New GP: Great Thinker?

[Lockesdonkey]

I find that modern philosophy is inadequately represented, despite its influence. The Great Thinker, reflecting modern philosophy, would replace the Great Prophet after Liberalism unless not all Shrines have been built, in which case it would wait until the Shrines have been completed; all names left at the end of the Great Prophet list would be born as Great Thinkers.

Great Thinkers, upon joining, would have the same effect as a Great Prophet.

Great Thinkers would be able to build a Philosophical Academy; in addition to producing culture directly, this would propagate a small bit of your culture--never enough to control--to any city with which that city has a trade route, and provides a per-turn science benefit directly proportional to how much trade is conducted with the city of the Academy.

Some possible Great Thinkers (I'm sorry for the British and French bias):

Thomas Hobbes
Baruch Spinoza
Rene Descartes
Gottfried Leibniz
John Locke
David Hume
Voltaire
de Montagne?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Adam Smith?
Thomas Malthus?
David Ricardo?
Immanuel Kant
Georg Hegel
Jeremy Bentham
John Stuart Mill
Freiderich Nietzche
Vilifredo Pareto
Jean-Paul Sartre
Albert Camus
Henri Bergson
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Martin Heidegger
G.E. Moore
Bertrand Russell
Simone de Beauvoir
Jacques Lacan
Michel Foucault
Jacques Derrida
Ayn Rand

And some people who would be EXCELLENT Great Thinkers, were they dead:
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Noam Chomsky
Judith Butler
Slavoj Zizek
Giorgio Agamben

 

[AfterShafter]

Heh, neat idea. Unfortunately, many of the applicable Asian thinkers are in there as prophets already... As for a bit more group diversity, I didn't see Kierkegaard (Danish) in there, Maciavelli (Italian), Dewey/Thoreau/Emerson/Peirce (American)... Probably a hell of a lot more too.

What I would like to see is philosophers enable special civics or something like that, perhaps triggered by having a certain culture level or only applicable in cities which have a certain culture level. Things like Categorical Imperative, Will to Power, Leap of Faith, Master/Slave Dialectic, Social Contract, sort of known catch phrases philosophers which could be tied to certain civics. Exactly what they'd do I'm not sure, but offering synergy bonuses with other civics, bonuses that unlock at certain culture levels for cities, things like that, would be a place to start.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Hmm. Good idea.

My guess is that each Thinker's philosophy might grant a different benefit (or maybe no benefit at all) depending on the civic used. Whether the philosophy spreads or not is another issue which can be discussed.

Without further ado, I'm going to post the philosophies associated with most of the guys I put up, as well as AfterShafter's suggestions. I'll include links to Wikipedia on each one:

Thomas Hobbes: Absolutism
Gottfried Leibniz: Optimism
John Locke: Classical Liberalism
Montesquieau (NOT de Montaigne!): Separation of Powers
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Social Contract
Adam Smith? Economic Liberalism
Immanuel Kant: Deontological ethics
Georg Hegel: The Dialectic
Jeremy Bentham: Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism?
Freiderich Nietzche: The Will to Power
Vilifredo Pareto
Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism
Albert Camus: Absurdism
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Analytical philosophy
Bertrand Russell: Logical Positivism
Simone de Beauvoir: Feminism
Jacques Lacan: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic
Michel Foucault: Biopower
Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction
Ayn Rand: Objectivism
Judith Butler: Queer Theory
Slavoj Zizek: Umm, anything relating film to politics? Also, I guess, post-structuralism
Giorgio Agamben: Homo sacer
Kierkergaard: Can't put my finger on it!
Machiavelli's a little too early.

Those Americans: Transcendentalism

 

[Tonifranz]

Why only modern philosphy? How about include all philosophies and thinkers throughout history?

That would include:
(since Lockesdonkey already mentioned modern philosophers, I only included Ancient and Medieval philosophers)
Thales of Miletus
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Pythagoras
Herodotus
Thucydides
Cicero
Seneca
Marcus Aurelius
Philo
Xenophon
St. Augustine
Anselm of Canterbury
St. Thomas Aquianas
Roger Bacon
William of Ockham
Pierre Abelard
Niccolo Machiavelli

And there are many more. BTW, sorry for the emphasis on Western Philosophers and thinkers, as my knowledge about them is much greater than that of other philosophies.

 

[AfterShafter]

Why only modern philosphy? How about include all philosophies and thinkers throughout history?
.

He suggested great thinkers as an "upgrade" for great prophets later on, hence only including later thinkers... Which seems fine to me because, after Divine Right, great prophets don't exactly do much unless you still need to build shrines. On the model he's suggesting, great thinkers would only come in a while after divine right.

 

[Tonifranz]

He suggested great thinkers as an "upgrade" for great prophets later on, hence only including later thinkers... Which seems fine to me because, after Divine Right, great prophets don't exactly do much unless you still need to build shrines. On the model he's suggesting, great thinkers would only come in a while after divine right.

Oh I see. Sorry, I didn't see and notice that! Well, I think think his idea is good.

But to me it would be a shame if it would ignore thinkers that were not prophets during the early period. Aristotle and Plato are not really prophets, but they have an enourmous influence on Western thinking, much much more than some of the modern philosophies mentioned--and much longer too.

