I want to make a poll on who is most influenced history in the last 500 years. Who...

[Drogue]

But the idea wasn't hard to come up with. DO you think the founding fathers would have elected a King? How else would they have ruled?

What the philosophers did was analyse it, justify it, discuss it. The idea of rule by people and how much say the general populace should has been around for centuries before. They codified it into something more understandable, sure. But the founding fathers, IMHO, would still have created a democratic state, and founded the modern style of government, which the French would have copied, after seeing working.

What else would the founding fathers have done? And if you're talking about specific people, remove those specific philosophers, and another one would have come up with the idea a few years later. Removing individual people will only postpone something, whether it's the founding fathers or the philosophers.

[Winston]

Al Gore.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Agathon
It's like saying Newton was less important than people who used his ideas to make gadgets.

No, as Newton's ideas were special because they were correct. It wasn't just "lets think of a way to run a country". The philosophers argued the merits, debated and would have been able to make a far better assertion about how good the system was than anyone else, but when the founding fathers were presented with the problem of how to run the US, even without those ideas already there, they would have probably done something very similar.

Moreover, the ideas weren't shown to work until someone tried that. Newton did the experiment himself. The founding fathers didn't just use the Enlightenment ideas, they showed they worked. Newton did that himself. That's at least half the work in coming up with an idea.

To come up with an idea is much easier than to show it works.

[DanS]

I think the British enlightenment had a lot more influence for what has survived than the continental englightenment. I know that it gave the colonials a good intellectual grounding for their new project. Who knows what would have happened otherwise?

Locke is therefore a definite candidate.

even without those ideas already there, they would have probably done something very similar

It wasn't like that. The British enlightenment was intellectually rigorous and practical-minded. It was perfect scaffolding for the colonies.

[Kidlicious]

Are we suppose to vote or think of people?

edit: nevermind

[JohnT]

Originally posted by DanS
Another interesting question is: who in the last 500 years will influence the course of the next 500 years the greatest?

John von Nuemann? Alan Turing?

Fuggidaboudit. I'm going with good ol' Adam Smith. Who, btw, deserves mentioning for the original question too... far more than Marx, obviously.

[DanS]

Adam Smith is good candidate for the next 500 years. Turing's good too.

Depending on how events shake out, in 500 years you might be thinking more about von Braun, however.

[Qilue]

I'd like to revise my entry. There is one man who works have entertained and enthralled millions for 500 years, which have been transtated into more languages than any other writer and I expect will still be studied and enjoyed for another 500 years.

Willian Shakespeare.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000636/

EDIT - addition rather, both men have had an enormous influence on history.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by DanS
It wasn't like that. The British enlightenment was intellectually rigorous and practical-minded. It was perfect scaffolding for the colonies.

Very true. But it wasn't tried and tested, which is a far harder and more important thing, IMHO. Until then it's just an intellectual theory. Any theory, from Keynes to Locke to Newton, is just an intellectual theory until it's been tried, and could still be complete crap or true. Locke came up with the theory, argued it rigorously and defended it strongly from criticism. But he didn't test it, and that was the far harder, riskier, and IMHO, more influential part of it. I think it influenced people because it worked, not because it was intellectually rigorous.

I would suggest that something very similar would have happened without Locke. Someone else would have had the idea, as many others had in some forms, and even if they hadn't, the idea of rule by populace had been around and dismissed for a long time, and I think the founding fathers would still have opted for a modern style republic.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by JohnT
Adam Smith. Who, btw, deserves mentioning for the original question too... far more than Marx, obviously.

For the future, I'd say Keynes over Smith. Smith's theories describes things well, but knowledge of Smiths theories doesn't really change anyones actions that much. Keynes' change the policy of governments.

[Kidlicious]

I think we should stick to those who influenced the last 500 years. Everyone has a different forecast for the future.

[Lancer]

DanS needs to make another thread, it was a very good idea. I'd do it as a public service but I've already made two today and the mods have no sense of volunteerism...

[DanS]

I made another thread for that.

But it wasn't tried and tested, which is a far harder and more important thing, IMHO.

That's not a fair characterization. The colonies had practiced a rather fine sort of self government for about 100 years before the revolution. Most of the founding fathers had been successful politicians in their own right before the revolution and many were steeped in enlightenment thinking.

[Kidlicious]

I might sound dumb, but I nominate Steve Jobs just to have another nominee.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by DanS
That's not a fair characterization. The colonies had practiced a rather fine sort of self government for about 100 years before the revolution. Most of the founding fathers had been successful politicians in their own right before the revolution and many were steeped in enlightenment thinking.

But they were the ones that tested the modern style of democratic government. Locke did not. However rigorous the idea was, it was just an intellectual theory until they tested it. Just an idea of how to govern a nation. I could think of another idea now on the same topic, but it wouldn't be worth anything until someone tested it and saw if it worked. Creating the idea isn't a big deal, when it's something like that. Making the idea work is the far harder challenge, and the far more influential action, IMHO. Thus those that made it work and were influential directly from that I would consider more influential than the person that came up with the idea in the first place.