Lifespan is the hand of God

Heidegger became so famous because he allowed lesser thinks to think what was (with good reason) forbidden territory. The middle existence which is not to be discussed.

You want a great thinker, stick to first principles metaphysics, like Bradley and Whitehead or even further back like Schelling.  Heidegger is a dead end.

He gives himself permission to describe the state of being DASEIN but then whenever he is to face exceptions, he merely labels those exceptions "a deficient state of Dasein " . Its just terrible lol

Yes and after the dead end of logical positivism and the fake certainty of those like Kant, it was probably just what was needed. Whitehead is fairly good. I don't agree with everything he proposes.

Schelling became entangled in squabbles with Fichte, who was another "lesser philosopher". He should have found a way to rise above that, if he was to be considered "great". Bradley was a good thinker who did not become "great" probably because of his neglect of empiricism at the expense of idealism. I think anyone who is to be regarded as "great" has to find a way to combine them.  But Whitehead approached it with the natural idea of "processes", which places empiricism in a way that's less dominated by a fixed idea of static or maybe even idealised entities. He was too close to Bertrand Russell for me, though. I should probably write something myself, if it isn't already too late.

Fichte was a "great",as was Bradley who was widely held as the greatest british philosopher since Hume. the only reason they never got higher price is because their systems are fairly exhaustive. If you accept their precepts ,there  really  isnt much left to do with metaphysics, i would even go far as to say that Fichte is the logical end of Descartes' cogito but never got the credit for it. Compare that to a figure like Hegel who gives himself the authority to derive wild speculations and calls it a product of the synthetic a priori. That is a figure that can feed a lifetime of scholarship.

Bradley was a radical empiricist just like James and Whitehead, so to say he neglected empiricism is ridiculous. 

“Our result so far is this. Everything phenomena is somehow real; and the absolute must at least be as rich as the relative. And, further, the Absolute is not many; there are no independent reals. The universe is one in this sense that its differences exist harmoniously within one whole, beyond which there is nothing. Hence the Absolute is, so far, an individual and a system but, if we stop here, it remains but formal and abstract. Can we then, the question is, say anything about the concrete nature of the system?

Certainly, I think, this is possible. When we ask as to the matter which fills up the empty outline, we can reply in one word, that this matter is experience. ...Sentient experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not real. We may say, in other words, that there is no being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical existence. Feeling, thought, and volition ...are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible. This result in its general form seems evident at once ...” (127) -Appearance and Reality

Maybe there are "greats" and "greats". Clearly though, if everyone who's been heard of was a "great" then that marks most of them as definitely limited in their abilities if not entirely wrong. Kant is definitely an example of a "great". How many more really exist, though? Kant didn't achieve it by being right about everything (he wasn't) but by the sheer volume of work he undertook and the respect he is held in, which certainly doesn't extend to those like Fichte.

Bradley was a radical empiricist just like James and Whitehead, so to say he neglected empiricism is ridiculous. >>

If you want a serious discussion with anyone, never again refer to someone's opinion as "ridiculous", which appears to bring you to the common or popular level one encounters. Instead, find a convincing argument as to why someone's wrong about whatever it is, instead of making unsupported statements and restorting to invective. OK?

For instance, come up with an argument as to why he is to be regarded as an empiricist.

i must have a fingernail then

“Our result so far is this. Everything phenomena is somehow real; and the absolute must at least be as rich as the relative. And, further, the Absolute is not many; there are no independent reals. The universe is one in this sense that its differences exist harmoniously within one whole, beyond which there is nothing. Hence the Absolute is, so far, an individual and a system but, if we stop here, it remains but formal and abstract. Can we then, the question is, say anything about the concrete nature of the system?

Certainly, I think, this is possible. When we ask as to the matter which fills up the empty outline, we can reply in one word, that this matter is experience. ...Sentient experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not real. We may say, in other words, that there is no being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical existence. Feeling, thought, and volition ...are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible. This result in its general form seems evident at once ...” (127) -Appearance and Reality

Phenomena are real.
Therefore so must be the absolute.
(that in itself is idealism)
There's only one absolute.
(another idealism)
The Universe is a unity because its differences are harmonious with the whole.
(An obvious truism, since the universe is composed of different phenomena)
Beyond the Universe there is nothing.
The Absolute is (admittedly) formal and abstract (ie an ideal)
Can it be made concrete? I think it's possible.
Matter is sentient experience, which is real.
(OK, that's a kind of empiricism.)
What is not sentient experience isn't reality.
(That's now understood to be wrong, in view of the developments of mathematics which have proven quantum phenomena to be real, among many other things, such as the constituent parts of molecules etc)
"We may say, in other words, that there is no being or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical existence."
(I showed that to be wrong and in any case, it veers towards solypsism)
"Feeling, thought, and volition ...are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible. This result in its general form seems evident at once"

No, that's a one-sided view. He seems an out and out idealist, as are all proponents of one-sided views.

As a philosophy student, I heard of Bradley but that's the first time I read anything of his. I had only been reiterating the opinion of others. I critiqued it quickly, especially as this thread may not remain. An experienced philosophy lecturer, with PhD in philosophy, may choose to object to one or perhaps more of my criticisms of the passage but I think I could support my views adequately. The supposition that Bradley is not an empricist but an idealist couldn't be refuted, however. For every philosophy professor disagreeing with it (on idealistic grounds  ) I bet I could find ten who would agree. They aren't all perfect.

empiricism and idealism are not opposite views man. Berkeley, one of the 3 great british empiricists, was a a subjective idealist. 

I would like to know where you did graduate work in philosophy. Because with all due respect, you sound like a ranked amateur with only a superficial understanding of these topics.

a line like this gives it away  "(That's now understood to be wrong, in view of the developments of mathematics which have proven quantum phenomena to be real, among many other things, such as the constituent parts of molecules etc)". 

Here let me help you. "Radical empiricism" is a position first defined by James but was fairly vogue during the early 19th century. "It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations."  This is the difference between old school empiricism and the empiricism of figures like James, Bosanquet, and Whitehead. Empiricism in this modern sense is a metaphysical thesis. empiricism and idealism are not even incompatible in the older sense of the term, but here experience refers to the furniture of the world, idealism here is in the Hegelian sense "the ideality of the finite".

your critique is pointless. This is a paragraph 100+ pages into his greatest work, where he establishes why phenomena isnt real and what must be real such that phenomena is neither real nor unreal but subordinate to the real. Critiquing it like it was a syllogism is asinine. I only quoted that to show that Bradley is through and through an empiricist in the radical empiricist sub-camp.

Was that meant to be rude ?

Only explanatory I'd say.

Spanish, in the other hand, is really difficult. It took me about two or three years to start babbling it, and it was surrounded by it all the time!

I like the upside-down question marks that start a Spanish question. You don't need to wait to the end of the sentence to figure out what's going on.

The upside-down is the other one.

The greatest work of an average person might not be all that great and this guy, although a "philosopher", was a decidedly amateurish one. I repeat, do not make personal comments if you don't want them to come back at you and if you really do want a discussion on philosophy with me (which I doubt), where you can try to prove your superiority; as seems to be your intention at least to try: then yes, if you like, provided you don't try to reinforce your incorrect opinions by making personal attacks. Because I think I could do that too, if needed, and maybe much more effectively than you, because I can see that you're starting off by exposing a weakness .... which is a need to make personal attacks on others, which may rather expose a weakness in other areas.

Incidentally, if you think something "gives away" someone's lack of knowledge, you shouldn't just quote it but perhaps if you aren't giving away too many secrets, you might mention WHY it exposes a lack of knowledge. Imo you're completely and hopelessly outclassed. You're going in with all guns blazing .... for what? If you carry on, they'll close this thread and it isn't helping your case. Just the reverse.

<<<<<<<Here let me help you. "Radical empiricism" is a position first defined by James but was fairly vogue during the early 19th century. "It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations.">>>>>>>

Pretty much every philosopher I've ever read has some good ideas and the same goes for James, of course. Here, however, he's wrong from pretty much first principles. Sensory experience, which is the only basis for empiricism, reveals what you call "particulars" .... ie phenomena. It does not reveal relationships between phenomena unless we pay close attention and are lucky enough to have got the necessary clues.

So "experience" certainly doesn't reveal relationships between particulars as a matter of course. Also, what one philosopher may feel is "deserved" is very much an idealism. He is appealing to an ideal World or framework, where his personal preferences mysteriously recieve preferential treatment.

Do you understand that or should I make it simpler? This is my subject area. You may believe it's yours. And I haven't done ANY post grad philosophy work, in particular. Do you really imagine it's necessary and that it's impossible for anyone, even if they have great ability, to make progress in that subject, outside an academic scenario? Indeed, I developed the impression that an academic perspective definitely slows one down and stereotypes ideas to the extent that they become almost worthless, with regard to the possibility of real progress. This isn't physics. We don't need access to mass spectrographs, particle accelerators and immensely powerful computers and telescopes. We have our minds.

Religion is against general forums TOS.