Many men myself included like to indulge unartfully in that study liked by man's most sophisticated: philosophy.
However, unfortunately, on this side of the political aisle especially, where one has noticed mundane shibboleths about race and sex are wrong, one's first introduction into philosophy, say, at the high school level is often either libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, Ayn Rand style, or New Atheist, "Skeptic (TM)" style.
Sargon filled this niche, and Stefan Molyneux too was entirely Ayn Rand + New Atheism for the majority of his internet career. One can give other examples to show the enormous reach it has as "pop philosophy" and a ready-made audience. Shanedk is one particularly irksome fellow who is just Libertarianism + New Atheism
With the Ayn Rand philosophy along with atheism and selfishness comes the idea that - never mind the anachronism, it's just name dropping - Locke and Aristotle invented capitalism and freedom, and anything associated with Immanuel Kant led straight to the evil Nazi Holocaust movie. As well as to pretend to have done so, this is why Sargon told us to "Read Locke".
One can look down at the plebs who think Hitler was the comic book villain, and realize it was Kant instead. They think the reason "postmodern relativism" and so forth allegedly dominates philosophy and university is thanks to Kant. Ayn Rand was also taught in Russia in 1905 or some such, when Kantianism did dominate philosophy departments.
They give a superficially plausible story: Hegel, who follows Kant, denied the law of non contradiction. Aristotle affirmed it. Marx follows Hegel, and he's the face of Communism.
But of course one needs a naive idea that Aristotle did not hold, namely that denying the law of non contradiction leads to the world crumbling to pieces and everyone killing each other. And of course it's little more than slander of a great philosopher in Kant.
One should drop the comic book villain narrative, rather than go looking for another one, as pseuds do when they start naming people from the Holocaust cinematic universe. "Hitler was bad, have you heard of Goebbels?" For the libertarian, Kant is another one of those. And only philosophy before him should be read. Much as for a liberal, only after 1945 or 1965 really counts.
Often even once someone drops that phase, he's still looking for the philosopher for whom after which he doesn't have to read any more, much more than he ever looked for things to read.
It's also convenient because if you once espouse this view but later realize you are a closet anti-semite, you can pretend the German-speaking Ashkenazi Jews were Germans. Sargon did this too.
If one takes the seeming other route from Kant through Schopenhauer, one gets to Nietzsche. And of course he's associated with the Nazis more than Kant. But, he's an atheist and anti-communist, and indeed is probably the only philosopher Ayn Rand ever read.
And that brings one to new atheism, which is familiar enough online. What one may not - or may - know about fedoras is they have a natural counterpart, the Christian "presuppositional apologist".
On the one hand it's bizarre, as they literally just beg the question and say to first assume - presuppose - God exists, then infer God exists from the assumption God exists. On the other hand, you realize they are led to having nothing but circularity by granting the new atheist too much. They have one foot out of new atheism, but one foot still in it.
A "presup" is a Christian who has granted the new atheist the "lack of belief" definition of atheist which the new atheist employs to avoid arguments. They have tried to turn the tables, but within the very frame they should abandon if they want to turn the tables.
It seems to me one has the same thing going on with our side and post-Kantian philosophy. One has confused Ayn Rand and New Atheism for Anglo philosophy, for George Washington and Bertrand Russell, due to his own prior phases and biases. One embraces the Ayn Rand view of post-Kantian philosophy, they just place it as the hero in the story rather than the villain.
Whether it be Bronze Age Pervert, or Keith Woods, and several others, like those who would admit it like say Ramzpaul, one can smell the reaction against the libertarian phase coming off of them.
This video of Sargon (especially at 3:40), talking with the Jewish head of the Ayn Rand institute, Yaron Brook is particularly insightful. Also humorous how he pronounces Foucault. (Note: Sargon denies being an uppercase "Objectivist" - the thing only Ayn Rand people call themselves. Indeed by normal philosophical usage, lowercase, evil demonic Kant is one.)
This same garbage take on the history of philosophy is ubiquitous in our circles, with the only addition that spitting out Hitler at the end is a good thing. Team Plato-Hegel-Nietzsche-Foucault-Heidegger is the good team rather than the bad team.
In other words, what is called "continental philosophy" (plus Plato) are the bad guys to libertarians and some atheists. The "postmodern relativists" and so on they talk about. The "Frankfurt school". All of that. It is the philosophical style done mostly in French and German i. e. "the continent" of Europe since - roughly - the turn of the 20th century.
