A Philosophy Professor’s Final Class

Such lists are typically nonsense if taken too seriously, because when we look for a qualitative impact, high level quantifying metrics to measure influence (such as numbers of sold books, numbers of citations, etc.) misses some aspects that make someone important for a field. I do not mean, that they are useless, but need to supplemented or even challenged by other observations.

So here are my observations as someone with a professional background in philosophy from Germany (my observations are more or less limited to this country) regarding Chomsky: Firstly, it is not mandatory to be a philosopher by profession to have some impact in the field (or even have considerable impact; Niels Bohr or Niklas Luhmann come to my mind). As far as Chomsky is conserned, his theory of generative grammar played an important reference point for language philosophy. Philosophers were typically not diving very deep into the details of the theory. That was indeed left to linguistics. But the general framework of generative grammar was textbook knowledge when I first came across the name Chomsky, as part of my philosophy undergraduate studies in the early 1990s. It took me some time to discover that he was also a political activist.

To turn this into a (hypothetical) quantifiable metric: If you were to present my fellow (lanugage) philosophy students at the time with the task of naming any US Americans they remember from their studies, the name Noam Chomsky would have been quite prominent. Had they been asked instead for the names of US Americans to whose theories they particularly dedicated one of their essays, Chomsky would probably not have been very prominent.

> 50 Most Influential Living Philosophers (August 12, 2022)

90 % are from/studied in England or the USA. This is classic Anglo propaganda, and anyone taking these English-biased lists at face value is bound to be such an Anglo-centered, nationalistic person as we see too often happening.

You are not that important, English speakers. It is a real problem. Same for the "top universities" lists.

Have you read Bernstein's work? Or even, dare I ask, read the article and garnered some understanding of his World view through that?

He comes across to me as a pluralist who in many ways would have agreed with you that people can become transfixed by a specific school of philosophy: he didn't have a fixed single view of philosophy which he believed conquered all other philosophies, but rather he enjoyed the ideas and process of them intermingling and new ideas and thoughts emerging from those dialogues. The schools he led had teachers from many different philosophical backgrounds.

However, your argument that because 90% of the people on the list are from/studied in "England" (I think you mean the UK), or the USA and so it must be "Anglo propaganda", is I think flawed. You're not considering how influence is measured objectively.

The leading philosophy schools today are in those countries, as evidenced by published output and citations.

That might be sad, unfair, a symptom of Empire and historical bias, a symptom of modern bias and it could even be considered cruel. But it's still true.

Is the fact that the leading engineering, science and mathematics schools are also in those countries - as evidenced by academic and economic output of graduates - also "Anglo propaganda"? Why is every leading school of all disciplines so full of foreign students, so keen to adopt this "propaganda" if there are better schools back home? Is it because the administrators perpetuate a lie in order to gain tuition fees, or is it because the halls of power of almost every major corporation and government across the globe - from Norway to North Korea, Brazil to Belarus - is full of graduates from these schools?

What I'd love to see is your proposed alternative list. Could you please produce the list of the 50 Most Influential Living Philosophers that you believe is more balanced and representative, and then we can discuss its merits versus this one?

I'd also like to see your "top universities" list: I have no doubt there are fine universities across the globe, but in terms of their influence and ability to unlock the very best careers on Earth, I'd love to see the evidence of how they push Cambridge, Oxford, the Ivy League, the Russell Group and so on, into a second tier, because I'm curious about new perspectives.

And it's in that spirit I'd like you to consider the final claim of English speakers proclaiming self-importance. The truth is that Britain and then America has been hugely influential across the globe over the last 200 years. There were many crimes and wrongs committed under the cloak of that power, but it's hard to deny the influence. The next 200 years will be different, but it is hard to argue that China, India or another country has equal or greater economic or political influence today because the data when we look up from our screens and look outside at the World around us shows it's not happened yet.

Your plea for more open minds is fine, but I think you also need to reflect on your own views and understand the objective root of them. In short: "physician, heal thyself".

I'm reading Parfit at the moment and finding it hard going to be honest.

That list looks to be a group of senior academics contributing to a series of debates and what I might call research programmes (in the sense of Lakatos). So 'technical' issues if you will within the framework of a specific academic tradition.

I suspect that the word philosophy has a wider and non-technical resonance for most people. Shading off into religion, politics, concepts of justice and equity and so forth.

Firstly, don't take listicles too seriously.

But more importantly, how is the ability to hold a note before needing to breathe a useful and objective measure how "most influential" a philosopher is?