On "Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog", Brian Leiter has done a poll asking which of 12 modern philosophers is likely to be read in a century. Here is the ranking based on nearly 900 votes:
1. John Rawls
2. W.V.O. Quine
3. Saul Kripke
4. Donald Davidson
5. Derek Parfit
6. Peter Singer
7. Robert Nozick
8. Bernard Williams
9. Thomas Nagel
10. Jerry Fodor
11. John McDowell
12. Richard Rorty
I seriously doubt that any beyond Rawls and Quine will be read except by historically minded pedants.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to denigrate the work of the others. Many very interesting species are extinct.
Take a look at philosophy journals from the first decade of the 20th century or try Google Ngram viewer for comparison.