The counterpart to continental philosophy is analytic philosophy. The philosophical style done mostly in English, i. e. the Anglosphere since - roughly - the turn of the 20th century.
But Ayn Rand and new atheism are not analytic philosophy. They are simply pop-philosophy. The same for all the other libertarians with the exception of Robert Nozick, and even that should be reserved to polisci much as John Rawls.
Those who fashion themselves interested in philosophy are so often wholly ignorant of the dominant strain of philosophy in their own language and own university for the past century or more. At best they will know some continental philosophy, which is the dominant strain in their own language and own university in the sociology departments and so forth.
They learn some popular philosophy. Popular philosophy turns them off from continental philosophy, and ignores analytic philosophy. Rather than abandon popular philosophy to start over for the real thing, they become a popular philosophers version of a continental philosopher. They then become entrenched and too used to the easy popular version to start anew as they could have before.
I do want to stress there's nothing wrong with interest in continental philosophy, more than this hopes to combat the false view of analytic philosophy:
As well as developing on the continent, continental philosophy can be described as "literary" philosophy. It's philosophy for those more familiar with literature in its style. Analytic philosophy has been described as "academic" philosophy. It's philosophy for those more familiar with science and mathematics in its style. That seems the most neutral description of the difference.
As well as science and math, analytic philosophy is also the one which takes the concern with logic and language. It's the one with the "linguistic turn", and our enemies love using linguistic tricks on us. For just one reason it's worth learning beyond parlor tricks. They know it.
It's also true that this divide was crystalized by the Second World War, and so it can be simplified as Jews are Analytic Philosophy and Nazis are Continental Philosophy, and to flatter themselves analytic philosophers will sometimes say such a thing. Which of course further flatters the pseud autodidact on twitter that he's uncovering Nazi secrets by reading Kant.
But of course, the Frankfurt School for just one example will show how simplistic that characterization would be. Jews are all over academic life, and both the analytic and continental schools. And both has its right wing gentiles too. And on the same sides of several more strictly philosophical issues, to make one stop appealing to consequences for who they decide to read.
In fact, just to illustrate how one can just as well argue the other way: If there be two figureheads of the analytic and continental schools, it would be Frege, a Nazi, for analytic, and Husserl, a Jew, for continental.
Apparently it was Sotion of Alexandria who gave us the "Successions" way of viewing philosophers, which surely does simplify things. Pre-Socratics => Socrates => Plato => Aristotle => Hellenistic, or Descartes => Spinoza => Leibniz; Berkeley => Locke => Hume =>Kant. And as mentioned, Kant => Hegel => Marx, and Kant => Schopenhauer => Nietzsche.
Of course this is but a schema to impose on the real picture which is more of a family tree than a trunk.
Any kind of "succession" after Nietzsche is rarely taught, and for that reason alone - as well as all said above - Nietzsche is commonly thought to be the last philosopher, and his death in 1899 symbolizes how there is no 20th century philosophy. WW2 is seen as Marx and Mill vs. Nietzsche. Deleuze after and Heraclitus before and other philosophers associated with Nietzsche are the only ones mentioned from other epochs.
But for one, successions of names isn't the only way to view it. Theophrastus apparently sorted it by topic, and that's probably the better way to think about it. "What are all the options on this view (e. g. free will), and who said them and why" rather than historical "What did everyone say and why"
In other words, analytic philosophy often does a bad job of grafting itself into a student's prior story about philosophy. Continental philosophy can be difficult in this respect too, but we got at least some version of one above and somebody else could give a more up-to-date one than I can beyond Husserl-Heidegger-Sartre.
A decent one for analytic philosophy would be: Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Lewis, Kripke.
And for how to graft Frege back into the tree - one could first use Kant. Despite drifting so far as to be considered its own thing rather than post-Kantian philosophy, one would still start there. One would however go through those more logically minded rather than Hegel or Schopenhauer, such as Hermann Lotze, George Boole, and C. S. Peirce.
For a complete story of influence one would also have to do an excursion into the history of mathematics at the turn of the century as such with e. g. of Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, i .e. the likes of Weierstrass and Dedekind and Hilbert's program. Another unfortunate reason it's often avoided. But maybe having some idea of the true, philosophical lay of the land and genealogy is helpful.
In short, if you think or thought new atheism is true, but you want to be a Christian, then you are a presuppositional apologist.
If you think or thought libertarianism is true, but you want to be a nationalist, then you're a German idealist.
This is why without fail philosophy grifters online are 1 of the 4 or a combination despite there being hundreds of options.
