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I see this question as a bit naïve. There is metadata on every document created by a modern word processor…
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I teach both large courses, like Jurisprudence and Critical Legal Thinking (a.k.a Legal Argumentation), and small seminar-based courses at Edinburgh…
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Galen Strawson calls my attention to this in the current TLS:
If you ask philosophers – those in the English speaking analytic tradition anyway – who is the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, they will most likely name Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Galen was skeptical, though do recall the results of this survey. If not Wittgenstein, who? Why?
‘important’ is arguably ambiguous—between who’s really the best philosopher, who’s widely thought to be the best, and who has in fact had the most influence [which might be unobvious] … then there’s the person who is said to be the best when a quick answer is required
I remember a conversation between Ted Honderich, Malcolm Budd, and myself in about 1988. I asked them what percentage of what Wittgenstein said was true. My memory is that Malcolm Budd said ‘about 95 per cent’, and that Ted Honderich said ‘about 0.05 per cent’. I reported the conversation to David Pears, a connoisseur of Wittgenstein, and I think he gave the best reply: ‘about 50 per cent’. One great problem with Wittgenstein, who is a genius, is that he polarizes people, and few learn to take what is right and reject what is wrong.
There will be those who say Lewis, Quine, Russell, or Heidegger. But the TLS is correct.
The final sentence of the first paragraph ("Wittgenstein has a deeply ambivalent status–he has authority, but not influence.") begs a question: What's the difference between authority and influence in this context? If an expert meaningfully clarifies the distinction, then the original question splits into two, as intimated by Prof. Strawson above. Who is the most authoritative philosopher (according to the English speaking analytic tradition)? Who is the most influential? IANAP, and so I am eager to learn how others would respond to the two. The TLS author purports to answer the question. Did he get it right?
I take it what the author means is that if a position can be associated with Wittgenstein, that is notable (shows the position is important, even if wrong), so he's a popular reference point, but it's hard to find very many philosophers who take Wittgensteinian positions on questions in philosophy.
It may be the case that the greatest philosophers of the 20th century were those that brought philosophy to dead ends. In my view there is a trio here— and wittgenstein is surely one of the three. The other two are heidegger and whitehead. ironically whitehead is the most humane, sane, and reasonable of the threesome, but system went out of fashion. his project seems no longer possible and so he is neglected. heidegger and wittgenstein each in their own ways were unhealthy individuals, who are also no longer in fashion perhaps, but who remain unavoidable warnings and challenges to our continuing thought.
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