Greatest [insert your nationality] Person

[Gangerolf]

You forgot Biker-Jens

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by Locutus
There are lots of great writers though: Hemingway, Cummings, Whitman, Poe, Miller, Asimov, etc, etc.

American literature is the suckiest literature of all time. Asimov gets a "B", and he's the least sucky on that list.

You're insane. American lit has always been my favorite, and most people I know too... even alot of Canadians I know. You must be reading the wrong stuff. Like Richard Wright, Twain, Miller?

[Zulu Elephant]

Brits
William Gladstone
Bejamin Disreali
Winston Churchill
Charles Darwin
Charlies Dickens
Isaac Newton
Queen Elizabeth I
Thomas Paine
John Locke
John Maynard Keynes
Thomas Hobbes
John Stuart Mill

[alva]

Famous Danes :

..and mr. Eppo himself: Bjarne Riis.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
You forgot Biker-Jens

Damn'it, i forgot that our rebellion provinces also takes TV3

[Dr Strangelove]

Wasn't Einstein actually Swiss?
Didn't Gretsky spend most of his career playing for American teams? Is he an American citizen?
Why not Franklin Delano Roosevelt as one of the top ten Americans?
Why not von Otto as one of the greastest Germans? He essentially invented the automobile and internal combustion engine, the weapon ...errr, tool, that made the 20th century what it was.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Zulu Elephant
Brits
William Gladstone
Bejamin Disreali
Winston Churchill
Charles Darwin
Charlies Dickens
Isaac Newton
Queen Elizabeth I
Thomas Paine
John Locke
John Maynard Keynes
Thomas Hobbes
John Stuart Mill

Paine was American. Or, even if he did come from Britain, it doesn't count, because he was on our side when the Revolution came.

Replace him with Shakespeare, who was better anyway

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
You're insane. American lit has always been my favorite, and most people I know too... even alot of Canadians I know. You must be reading the wrong stuff. Like Richard Wright, Twain, Miller?

The stuff they feed us as American "literature" is stuff like Thoreau, Emerson, Poe, Hawthorn... all of whom are horrible writers who produced absolutely nothing of any quality.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Locutus

That's just one opinion. IMO people like Einstein, Da Vinci, Galilei, Newton, Erasmus, Voltaire, Descartes, Martin Luther, Marx, Adam Smith, Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens, Orwell, etc are right up there too. I don't know in what order I'd place them but it's by no means a given that the great Greeks would come out on top.

Sure they would. Without Plato, Aristotle or Homer you wouldn't have any of these people. They all worked in a tradition that was largely invented by Plato and Aristotle. Homer is the father of western literature.

Plato and Aristotle beat out all these others by simple reason of their breadth. Aristotle in particular wrote on almost everything. WHile they were wrong about a lot of things, their systematic and rationalist approach has endured.

Lets see.

Most of your list were educated at a university. Plato started the first university - the Academy - the world's first institute of higher learning for its own sake.

The scientists you list worked in a tradition of separating natural philosophy from anthropomorphic explanation. This was started by Greek philosophers and systematized by Plato and his student Aristotle. Aristotle personally established many of the divisions between different sciences.

People like Adam Smith and Marx work in a scholarly tradition which attempts to provide systematic explanations of the principles by which societies are ordered. Plato and Aristotle invented this study.

Of course we can't claim that Aristotle or Plato invented drama as we understand it, but hell their contemporaries did and Aristotle is the founder of literary theory.

Luther was a total loser. Greek philosophy has had more influence over Xtian doctrine than he ever had.

Plato is still recognized as one of the greatest literary figures of all time and as a testament to his greatness, many of his fictional accounts have been accepted as the truth.

The difference is that all the people you mention worked as innovators within a tradition. Plato and Aristotle pretty much founded that tradition from scratch.

Which do you think matters more?

[Kuciwalker]

There were obviously people who Aristotle and Plato depended on, who started their traditions. We just have no record of them.

[Gangerolf]

Originally posted by BlackCat


Damn'it, i forgot that our rebellion provinces also takes TV3

I don't think he was on TV3 here. Can't quite remember where... Anyway, hilarious guy, great show.

[Zulu Elephant]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Paine was American. Or, even if he did come from Britain, it doesn't count, because he was on our side when the Revolution came.

Replace him with Shakespeare, who was better anyway

Paine was British!
Born in Britain 1737. Emigrated to America in 1774. Dies 1802. Which meant he spent the majority of his life in Britain.

[Kuciwalker]

The Americans before the Revolution considered themselves British too.

Anyway, he was on our side, so he's ours.

[Zulu Elephant]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The Americans before the Revolution considered themselves British too.

Anyway, he was on our side, so he's ours.

Does that mean you're going to put Frenchmen in your 'Best Americans' list?

[Agathon]

There were obviously people who Aristotle and Plato depended on, who started their traditions. We just have no record of them

Uh... no. You seem to forget that I spend most of my time thinking about this stuff.

There were the presocratic philosophers, but none of them did what Plato and Aristotle did, which is to systematize diverse areas of human endeavour into an overall system. We know this because Aristotle in particular was meticulous about reporting the opinions of those who went before.

There was nothing like the Academy before Plato. People used to be taught various subjects by people called "sophists" to whom they paid large sums. None of these sophists came anywhere near the breadth and depth that Plato and Aristotle did.