However, unfortunately, on this side of the political aisle especially, where one has noticed mundane shibboleths about race and sex are wrong, one's first introduction into philosophy, say, at the high school level is often either libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, Ayn Rand style, or New Atheist, "Skeptic (TM)" style.
Sargon filled this niche, and Stefan Molyneux too was entirely Ayn Rand + New Atheism for the majority of his internet career. One can give other examples to show the enormous reach it has as "pop philosophy" and a ready-made audience. Shanedk is one particularly irksome fellow who is just Libertarianism + New Atheism
With the Ayn Rand philosophy along with atheism and selfishness comes the idea that - never mind the anachronism, it's just name dropping - Locke and Aristotle invented capitalism and freedom, and anything associated with Immanuel Kant led straight to the evil Nazi Holocaust movie. As well as to pretend to have done so, this is why Sargon told us to "Read Locke".
One can look down at the plebs who think Hitler was the comic book villain, and realize it was Kant instead. They think the reason "postmodern relativism" and so forth allegedly dominates philosophy and university is thanks to Kant. Ayn Rand was also taught in Russia in 1905 or some such, when Kantianism did dominate philosophy departments.
They give a superficially plausible story: Hegel, who follows Kant, denied the law of non contradiction. Aristotle affirmed it. Marx follows Hegel, and he's the face of Communism.
But of course one needs a naive idea that Aristotle did not hold, namely that denying the law of non contradiction leads to the world crumbling to pieces and everyone killing each other. And of course it's little more than slander of a great philosopher in Kant.
One should drop the comic book villain narrative, rather than go looking for another one, as pseuds do when they start naming people from the Holocaust cinematic universe. "Hitler was bad, have you heard of Goebbels?" For the libertarian, Kant is another one of those. And only philosophy before him should be read. Much as for a liberal, only after 1945 or 1965 really counts.
Often even once someone drops that phase, he's still looking for the philosopher for whom after which he doesn't have to read any more, much more than he ever looked for things to read.
It's also convenient because if you once espouse this view but later realize you are a closet anti-semite, you can pretend the German-speaking Ashkenazi Jews were Germans. Sargon did this too.
If one takes the seeming other route from Kant through Schopenhauer, one gets to Nietzsche. And of course he's associated with the Nazis more than Kant. But, he's an atheist and anti-communist, and indeed is probably the only philosopher Ayn Rand ever read.
And that brings one to new atheism, which is familiar enough online. What one may not - or may - know about fedoras is they have a natural counterpart, the Christian "presuppositional apologist".
On the one hand it's bizarre, as they literally just beg the question and say to first assume - presuppose - God exists, then infer God exists from the assumption God exists. On the other hand, you realize they are led to having nothing but circularity by granting the new atheist too much. They have one foot out of new atheism, but one foot still in it.
A "presup" is a Christian who has granted the new atheist the "lack of belief" definition of atheist which the new atheist employs to avoid arguments. They have tried to turn the tables, but within the very frame they should abandon if they want to turn the tables.
It seems to me one has the same thing going on with our side and post-Kantian philosophy. One has confused Ayn Rand and New Atheism for Anglo philosophy, for George Washington and Bertrand Russell, due to his own prior phases and biases. One embraces the Ayn Rand view of post-Kantian philosophy, they just place it as the hero in the story rather than the villain.
Whether it be Bronze Age Pervert, or Keith Woods, and several others, like those who would admit it like say Ramzpaul, one can smell the reaction against the libertarian phase coming off of them.
This video of Sargon (especially at 3:40), talking with the Jewish head of the Ayn Rand institute, Yaron Brook is particularly insightful. Also humorous how he pronounces Foucault. (Note: Sargon denies being an uppercase "Objectivist" - the thing only Ayn Rand people call themselves. Indeed by normal philosophical usage, lowercase, evil demonic Kant is one.)
This same garbage take on the history of philosophy is ubiquitous in our circles, with the only addition that spitting out Hitler at the end is a good thing. Team Plato-Hegel-Nietzsche-Foucault-Heidegger is the good team rather than the bad team.
In other words, what is called "continental philosophy" (plus Plato) are the bad guys to libertarians and some atheists. The "postmodern relativists" and so on they talk about. The "Frankfurt school". All of that. It is the philosophical style done mostly in French and German i. e. "the continent" of Europe since - roughly - the turn of the 20th century.
