Just wondering whose philosophy people here have found to be the most inspirational/profound.
I philosophize but I've never really studied any philosophy.

Socrates, he is the tree and the rest are branches and leaf.

'Socrates was a man who went around giving people advice - so they killed him'.

11 year old childs answer when asked to describe the philosopher

yeh I bet he was well annoying, there's a bit of a historical theme of people that wander about telling others what to do getting messed up

He is not known for telling people what to do. He did, from what we know, tell people they were wrong in public a bit though. Both are annoying.


Peace,

kowalski

Sophism / stoicism are the shit.

Is it worth my time to study Philosophy?

I've often thought about it, but never actually studied any..

I am 21 years old.. will this benefit me? I wouldn't know where to start

Being stoic is a virtue. Especially in the game.

Where can I get his writings, oh hang on a second...

Ludwig Wittgenstein - He had thought of philosophical quandary as some kind of mental issue or confusion and that the end of philosophical enquiry and a return to a less intellectually agitated state was the goal of philosophy and, therefore, should be the measure of whether philosophy was being done well. He also says some pretty exciting things about how language is meaningful and the acquisition of language, if you get excited by such things.
Want to know more?
Read: Philosophical Investigations

Thomas S. Kuhn - Firstly, his name sounds like coon. Secondly, he wrote a brilliant and easy reading text called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; the title is self-explanatory. He took a unique approach to the history of science analysing it from a largely pragmatic perspective. Specifically interesting to me was his pragmatic definition of truth (hidden away in one of the appendices), which was a pivotal piece of learning that permeates through (possibly) every aspect of my life.
Want to know more?
Read: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Donald Davidson - I've referred to Davidson quite a bit on this forum, particularly papers that cover his ideas on radical interpretation and inter-subjectivity; which is more greatness about truth and language. His books tend to be like collections of essays and he writes in a fairly clear style, these qualities make his work quite accessible reading.
Want to know more?
Read: Any of his work

I was heavily influenced by those three philosophers, in that order as I discovered them. As mentioned elsewhere on the forum, my moral philosophy is founded in first principles of language inspired by these works combined with a Sartre-esque ontology ('esque' because what I have taken from it so far and what he meant by it may be quite different).


John Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness, the text to read on existentialism. Warning! This is the most difficult text imaginable.
Want to know more?
Read: Being and Nothingness


There are tons of other philosophers that have some cool shit to say, it really depends on your interests. Language, truth, consciousness, morality, epistemology, science, ontology, society and mind are the areas that most excite me.


Peace,

kowalski