In reply to this comment by rasch187:
Kafka was Czech, not Polish.

And he certainly wasn't a philosopher, just a brilliant writer.


thanks for the clarification on kafka's place of birth,thought it was poland.
but i disagree with you in saying that kafka was not a philosopher.
aristotle,socrates,nicodemus,sun tzu?....no.
but are not all writers,and especially poets, constantly perfecting their craft in condensing the real,and unreal,into a concentrated vision of truth?
they gaze unblinking at the void and expose their souls for all to admire...or admonish.
that, my friend, takes courage few have.
is that not..
in essence..
the very core of philosophy?
before you can think..you must LOOK..
before you can FEEL..you must experience..
we all are tiny gods in our own way.
petty philosophers tinkering with the creation that is our life.
but the greats...
neitzsche,hegel,jung,tielhard etc etc,
ah..they had BALLS.
they stared into the abyss unflinching.
sighs..
i wax melodramitic here..
but i cant help it.
kafka's poetry is infuriatingly obtuse at times,but his genius in rare moments cannot be denied.
but to be honest...
it's J Keats who always makes my feeble attempts appear small,fragile and
a stunning tribute to pure hackery.
that man WAS poetry.
interesting that both kafka and keats died of consumption.
in any case..
thank you my friend for setting me straight,
and allowing an old man to babble about his heroes.
till next time..
namaste.

>> ^peggedbea:
also, nietzsche=extremely overrated. hegel=extremely underrated

Haha! While I can agree that Nietzsche is indeed overrated since his post-WWII revival, Hegel has been overrated since 1807. Not to mention the fact that every time Hegel spoke about science he was dead wrong. At least Nietzsche kept his mouth shut.

For example Gauss said that "Noah got drunk only one time, to become then, according to the Scriptures, a judicious man, while the insanities of Hegel in the Doctoral Dissertation, where he criticizes Newton and questions the utility of a search for new planets are still wisdom if one compares them with his later remarks."

And to answer HadouKen24, Nietzsche was very much influenced by Dotoevsky, naming him his only reference in psychology. Schopenhauer almost deified Goethe, especially his literary works. And Kierkegaard was pretty much unknown until the first German translations of his work in the 1910s.

also, nietzsche=extremely overrated. hegel=extremely underrated

Upvote as much for Douglas Adams as for the human face it puts on Dawkins.

Dunno why Adams thought that the novelists were the people to turn to in the 19th century, though. Philosophers like Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche had much more interesting things to say about the big questions.

the lyrics in the description are wrong:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume,
Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say could stick it away,
Half a crate of whiskey everyday.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René DesCartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker
but a bugger when he's pissed.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'rushmore, acapella, proclaimers' to 'rushmore, acapella, proclaimers, hegel' - edited by calvados

I got excited when I saw Hegel, and then I get a "blow'd up" montage. Wrong shade of lipstick for this pig.

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:
*save

Thanks for the save, hombre. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

This isn't my kind of music, but I hope somebody out there likes it.

The Soros quote came from this article.

Hegel is probably best known for his "thesis/antithesis/synthesis" reckoning of how progress is made in the universe.