First of all

Socrates was a thinker, as most philosophers were, but perhaps primarily he was a person who questioned everything. That got many people upset, especially when they didn’t know the answers. One of the critical things he showed us is that the truth is not something you choose to believe. You can’t simply pick a truth and consider it fact. That is primarily what was happening in the world for a thousand years before Socrates. Religions dominated what was thought and truth. It is literally not that simple. You must look at every fact in different ways to decide what is true vs what you want to be true. You do this by discussing the topic with others, hopefully wiser than you.

I came to realize recently that my mantra of

Think For Yourself, Question Everything, Never Stop Learning

was the foundations for Socratic thinking. I don’t know whether I re-invented the wheel or just unconsciously copied the greatest philosopher of all time. I don’t think Socrates would mind if it was the latter.

Finally, getting to the point

After a half dozen posts in the new project “Philosophy of Life” I have decided to make some basic changes. Instead of concentrating on the lives of my favorite philosophers, I have decided to concentrate on quotes from them. Trying to give you an in-depth view of my favorites was proving to be quite dry and somewhat boring. So, for future posts in this new project, I will start out with a quote and then go on to tell you how the words have affected my life, and maybe how they can affect yours.

Look for these changes starting in the next post on the subject.

To finish this post, I want to give you a quick list of the names of my favorite philosophical heroes. If this is boring to you, I encourage you to just skip them.🥸

Here is a list of the most famous philosophers. My favorites are marked highlighted in yellow.

In making this list, I realized that all my philosopher heroes are men. That was startling to me that I have never studies women philosophers. I intend to correct that in the coming months.

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There are a couple of my favorites who don’t make this public list, but have had a profound effect on my life. They are:

• Will Rogers – Commonly known as the “Cowboy Philosopher” due to his homespun style and focus during the 1920s and 30s. Even though he died ten year before I was born, He meant a lot to me in my life, and still does. If you search the archives here at RJsCorner, you will find many quotes from him already here.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer – was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident. He was influential in helping me discover my true spirituality and surprising enough, it was not Lutheranism.

As I am using quotes from all these wise men, I will also sneak through some stories about their lives and how they affect me in “My View Of The World”.