Who is the most famous/infamous/ahead of the rest in their field?

[Tywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, LongRider said:

She was just a good capitalist who recognized an opportunity to make money.   Isn’t that to be admired in our society?  

Poor Ray J didn't make shit compared to the empire they built. He was not ahead of the field. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Michael phelps has become the most recognisable name in swimming to the masses 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[A Horse Named Stranger]

15 hours ago, maarsen said:

Without calculus, no Einstein

 

15 hours ago, maarsen said:

Newton created the fundamentals of calculus in 1666, but his refusal to publish for 20 years led to Leibniz developing his own system.

So no Leibniz no Einstein.

I mean, you can't argue, that Newton is essential for Einstein, only to make the point, that Leibniz also invented a calculus system, thus rendering Newton for that purpose obsolete.

[Makk]

On 9/18/2023 at 11:33 AM, Madame deVenoge said:

But, did Sun Tzu conquer half the known world?

I should also give a shout out to Alexander the Great, conquering the western half of the known world.

If you were talking about publishers, sure Sun Tzu. But if you are talking about who is the more accomplished warmonger Ghengis Khan would be well ahead. Sun Tzu would not make a top 10 list of Chinese generals. Alexander is a good call though. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 9/18/2023 at 8:36 PM, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Michael phelps has become the most recognisable name in swimming to the masses 

Yeah 15 years ago when you could get famous by smoking weed and swimming a couple laps

[DireWolfSpirit]

Darwin

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

9 hours ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Yeah 15 years ago when you could get famous by smoking weed and swimming a couple laps

I didn’t get it. He’s quite accomplished yes ?

[Fragile Bird]

Henrietta Lacks

[williamjm]

Nature documentaries: David Attenborough.

[Rippounet]

I'd go with people who formulated "meta-narratives": intellectual perspectives so powerful that they could impact almost all fields of social sciences instantaneously. That's generally Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud.
Feminism is difficult to ascribe to a single individual, religion impossible (even if you stick to monotheism).

Edit: Adam Smith gets an honorable mention. Lots of philosophers too, like Descartes or Kant, possibly Spinoza and Hegel.

Edit 2: hey @IlyaP, who do you think are the greatest philosophers?

Edited September 21, 2023 by Rippounet

[Conflicting Thought]

Salvador Allende

Simon Bolivar

Lautaro

Mansa Musa

 

[Conflicting Thought]

W.EB Dubois

[IlyaP]

23 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Edit 2: hey @IlyaP, who do you think are the greatest philosophers?

Depends on the area they're covering. The aphorism that all of philosophy is a footnote to Aristotle will never not be both accurate and funny. 

That said...

Henry David Thoreau will always be high up on my list due to his work on writing in an accessible and approachable manner that also seeks to be practical and applicable in every day life - notably in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, which I consider a masterpiece.

Boethius comes in a strong second, with the Consolation of Philosophy, which, as with Thoreau, is what I personally call Applied/Practical Philosophy. It helps that it's not a right pain to teach to students. 

Others that come to mind, in no particular order:

The Social Contract by Rousseau is a game-changer for the era, despite the so-called enlightenment era being front-loaded with a lot of spurious and racist assumptions. 

Michel Foucalt is a must for anyone interested in class dynamics, power, and control. 

And of course, Marshal McLuhan, whose work never stopped being relevant to our wild modern world, and whose writing veers awesomely into the territory of both sociology and anthropology. 

That's what I'd be suggesting off the top of my head whilst having breakfast at my local cafe. 

Bear in mind, I come from the panology school of thought that Professor Denis Outwater half-jokingly defined in his /still/ unpublished philosophy text. 

[Fragile Bird]

Two people I always associate together here in Toronto are Marshall McLuhan and Glenn Gould. They didn’t live very far from each other and the one died in 1980 and the other in 82. Two giants in their fields.

[IlyaP]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Two people I always associate together here in Toronto are Marshall McLuhan and Glenn Gould. They didn’t live very far from each other and the one died in 1980 and the other in 82. Two giants in their fields.

Huh! TIL something new! Never realised Gould was from Trono! 

[Luzifer's right hand]

7 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'd go with people who formulated "meta-narratives": intellectual perspectives so powerful that they could impact almost all fields of social sciences instantaneously. That's generally Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud.
Feminism is difficult to ascribe to a single individual, religion impossible (even if you stick to monotheism).

Edit: Adam Smith gets an honorable mention. Lots of philosophers too, like Descartes or Kant, possibly Spinoza and Hegel.

Edit 2: hey @IlyaP, who do you think are the greatest philosophers?

When it comes to writing I suspect nobody comes close to Karl Marx outside of religion. His "meta-narrative" spread outside of the west in a way that nothing else matches imho.

On a sidenote a lot of the anglosphere names dropped in this thread mean absolutely nothing to me and I'm rather anglophile I think.

[polishgenius]

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Lots of philosophers too, like Descartes or Kant, possibly Spinoza and Hegel.

 

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable

[BigFatCoward]

If you are naming 2 from the same field, you kind of missed the point. 

[Ran]

18 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable

Don't forget that David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Feminism is difficult to ascribe to a single individual,

Judith Butler would be the first name that comes to mind, tho.

Edit: If you say Simone de Beauvoir gets precedent over Butler, fine.

But those two are probably still the two classics.

Edited September 21, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger