Contemporary philosophers
 

Back in the day of the toga, and long before too, villages were small and people tended to congregate and talk. Philosophy was born. With globalization we are exposed to many more people and more thoughts. Some of these can be profound and shape not only our personal views, but now can sometimes shape a whole world's view. I like to think of the Dalai Lama's message of peace world-wide, and Gandhi before him; MLK's words of hope nationally; and sometimes even various song lyrics personally. Thinking about the Greeks' contribution and posterity and importance, makes me wonder: Whose words in more recent times do you think will have a lasting effect hundreds of years from now?

that´s a bit of a tall order but one i have been exposed to, possibly because of my ancestry, is a philosopher who is apparently all the rage at the moment, a slovene named slavoj žižek.

I'll second this one. I've been meaning to read more of his work. But then again, I've been meaning to read a lot of things.

zizek? why?
i've read alot of his stuff, and i don't see him as that interesting. but hey, maybe that's just me.

contemporary philosophers means what exactly?

for what i'm up to, cornelius castoriadis, claude lefort, maurice merleau-ponty (not exactly contemporary as he died in 1961), especially his later work...all are interesting and to my mind important thinkers. michel foucault as well, but his stuff has been caught in that curious cycle of academic fashion, marked as someone who has been "done" even as i don't think his work has been particularly well read or understood. henri atlan is interesting as well.

alot depends on where you are working and what you define philosophy to be. most contemporary philosophical work happens as commentary. i think that's a problem. there are a number of experimental writers whose work is a kind of philosophy--working with performative sentences--but i don't know if they'd count here or not because i don't know where philo starts and stops in this context.

now the list of the over-rated is much longer.
we could start with john rawls.
maybe it's better not to.

roachboy, I had the same thoughts you did but didn't have the energy to articulate them. By "contemporary" I thought: "Currently doing their work." By "philosopher" I thought: "Anyone using reason in an attempt to find truth from a platform that has yet to actually see it."

I admire Foucault but didn't consider him contemporary enough. He was at his height when I could barely walk.

Thanks for your input. There are several names there I don't even recognize.

I wasn't even born, but he's still one of my favorites. His work is like brain candy. It's so incredibly dense, a treasure trove of knowledge, questions, and examination.

And still extremely relevant! One of the first things I read was the interview "Friendship As a Way of Life," I think it's in the History of Sexuality. Even today, it is a powerful message to the LGBT community when it comes to relationships within the context of wider society--society, it seems, is still preoccupied with gay sex and marriage and not so aware (or caring) of gay love.

The words that each of us speak,
can have a lasting impression on those we are not even aware
have heard us.

Those who spoke their ponderings in 'our' past,
were once considered contemporary.

You are the genius of yourself.

Can I say Me?

Yes?

Okay... me.

Jim Henson:

“Stay away from women, that's my motto."
"But I can't."
“Neither can I: that's my trouble." - Rowlf and Kermit

Alfred e Neuman and George Carlin (and punkmusicfan21). Call me shallow, but I think satire, irony, and profoundly indignant skepticism have a deep philosophical impact. Making them incredibly entertaining makes them more accessible to the masses.

Long, dry scholarly theses rarely get the airing they may deserve, and often leave less complex minds, such as my own, more confused and foundering than they were. In our current ADD culture, one could hold the secret to the life, the universe... everything, and take it to the grave with them unless they could find a way attract, then keep the attention of the wider audience.

I don't think I can intelligently comment on the posed question, but I do have a related question of my own(which isn’t rhetorical). Why can't the answer be “no one's words”?

Is there a more satisfying answer to my question other than: because it’d be too sad if that were true?

So I guess I lied that's two questions.

I rather like John Dewey and Pierre Bourdieu for their take on art and society but they are not exactly "contemporary", though many of their ideas were.

I too have heard that Slavoj Žižek is a great read - i started reading Bauldrillard and his theory about simulation, simulacrum and "the real" or the copy - kind of interested in time travel as an way of talking about academia - and a friend told me that Žižek is "the man"! I must read and report back.

I had to read Baudrillard in my course on literary criticism, wherein we used Baudrillard's theories as a framework in analyzing Don DeLillo's White Noise. I also read more of him in a class I took on travel writing, because so much of good travel writing (and this extends to food writing as well) attempts to capture the authentic experience--and it begs the question of how does one truly capture an authentic experience with the written word--is it even possible? Thus, Baudrillard provides a good framework there are well. Definitely recommended.