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Just a little fun: Top Trumps Philosophers

jkg20 April 24, 2018 at 07:54 9625 views 16 comments
Of course, everyone will want the Plato card - it will beat everyone else - but I was wondering if anyone had ideas for categories one would use for Top Trumps for philosophers. Number of major works, comes to mind as one. To allow even for the Plato card to be beaten, I guess we could add in age (the oldest winning, of course). Any other ideas?

Comments (16)

Wayfarer April 24, 2018 at 09:19 #173660
Reply to jkg20 The Number One idea, beyond a shadow of doubt, is- remove Trump from your title, as in the current circumstances, this has most unfortunate connotations.
Deleteduserrc April 24, 2018 at 21:21 #173712
Reply to Wayfarer lol, yeah, my first thought too.

Reply to jkg20

Derrida's whole thing is trumping everyone, on their own terms. I guess you could think of Derrida like a Ditto in pokemon. Whatever trump card you lay down, his move is to replicate a shadow image of that card and let them tear each other apart. That's a cool move. For instance, Plato will trump you with truth over your sophistry. Derrida will draw out the sophistry that allows Plato to distinguish between truth and sophistry in the first place, and voila: plato has just trumped himself. (I'm not a big Derrida fan, btw, but I think he works great in a Trump Card context.)
Deleteduserrc April 24, 2018 at 21:24 #173713
Then there's also the Marx card which goes like: Yeah, your card's alright, but like 5000000 people died so we could even play this game, and you're justifying that every time you play it. So, like: cool card, you asshole. I don't know how you can sleep at night
Deleteduserrc April 24, 2018 at 21:40 #173716
The solipsist, meanwhile, will just say that any trump card he confronts, he must have played himself.
Monitor April 25, 2018 at 01:35 #173763
The Schopenhauer card says: you can't win anyway and you would't be satisfied if you did.
_db April 25, 2018 at 03:03 #173782
Quoting jkg20
Trump philosophers


A contradiction in terms!
_db April 25, 2018 at 03:17 #173786
Quoting jkg20
but I was wondering if anyone had ideas for categories one would use for Top [s]Trumps[/s] for philosophers.


Top ten [s]anime betrayals[/s] western philosophers of all time, in order based on nothing but my personal opinion:

  • Plato
  • [s]Hegel[/s] Schopenhauer
  • Augustine
  • Nietzsche
  • Kant
  • Heidegger
  • Aquinas
  • Peirce
  • Descartes
  • Wittgenstein


Top ten philosophers of all time:

  • Schopenhauer
  • Plato
  • Siddhartha Gautama
  • Schopenhauer
  • Jesus of Nazareth
  • Schopenhauer
  • Nietzsche
  • Schopenhauer
  • Schopenhauer
  • Schopenhauer
MetaphysicsNow April 25, 2018 at 08:15 #173864
Reply to jkg20 I echo a couple of others on here - you should ammend the typo in your discussion title :wink:
Top trumps philosophers will have to avoid a Zeno card - it could never be dealt out: before it lands on the table, it would have to travel half the distance between the pack and the table, and before it could reach that point it would have to travel half the distance between the pack and that point........;
The Hegel card will never accept defeat and just look for a synthesis instead.


Cuthbert April 25, 2018 at 09:20 #173869
Some awkward ones to add to the Zeno card:
The Heraclitus card is a member and is not a member of the pack.
The Russell card both is and is not a member of all packs of cards that are not members of themselves.
The Plato card is not a physical card and can only be apprehended by the mind.
The Berkeley card sounds like a credit card.
No, The Berkeley card is a card only when it's being perceived.

Forgottenticket April 25, 2018 at 12:28 #173891
Quoting darthbarracuda
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer


why though? Do you actually agree with everything he wrote about the will and how it manifests overtime including all the supernatural implications eg the animal magnetism essay ect.

Baden April 25, 2018 at 12:50 #173901
Reply to jkg20

Looks like no-one answered your question. Maybe:

Output: e.g. Aristotle ~100
Cool Factor: e.g. Camus ~100
Influence: e.g. Plato ~100
Controversy: e.g. Nietzsche ~100

For those who are not familiar with Top Trumps>>User image


Cuthbert April 25, 2018 at 15:09 #173936
Schopenhau. Schopenhauer. Schopenhauest.
_db April 25, 2018 at 16:30 #173961
Quoting JupiterJess
why though? Do you actually agree with everything he wrote about the will and how it manifests overtime including all the supernatural implications eg the animal magnetism essay ect.


No, I don't agree with everything Schopenhauer said.
Thorongil April 25, 2018 at 18:28 #173970
I thought you were trying to ask who Trump's top philosophers are. Someone should ask him that.
Mayor of Simpleton April 25, 2018 at 22:46 #174008
hmm...

Trump's philosophers?

I doubt he's familar with many or any of them but I'd suggest:

Julius Evola
Alexander Geljewitsch Dugin
Ayn Rand
Giovanni Gentile
Arthur de Gobineau
Lothrop Stoddard

If he wasn't familiar with them then his former minister of propaganda (yes I said it) Stephen Bannon certainly was familiar and probably pulled appropriate strings until he hung himself, but that's just a guess.

Meow!

G
Ilyosha April 26, 2018 at 01:29 #174054
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Trump's philosophers?

I doubt he's familar with many or any of them but I'd suggest:

Julius Evola
Alexander Geljewitsch Dugin
Ayn Rand
Giovanni Gentile
Arthur de Gobineau
Lothrop Stoddard


I'd say that Frege, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt covers just about all the bases.

Quoting Baden
Looks like no-one answered your question. Maybe:

Output: e.g. Aristotle ~100
Cool Factor: e.g. Camus ~100
Influence: e.g. Plato ~100
Controversy: e.g. Nietzsche ~100


It's downright scary that it took you less than twenty words to describe, like, 90% of the process for BA/MSc/PhD thesis/dissertation selection in academic philosophy.

The only topic I'd think about adding (maybe including in "output"?) is breadth of topics covered. I think one reason why there have been so many Aristotelians / Kantians / Hegelians, etc. (as opposed to, say, Schopenhauerians) is that they cover all the big topics--metaphysics, logic, ontology, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of science, etc.--so people can have a philosophical hero who is their trump card in *all* philosophy conversations, no matter the area.