The counterpart to continental philosophy is analytic philosophy. The philosophical style done mostly in English, i. e. the Anglosphere since - roughly - the turn of the 20th century.
But Ayn Rand and new atheism are not analytic philosophy. They are simply pop-philosophy. The same for all the other libertarians with the exception of Robert Nozick, and even that should be reserved to polisci much as John Rawls.
Those who fashion themselves interested in philosophy are so often wholly ignorant of the dominant strain of philosophy in their own language and own university for the past century or more. At best they will know some continental philosophy, which is the dominant strain in their own language and own university in the sociology departments and so forth.
They learn some popular philosophy. Popular philosophy turns them off from continental philosophy, and ignores analytic philosophy. Rather than abandon popular philosophy to start over for the real thing, they become a popular philosophers version of a continental philosopher. They then become entrenched and too used to the easy popular version to start anew as they could have before.
I do want to stress there's nothing wrong with interest in continental philosophy, more than this hopes to combat the false view of analytic philosophy:
As well as developing on the continent, continental philosophy can be described as "literary" philosophy. It's philosophy for those more familiar with literature in its style. Analytic philosophy has been described as "academic" philosophy. It's philosophy for those more familiar with science and mathematics in its style. That seems the most neutral description of the difference.
As well as science and math, analytic philosophy is also the one which takes the concern with logic and language. It's the one with the "linguistic turn", and our enemies love using linguistic tricks on us. For just one reason it's worth learning beyond parlor tricks. They know it.
It's also true that this divide was crystalized by the Second World War, and so it can be simplified as Jews are Analytic Philosophy and Nazis are Continental Philosophy, and to flatter themselves analytic philosophers will sometimes say such a thing. Which of course further flatters the pseud autodidact on twitter that he's uncovering Nazi secrets by reading Kant.
But of course, the Frankfurt School for just one example will show how simplistic that characterization would be. Jews are all over academic life, and both the analytic and continental schools. And both has its right wing gentiles too. And on the same sides of several more strictly philosophical issues, to make one stop appealing to consequences for who they decide to read.
In fact, just to illustrate how one can just as well argue the other way: If there be two figureheads of the analytic and continental schools, it would be Frege, a Nazi, for analytic, and Husserl, a Jew, for continental.
Apparently it was Sotion of Alexandria who gave us the "Successions" way of viewing philosophers, which surely does simplify things. Pre-Socratics => Socrates => Plato => Aristotle => Hellenistic, or Descartes => Spinoza => Leibniz; Berkeley => Locke => Hume =>Kant. And as mentioned, Kant => Hegel => Marx, and Kant => Schopenhauer => Nietzsche.
Of course this is but a schema to impose on the real picture which is more of a family tree than a trunk.
Any kind of "succession" after Nietzsche is rarely taught, and for that reason alone - as well as all said above - Nietzsche is commonly thought to be the last philosopher, and his death in 1899 symbolizes how there is no 20th century philosophy. WW2 is seen as Marx and Mill vs. Nietzsche. Deleuze after and Heraclitus before and other philosophers associated with Nietzsche are the only ones mentioned from other epochs.
But for one, successions of names isn't the only way to view it. Theophrastus apparently sorted it by topic, and that's probably the better way to think about it. "What are all the options on this view (e. g. free will), and who said them and why" rather than historical "What did everyone say and why"
In other words, analytic philosophy often does a bad job of grafting itself into a student's prior story about philosophy. Continental philosophy can be difficult in this respect too, but we got at least some version of one above and somebody else could give a more up-to-date one than I can beyond Husserl-Heidegger-Sartre.
A decent one for analytic philosophy would be: Frege, Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Lewis, Kripke.
And for how to graft Frege back into the tree - one could first use Kant. Despite drifting so far as to be considered its own thing rather than post-Kantian philosophy, one would still start there. One would however go through those more logically minded rather than Hegel or Schopenhauer, such as Hermann Lotze, George Boole, and C. S. Peirce.
For a complete story of influence one would also have to do an excursion into the history of mathematics at the turn of the century as such with e. g. of Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, i .e. the likes of Weierstrass and Dedekind and Hilbert's program. Another unfortunate reason it's often avoided. But maybe having some idea of the true, philosophical lay of the land and genealogy is helpful.
In short, if you think or thought new atheism is true, but you want to be a Christian, then you are a presuppositional apologist.
If you think or thought libertarianism is true, but you want to be a nationalist, then you're a German idealist.
This is why without fail philosophy grifters online are 1 of the 4 or a combination despite there being hundreds of options.
