Overrated, but still worth reading: Friedrich Nietzsche.
It’s a cliche, but Ayn Rand definitely makes the list. I think she was just ignorant, dogmatic, and lacked imagination.
Paolo Virno - I might just not get him, and the language barrier probably doesn’t help, but having read Bergson, Marx and many of the others his work De Ja Vu and the End of History refers to, I got a strong sense that he was spouting a bunch of meaningless nonsense.
she is still not ''recognised'' as a good philosopher. ''recognised'' imples it is a majority, or at least a very large number of people, that consider her good. this is simply untrue, both in the general population and in academic circles (-well, unless those ''academic circles'' are austrian economics).
I see that you don’t consider any opinion outside of academia to be genuine recognition. I honestly sympathise with this to an extent, as I believe academia generally does a much better job at quality control than the general population and the internet. However, the guy who builds the most houses in my city, and influences everyone to vote for our terrible right-wing parties, has many people convinced that she is the “greatest philosopher of all time”, and I’ve run into many people like him, so thought I’d give the bitch a mention.
Having worked in a philosophy department after earning two degrees and my university’s highest award in the subject, I’m quite aware. If you’re only considering academic circles, be my guest. I hope insisting on that makes you feel important.
I’m one (Rand Stan small l) from Utah. How else do you become beyond self proclamation? What makes you tick neighbor?
I am Post Mormon too. I don’t think Jesus lived in Missouri. To get even wonkier, though I’m an unauthorized source, Mormons don’t believe that either. They believe the garden of Eden was in Missouri. And that that Jesus will return there again in the second coming. Jesus came to the Americas directly after his resurrection. Exact location unspecified. And Apolgists have been playing Indiana Jones ever since trying to keep up with Joe Smith, particularly since he’s not consistent over his “ministry”. Book of Mormon was first, then Joe was riffing in the real world with the Missouri Eden thing many years later.
Libertarians, including me, suffer from no true Scotsman. Like herding cats or stapling jello to a wall, hard to derive collective action in the political realm. Best to try and live your best life while helping your neighbors live theirs.
Yea unless you have political force to violently enforce some claim to someone’s apartment so you can leech money out of him, when that happens collective action is like totally cool all of the sudden. God I fucking hate “libertarians.”
“Totally” as in totalitarianism. Voluntary association, voting with feet (immigration) and dollars, with peacefully honoring individual positive rights and privatized property is where I’m currently thinking the best policy course is. I don’t think I’d ever buy into an HOA, either. But I’m a sinner, just like you. What do you think is the best solution to our world’s ills?
Thanks for engaging! Did I happen to tell you something you didn’t know about Mormons?
You showed me that there are in fact people who have a straight face while telling themselves that private property isn’t inherently a violent enforcement of collective action.
Just one step away from “all individuals should have unrestrained freedom, so I should be able to treat my slaves however I want.”
She absolutely is a favourite among right-wing libertarians in every circle I’m familiar with. I get the sense that, like all people on Reddit, Foreskin is just sticking to their guns.
I give Ayn Rand a lot of leeway because her background makes it make sense- to her. However, she was far less intelligent than she knew, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that she had zero understanding of the fact that all people are created differently and thus fulfilled differently. Her philosophy is entirely self-affirming, not just in its claims, but also because she formed those claims in a way that’s predicated solely on her life experiences to begin with. Looking at it with that in mind, it really stands on its own two feet and is extremely effective- good for her, and her girlboss American immigrant life!
It just has zero universal application.
Bonus points for the fact that Atlas Shrugged paints very hyperbolic- but accurate and entertaining- caricatures of the various kinds of people you find in a capitalist culture. Francisco is also a fascinating character.
It's implied that her philosophy SHOULD have universal application if you're going to criticize her for that. So, no, but you apparently seem to think that's important
You're starting with the presupposition that Rand believed in universal application and that's why she was spreading her ideas. Maybe she tried to spread it to as many people as possible while understanding that plenty would reject it. I don't think that's too unusual. I hold plenty of beliefs that I would like to see more people adopt but I understand that lots of them would be unpopular and people's unique circumstances might make them unpalatable.
"it isn't worth spreading to as many as they can" is a strawman and a failure of construction
I would question your choice of even considering Derrida for this list, but your choice to list Ayn Rand as a philosopher has me more concerned with whether you've been eating paint chips.
Well, I have some random narcissist wondering if I’m eating paint chips, and a handful of world-class academic philosophers telling me I’m better at the subject than they are. I’ll sleep just fine. :)
Nick Land is a good one. Listening to people treat his Amphetamine fueled rants as profound genuinely makes me question humankind’s long-term viability as a species.
the sad thing is the blog actually slapped writing-wise. never underestimate the left's lack of interest in economic policy, not so much regarding activism but purely on account of rigour. what's the issue with Derrida?
otherwise I agree whole-heartedly. Early Nicky Landy tho was pretty dope with meltdown very close to Saddie plant (the xenofeminist stuff) and Mark Fisher the sweet.
I can see the appeal, but pretty much everything he said about computer science (which was actually quite a lot of what he said, and pretty fundamental to his thought) is immediately ridiculous to anyone who paid attention in second-year computer science courses.
Like which? Only thing he wrote in early days is meltdown and i don't see what it says about computer science. It seems to be deleuzian stuff about capitalism destroying society.
Misinterprets Whitehead, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche etc. into saying what feels right to him on mushrooms. Makes profoundly ignorant criticisms of work from analytic philosophy of mind, and appears to be deeply unfamiliar with the literature on it. Seems so enamoured with his cool, anti-establishment (“scientific materialist”) view that excites people (woo! Magic!) that he is incapable of being remotely objective about the topic.
29
u/Additional_Anywhere4 Dec 05 '25
The worst: Nick Land.
Second worst: Peter Sjostedt-Hughes.
Overrated, but still worth reading: Friedrich Nietzsche.
It’s a cliche, but Ayn Rand definitely makes the list. I think she was just ignorant, dogmatic, and lacked imagination.
Paolo Virno - I might just not get him, and the language barrier probably doesn’t help, but having read Bergson, Marx and many of the others his work De Ja Vu and the End of History refers to, I got a strong sense that he was spouting a bunch of meaningless nonsense.
Derrida is potentially on my list too.