rawlsian thought experiments have any traction in such a world? I'm agnostic on whether Rawls will turn out to be Filmer, since that is hostage to events no one can reliably predict.

    But given the professionalization of philosophy, and the large number of Rawls devotees in positions to train the next generation of moral and political philosophers, I think it is a good bet, ceteris paribus, folks will be reading Rawls a century hence.

    Reply
  32. Mat Wilder

    I think Nussbaum deserves a spot on that list (and I HOPE she is still read in the future, just as strongly as I hope that Rorty is NOT read in the future.) I also agree with the poster who suggested Susan Wolf. I will suggest my "own" Susan – Haack. I think Haack is a much better pragmatic philosopher than Rorty.

    Reply
  33. D.Dennis

    For someone to be reasonably widely read and studied a century hence it must be the case both that their work is of lasting value *and* that what is valuable in their work cannot be encapsulated in, and improved upon, in the work of a subsequent philosopher. I am not convinced that *anyone* active in the last third of the twentieth century fits the bill.

    For example, (to take a case mentioned above) *even if* Frankfurt style cases are still discussed and *even if* they are still called Frankfurt style cases, I don’t imagine anyone will read what Frankfurt has to say about them.

    Perhaps we should run a poll on the topic, ‘How likely is it that *any* philosopher(s) active in the last third of the twentieth century will be widely read and studied a century hence?’ Put me down for ‘not very’.

    It follows that I am happy to accept Dan Kaufman’s bet. With advances in medical science he may be around to pay up a century hence; and even if I lose, by that time inflation will have made $50 worth very little indeed…

    Reply
  34. Enzo Rossi

    Dan Kaufman,

    I take the bet. I really think that unpredictable historical factors will determine whether Rawls will become Filmer, and (if so) when the next Locke and Hobbes will emerge.

    But Prof. Leiter is right: the professionalization of philosophy prolongs the entrenchment of dominant figures, other things being equal–so a century might not be long enough for Rawls to be eclipsed.

    Reply
  35. Matt

    The sensible bit of Rossi's comment is that history will help determine who will be read in ways that isn't predictable. That's surely true with Rawls, as it is with everyone mentioned. The comparison with Filmer is, I think, very odd and hard to understand on any account, especially if one has actually read Filmer. The right bit of the idea, though, was put by someone I read a while ago (I've forgotten who, unfortunately) who said we shouldn't rule out the possibility, as unlikely as it seems to us now, that 200 years from now some future version of Quintin Skinner will be telling her contemporaries that, while everyone knows Brian Barry was clearly the most important political philosopher of the 20th Century, we can't really understand him unless we read this much more obscure contemporary of his, John Rawls.

    Reply
  36. R Sica

    Galen Strawson. And that's not even counting how many more books he's got in the cooker.

    Reply
  37. dankaufman!

    alrighty then, brian and enzo. we're on. (and brian, as far as my net worth goes, let me just say that i have a sofa upholstered with saffron.)

    you two probably know more about this than i do, but i don't know how many students that filmer trained, who then went on to train other grad students, who then went on to train other grad students, and so on and so on and so on. (100 years worth?)

    here is an unpredictable historical factor for you: i may email every living student rawls ever had, as well as their students, and simply request, in a totally friendly manner, that they make A THEORY OF JUSTICE required reading in their political/moral classes. i would be informing them, of course, that you two are betting that rawls will be the 20th-century robert filmer. who knows how they'll react? oh, cruel, cruel, unpredictable history! i am your agent!

    please send your checks to my departmental address. thanks.

    Reply
  38. V. Alan White

    One factor not considered here: the longevity of the present young generation of philosophers. 100 years of the scope of assessment ain't what it used to be. That being said. . .

    Nussbaum and Lewis clearly are contenders to be in that top 12. But I have a favorite dark horse for lasting influence: Gary Watson. It's true that Frankfurt changed the course of how the debate about compatibilism should proceed–and thus he deserves consideration for the list–but IMHO Watson advanced that debate in ways that led to many other significant contributions on the free will issue by others, and could lead in the future to reforms about how the law deals with matters of choice and responsibility (which at present is pure jurisdictional conceptual chaos). His work has been simply too good to recede into obscurity.

    Reply
  39. Stephen Downes

    Bas van Fraassen, Hilary Putnam, Michael Dummett

    Reply
  40. Allen Hazen

    Re: "There are 12 philosophers represented here, all writing in English, and all of them active in the last third of the twentieth century"
    — I'm not clear why Sellars fails to meet the criteria when Quine does: Sellars was writing into the 1970s, which is in the last third of the twentieth century. Maybe you don't think Sellars-write counts as English?
    —
    There are different ways a philosopher can be influential. I have a suspoicion that Quine is someone of whom it will be said in a hundred years "Nobody READS this guy any more, but that's because his most valuable ideas were internalized by the profession and are now part of the paradigm we learn as philosophy undergraduates: the importance of First Order Logic, the obviousness of the idea that we can avoid use-mention confusions when talking about logic (HE put a huge amount of thought into notational conventions which showed HOW to avoid any hint of such a confusion in his now-forgotten "Mathematical Logic")…"

    BL COMMENT: Sellars was not active from 1989 to 2000, when he was dead. Everyone else in the book was writing during the last third of the 20th-century, including 1989 to 2000. Perhaps I've mis understood what Kemp & co-editor had in mind.

