It Begins!
Having been inspired by my wife tyalangan , who started her own community (heidicmorris ) specifically for the discussion of economics, I have decided to form this community to discuss topics in my own field, which is - you guessed it! - philosophy.
I already have a well-formulated and, I believe, rationally supported belief framework for philosophy. That said, I do not claim to know everything, nor am I certain that I am correct in all of my beliefs - some of them are more well-grounded than others, but all of them are open to challenge, and my project, like that of any good philosopher, is to be able to defend all of my beliefs against attacks, or to discard or change those that do not hold true, so that I may come closer to a complete knowledge of that which is true.
For those of you who hold that philosophy is 'impractical' or of no use to anyone, I say: you have decided your philosophy in saying that; you must bear responsibility for the consequences. The truth is, everyone has a philosophy, and the only difference comes between those who hold theirs as an implicit jumble of assumptions and those who consciously identify and integrate their presuppositions of man and the world.
A number of thinkers have proven influential in enforming my philosophical positions. Chief among them are Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Nietzsche. My second tier of truly enlightening philosophers includes Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Soren Kierkegaard, Robert Nozick, and John Searle. I also admire Parmenides, Socrates, Peter Abelard, David Hume, D.T. Suzuki, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Jose Ortega y Gassett.
If I were to break down my philosophical views as concisely as possible, in hierarchical form, I would say that I am a metaphysical realist (though not of the Platonic variety!), an epistemological objectivist, an ethical egoist (of the benevolent, virtue-based sort), a political libertarian, and an aesthetic Romantic. The details and coherence of these points of view must be hashed out as we go.
P.S. If you wish to post to this community, please register to do so. You will be given due consideration - I love company, after all! You are welcome if your views are akin to mine, or if they differ radically but you hold them intelligently and can defend them in rational, tolerant debate.
Enjoy!