Other than that, it's fine, so long as it is specifically available, as the OP suggested, after all the religious shrines were built, so as to make the great prophet line more useful after the fouding of the early religions, as I found myself getting many great prophets late in the game when I'd rather have engineers.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Most of the ancient philosophers are currently either Great Scientists or Great Prophets, which is why I excluded them.

 

[Edgecrusher]

I like the idea of a "great thinker"... someone that could build a "culture acadamy".

The more read, I feel in the next expansion, Great Diplomat may be a good idea. Someone who can build embassys, negotiate peace, etc....

Who knows. I wish I knew more about adding units/code to adjust the game. (Im still learning).

 

[Lockesdonkey]

OK:

William F. Buckley should be Liberal Conservatism

I think that the changes a Great Thinker brings might be a way to model the minor variations in government and politics that different countries have, and might serve as modifiers in diplomacy, bringing one government closer to another (for instance, Utilitarian Representation would be closer to Universal Suffrage, and hence possibly get a max of +1 "While your government isn't the same, it's getting close" diplomatic modifier, or Bureaucracy with the Will to Power might serve as weakened Nationhood). I don't know how some of these postmodern philosophies (deconstruction, post-structuralism, biopower, and so on) might act, though.

 

[TheLopez]

I like the idea of a "great thinker"... someone that could build a "culture acadamy".

The more read, I feel in the next expansion, Great Diplomat may be a good idea. Someone who can build embassys, negotiate peace, etc....

Who knows. I wish I knew more about adding units/code to adjust the game. (Im still learning).

Edgecrusher,

I have already added a great statesman, you can find it by going through my mod component library thread link in my sig.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

I've had an idea!

Perhaps these philosophies, as they spread, might form political parties in Representation and Universal Suffrage nations. Every once in a while, there would be "Elections" in which one philosophy-turned-political party is chosen, not quite at random but rather how well the civilization has done while the previous political party was "in office" (i.e., dominant so that its effect is stronger than that of any others, if we allow multiple philosophies to have influence). Since the benefits from philosophies--and hence political parties--would always be small, enough to perhaps improve the game while not being a drawback if you don't have too many, it would be a way of modeling the shifts in thought associated with representative government while not making it gamebreaking. It would be rather like getting a goody hut/tribal village, but with more lasting effects on a more regular schedule.

 

[s.c.dude]

what is you modern definition1950- 1900- 1850- 1800

 

[Lockesdonkey]

On what? The philosophers are all since the 1600s, if that's what you're wondering...

 

[Martinus]

Actually, I have had an idea for another Great Person type, but it could actually be combined with yours: Great Statesman (or Politician, or Diplomat, something similar).

Abilities:
- can be added as a specialist, generating culture and reducing city maintenance,
- can be used to create a sort of political academy or center, working like a Forbidden Palace (maybe remove the Forbidden Palace as a national wonder then),
- can be used for some "special" thing (maybe even be able to "buy" an enemy city, the same way you could buy a city with diplomat in earlier Civs).

 

[TheLopez]

Actually, I have had an idea for another Great Person type, but it could actually be combined with yours: Great Statesman (or Politician, or Diplomat, something similar).

Abilities:
- can be added as a specialist, generating culture and reducing city maintenance,
- can be used to create a sort of political academy or center, working like a Forbidden Palace (maybe remove the Forbidden Palace as a national wonder then),
- can be used for some "special" thing (maybe even be able to "buy" an enemy city, the same way you could buy a city with diplomat in earlier Civs).

Martinus,
I have already added a great statesman, you can find it by going through my mod component library thread link in my sig.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Actually, I have had an idea for another Great Person type, but it could actually be combined with yours: Great Statesman (or Politician, or Diplomat, something similar).

Abilities:
- can be added as a specialist, generating culture and reducing city maintenance,
- can be used to create a sort of political academy or center, working like a Forbidden Palace (maybe remove the Forbidden Palace as a national wonder then),
- can be used for some "special" thing (maybe even be able to "buy" an enemy city, the same way you could buy a city with diplomat in earlier Civs).

At first glance, yes, but eventually you get to people like Foucault and Derrida and Zizek, all of whom were (or in the case of Zizek, still is--he ran for President of Slovenia a few years back and I think he's a Slovenian MP, though I can't be sure) involved in politics, but mostly focused on philosophy, and not really great STATESMEN.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Any thoughts?

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Can't beleive I forgot these guys:

John Rawls-Original Position

Friederich Hayek-Libertarianism

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Why the heck not? People are talking more and more about GPs?

Also, some new additions to the list:

[wiki]John Searle[/wiki]-[wiki]Speech act[/wiki] theory (didn't invent it, but did do much to put it forward)
[wiki]William James[/wiki]-[wiki]Pragmatism[/wiki]
[wiki]W. V. O. Quine[/wiki]-I dunno, something....

 

[Crazy Civ]

The Great Thinkers can be more than just purely philosophers, there could also be writers famous for their views or works, like George Orwell or T. S. Eliot. Or would they be Great Artists? (Either way, something to consider.)

And how about John Nash?