Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

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Andy Warhol

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William S. Burroughs


There are some people throughout history who have changed your life or left you inspired by the sheer genius of their work. My intellectual heroes are...

Sir Isaac Newton
Thomas Edison
Marie Curie
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Aldous Huxley
John Keats
Andy Warhol
William S. Burroughs
Virginia Woolf
Leo Tolstoy


Who are your intellectual heroes and heroines?

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

And how can I forget this guy:

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John Lennon

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Hierocles of Alexandria
Homer


Hermes Trismegistus
Marsilio Ficino
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola


Julian Jaynes

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

To elaborate, basically Neoplatonism...

I've read tons of stuff on Neoplatonic Philosophy: Platonism (capital 'P') and platonism (small 'p').

I use a lot of it as the basis for my beliefs in God and the ways of Religion... though I won't label myself with an actual Religion.
I also use a lot of it as a basis for understanding people and life in general.

Great list, The Rodent. Socrates is also a hero of mine. But a question: Does neoplatonism believe in a supreme being or force behind the world's creation? I assume that philosophy took a great hit during the medieval ages, which centered around religion, as compared to the Greeks who exalted Man rather than God.

My dead intellectual heroes include the following names, most are economists and social philosophers because I am from the social sciences:

Friedrich Hayek

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Read about a dozen of his books and dozens of his papers. Nobody influenced me more than him.

Ludwig Lachmann

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Jean-Baptiste Say

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Thomas S. Kuhn

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Socrates

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Reading Plato's work about Socrates' teachings.

Plato

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Aristotle

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Werner Heisenberg

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John von Neumann

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Gerard Debreu

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Edward Gibbon

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Akira Kurosawa

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The dialogue in his films is full of interesting insights. From a purely intellectual level, Kurosawa appears to me to be the smartest filmmaker I ever watched. Of course, if compared to pure intellectuals his dialogue isn't that impressive in terms of pure knowledge but his insights show a certain wisdom that is extremely impressive.

Adam Smith

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Issac Asimov

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His science fiction concepts are very interesting, though he suffers from excessive belief in the application of the methods of the natural science onto other fields. A belief that can lead to social disaster if followed through.

Albert Einstein

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I remember reading his book of relativity for layman. Very good and I think I might have grasped this theory at least partially.

Carl Menger

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Eugen Böhm-Bawerk

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Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

Jesus
Einstein
Gandhi
Marquez

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

Nobody mentioned Marx yet. Good. Marx is overrated.

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

I was expecting Jesus to show up somewhere :D

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

@Guap ^ Totally forgot about Einstein... one of the few Philosophers/Scientists who had ideas I have trouble understanding... I understand some of it, but not all.

I still enjoy occasionally reading up though.

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

Do people consider poets and painters intellectual?

You mean the self-proclaimed Star Baby who talked about Ghosts after declaring himself as a God...

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

Forgot Van Gogh. :)

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

I reckon Da Vinci could be classed as a painter artist type... smart guy too.

He was developing the science of flying machines hundreds of years before their time.

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Arthur Schopenhauer
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Marcel Proust
Robert Musil
Claude Debussy
Johannes Brahms
Emanuel Lasker
Mikhail Tal

Re: Who Are Your Intellectual Heroes/Heroines?
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6yTRq_rJg4

Well, a number of religious bases are derived from a relationship with Neoplatonism.
Neoplatonism itself could be considered a religion and quite often is.

Esotericism is similar but studies the basis of outward intelligence and a similar thinking known as Nous. Nous is basically logic and intelligence... sometimes referred to as The Mind's Eye.
Plato was one of the first to research and reveal Esotericism... and Homer was a pioneer of Nous... which led other Philosophers down their paths to discover something called Prisca Theologia.
Esoteric religions include anything from early Christianity to Taoism and even Neoplatonism itself.

The type of thinking mentioned a moment ago called Prisca Theologia uses a lot of logic (Nous) and scientific research to understand the meaning behind why there are so many religions and the similarities between them.
Prisca Theologia, which was worked on by three of the names I mentioned: Hermes Trismegistus, Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola... are related to Hermeticism, Esotericism and... Neoplatonism...


Simple terms for Neoplatonism: Platonism with a capital 'P' is the study of Plato's teachings and the mindset of learning and developing those teachings. Using logic and intelligence to understand stuff.
The basic name for this is Neoplatonism.

platonism with a small 'p' is the use of Plato's teachings and the mindset of those teachings, basically logic, to understand and learn about outward intelligences, third realm existences and so on... like God for instance... however platonists (small p) don't have to use the logical side of Neoplatonic Philosophies as a lot of the time logic and science tends to discredit God and a third realm, spirituality and so on, but they can use Plato's teachings and Nous if they wish... and quite often do too.


All these things are connected through various means, but yes... some people who believe in Neoplatonic Philosophies believe in a God... or at least a God like "entity" that is behind all existence and use logic and science, namely Nous, to theorise and study how this illogical existence could work.
I'm one of them.

Another simpler term for it is Perennial Philosophy. The Philosophy of Religion.

"Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo_May


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPA3bwVVzGI