    Reply
  41. Gary Kemp

    One of the two editors speaks: Another qualification on the list of 12 is they were selected not for the sake of students but for the educated reader of the NYBR/TLS etc., who perhaps read historical figures such as Hume etc. in college, but nothing or little that is contemporary, and wonders what philosophers nowadays are up to. Hence not Lewis – absolutely top-notch philosopher and writer but extremely difficult to make accessible in this format, and not Putnam, as one gets a taste of his concerns in other figures already chosen. Something similar could be said of many of the figures championed in the comments, and of course we've tried to give a sense of the range and diversity of our great subject. Even so we went back and forth on the Lewis question, as he is so central to so many areas. *Of course* such lists are contestable, and they make for good after dinner conversation, at least among certain sorts of people.

    Reply
  42. Enzo Rossi

    Matt Lister,

    I hadn't heard the 'future Skinner' point, but if anything it helps explaining my (admittedly provocative) comparison between Rawls and Filmer: Barry would be Locke (though I think that the most important political philosopher of the 17th century is actually Hobbes), etc. Filmer was a very well-known, staunch defender of the dominant but declining power structures of his time. That alone could warrant a comparison with Rawls if history takes a certain direction, no?

    More generally, the claim that Rawls' work is ideological (and/or parochial, as Prof. Leiter aptly put it) is hardly as radical as many anglophone political philosophers take it to be, and (for instance) it is advanced quite persuasively in Raymond Geuss' recent work.

    —

    Dan,

    You (initially) said 'NEVER': I'll write you a post dated cheque for £/€50 (ain't got no Yankee Dollar) if you wish, but what should the date be?

    Reply
  43. Thom Brooks

    I also had Martha Nussbaum in mind.

    Reply
  44. Joseph Zizys

    Can we run a little though experiment here? pick 12 (any 12) of the 20 most important philosophers writing in a single language (any language) between 1870 and 1900, now ask yourself, who are still read and studied today in any serious way?

    I would suggest that it is entirely possible that a substantial number of the names on the list, and those mentioned in the comments, will NOT be considered important by the year 2110, as surely there are many Germans who where active between 1870 and 1900 and who in their day where celebrated as the heirs to their tradition, who are not now much studied.

    Beyond the point that a third of one century is a VERY short space of time to have too many philosophers who will still be "important" 100 years hence (certainty 12 seems too many, and to be arguing for additions to such a list many too many), I might also suggest that confining oneself to one language might be to invite a diminishment of ones chances even more. After all, philosophy will more and more in the coming century be written in Chinese, Turkish, Arabic, and who knows what other languages, and unless we assume, and it seems a bold assumption to me, that English will truly become for the world what Latin was for the learned European in the middle ages, it may be that those Indians and Chinese who dominate the faculties and conferences in 2110 have only limited room for the Anglophone tradition of the 20th century, alongside the Scottish Enlightenment, German Idealism, French Critical Theory, and all the other cabinet of curiosities that specialists in the history of Philosophy explore while the real philosophy gets done in whatever style it gets done in that far distant, unknown, world.

    Also I must say that I am surprised that more commentators aren't taking the view that it is entirely possible that Quine and Kripke could just as easily share the same fate as Rawls in Enzo's vision of a totalitarian future, and become footnotes by 2110, Analytic Philosophy has, after all, been the dominant fashion in Anglophone philosophy for perhaps less than 100 years, surely a future where within another hundred years fashions change again and philosophy departments come to be dominated by some other school of thought as yet unforeseen is not entirely unimaginable?

    I also don't buy the argument from professionalism, there have been plenty of places where philosophy was a professional sport, Oxford springs to mind, and it has never appeared there that fashions don't change just as quickly, Russell hardly followed dogmatically in his Masters footsteps, no more than Wittgenstein submitted to read all that Bertie assigned him.

    Reply
  45. Brian

    I think Mr. Zizys underestimates the differences between professionalized philosophy today and its condition circa 1900.

    Reply
  46. Eric Schliesser

    There has been some scholarship on the historical fate of philosophical celebrities in later ages. I start my review of a recent edition on the topic with, I hope, an instructive thought-experiment:
    http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=19147

    Reply
  47. Luis Oliveira

    It seems pretty safe to assume that, as long as interest in Christian Philosophy exists, Alvin Plantinga will be widely read.

    Reply
  48. Mark Murphy

    Alasdair MacIntyre.

    Reply
  49. Andrew Kunsak

    Anscombe, Searle, and Putnam.

    Reply
  50. Joshua Harwood

    I second Chomsky and Putnam.

    I would add two people: Nelson Goodman, namely for interesting philosophy of mathematics (or at least a project of a sort) and "Fact, Fiction, and Forecast"; and Carl Hempel, namely for the DN model and contributions to epistemology/philosophy of science. These would be (or at least start) on the early side of the last third of the twentieth century, however.

    However, among professional philosophers, I still bet that relatively "obscure" thinkers like Hintikka, Marcus, and Prior will be read universally, entirely by accident, and only in the fragments that make them important for meeting certain requirements. I think people ignore that when they learned Venn diagrams or FOPL, they were "reading Venn" or "reading Frege, Peirce, Brouwer, and Peano." What makes people think that modal logic would be an exception?

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