 | | | WHY PHILOSOPHY? | | | |
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In Our Time's Greatest Philosopher vote
We thought it would be interesting to find out who you think is the Greatest Philosopher of all time, and because there are so many brilliant characters and ideas to choose from, we hope that a vote might turn up a few surprises!
A vote is also an opportunity to bring together resources and information on philosophy in one place. With that in mind, we have put together biographies and reading lists of the philosophers who have received the highest numbers of your nominations onto this site; there'll also be links to their major works.
Philosophers have such a strong, but largely unacknowledged, influence on how we think and the way we live, and we hope that a debate about philosophy might bring to light what some of the great ideas mean to people. Which philosopher do you find most appealing, interesting or inspiring? Let us know your choice.
The nominations stage has now closed but you are still welcome to send in your comments about your favourite philosopher. A selection of comments by the public have also been published on this page.
The final stage of the vote begins on June 6th when you will be able to vote for a philosopher from the final shortlist. The vote ends at midnight on July 7th.
Each of the twenty philosophers with the most nominations from the first round will have a specialist advocate, an expert academic who will put the case for voting for that particular philosopher. You will be able to listen to these advocates on this site, and then vote for the philosopher who most appeals to you.
The winner will be announced in early July and on the last programme of the current series on Thursday July 14th a special edition of In Our Time will be devoted to their life and work.
There are also games and quizzes on the site.
You can test your recognition of some famous quotations; you can try and guess which philosopher some well known people have chosen to nominate and on the Greatest Philosopher debate page you can scan some of the nominations and read the reasons that people have given for their choices.
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