I need a list of philosophers referenced in popular culture.

Like, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and so on. Not so much their ideas as their names. If you want to know why I'll tell you but it won't make any sense. Thanks, I know I'm new but I'm certain that such fine tropers wouldn't have a problem with helping me. Right?

Karl Marx, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Voltaire, Socrates, Aristotle.

Siegmund Freud, Karl (?) Jung.

Actually nevermind, those guys were psychologists. Whoops!

Aaaaaand FUCK I clicked the New Post button instead of the Edit button. I am shit.

edited 5th Oct '10 5:27:59 AM by MisterAlways

Plato, David Hume, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill.

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the biggies.

Nietzsche's really the only one most people will have heard of. Voltaire is somewhat well-known, but is still relatively obscure.

Michel Foucault. Jacques Derrida.

Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer...not sure how often you'd see these in popular culture, though.

One word: Descartes.

Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and other ancient Greeks also tend to show up a lot, but other than that, philosophy references often vary according to the creators' tastes/beliefs, though Nietzsche frequently pops up (or at least a crude misinterpretation of Nietzsche).

Gottfried Leibniz?

Spinoza?

I've got a culture reference for you:

Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.

And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nieizsche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist.

Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,

And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.

And Rene 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.

edited 5th Oct '10 12:26:07 PM by jewelleddragon

'I drink therefore I am' Priceless.

On a more religious side, Martin Luther and John Calvin may count. They aren't technically philosophers, but they are notable thinkers, creating Protestantism and all.

From the East, Confucius, Sun Tzu, and Averroes. Also, Mahatma Gandhi.

Generally speaking, though, I think Descartes, Plato, Socrates, Marx, and Confucius are ones everyone's probably heard of before, and knows at least something about. And Gandhi, of course, but most people see him more as a historical figure.

Yeah, but don't forget about authors of three cliched bon mots encountered in everything that has a philosophical pretense: Nietzsche and Voltaire. The first one is responsible for "When you're looking at the abyss, it starts looking back at you" and "God is dead", the second - for "If there was no God, it'd be necessary to invent him".

The thing that is in vogue these days in popular culture is to cite scientists and mathemaaticians and apply their theories in a metaphorical fashion to philosophical ideas. Heisenburg's Indeterminancy, Godel's Incompleteness, and of course Schroedinger's cat all pop up.

I just watched the lost episode of Rumpole of the Baily and he talks about Jean Jacques Reaseau here and there.

Don't know if it counts, but in one of George Carlin's books he writes: "That invisible hand of Adam Smith's seems to be giving a lot of people the finger."

Since much of his books is his act recycled into book form, I have a strong suspicion that means the quoted line is probably on at least one of his albums.

edited 7th Apr '11 11:26:54 PM by khyron1144

Small Reference Pools?

edited 7th Apr '11 11:31:02 PM by Tzetze

No love for Jean-Paul Satre? Well, it would have been no worse than he expected... Also, his partner Simone de Beauvoir is still thought of as a big deal amongst feminist intellectuals.

I am almost certain there is at least one Monty Python sketch referring to Sartre.

I think it involves two pepperpots debating the meaning of one of his books and deciding to call him up at home to resolve the argument.

I'd say that Freud and Jung count, since in their time psychology bore more resemblance to philosophy than to science.

Since the Sartre posts above, I have seen another instance of Sartre's name turning up in pop culture:

Issue #11 of the Valiant series H. A. R. D. Corps hard one Corps member helping another move and noticing a Sartre book among her belongings and suggesting they should discuss philosophy later.