McGinn: Best Philosopher Ever?
The attached document is from a 2022 blog post by Colin McGinn.
Examine it critically and at length. What is McGinn doing here? How seriously are we meant to take this? What claims is he making, and how defensible are they?
If we had to draw up a top 10 list of greatest living philosophers, who would make the cut? Whittle that down to a ranked top 3. Talk at length about evaluative criteria.
How would the lists (top 10 and top 3) be different if we broadened the field to include all philosopher who were active in the last 30 years?
Claude Opus 4.6:
1. What is McGinn doing here?
This essay is a fascinating exercise in philosophical vanity dressed in just enough self-awareness and ironic distance to remain readable—and it's worth taking seriously precisely because it straddles the line between genuine argument and provocation so skillfully that you can never quite pin it down.
The tonal puzzle. The footnote is the key: "This essay goes back to an amusing discussion I had with Ken Levy some months ago." That word "amusing" is doing enormous work. It tells us McGinn knows this is absurd, that it began as a joke among friends, that the whole piece retains a ludic quality. And yet—and this is the crucial thing—he never actually backs away from any of his claims. The ironic frame is gestured at but never allowed to defuse the substance. He really does think he's the clearest philosophical writer alive. He really does think his breadth exceeds Russell's. He really does think Wittgenstein produced very little of lasting merit. The comedy provides cover for convictions he holds with perfect sincerity.
This is a recognizable rhetorical strategy: say something outrageous, half-smile while saying it, and then defend it with arguments that are just plausible enough to demand engagement. It's a philosophical cousin of the political operative's "I'm just asking questions." The difference is that McGinn is making affirmative claims and providing criteria—he's not hiding behind vagueness. He's hiding behind tone.
The cumulative knowledge argument. The opening gambit—that later philosophers are superior to earlier ones because knowledge is cumulative—is the most defensible part of the essay, and also the most slippery. There is something obviously right about it: a competent contemporary physicist does know more physics than Newton. But the analogy to philosophy is far more strained than McGinn lets on. Physics progresses partly because there are settled results that accumulate. The status of philosophical "results" is one of the most contested questions in the field. Has anyone definitively solved the mind-body problem? The problem of free will? The is-ought gap? If philosophy doesn't converge on settled truths the way physics does, then the claim that later philosophers simply absorb and surpass earlier ones starts to look like an article of faith rather than an observation.
McGinn is also quietly equivocating between two senses of "better philosopher." One sense is something like "more knowledgeable person engaged in philosophy"—and yes, in that sense any well-read contemporary philosopher knows things Plato didn't. But the more interesting sense is something like "more penetrating, more original, more generative of insight," and on that criterion the cumulative argument simply doesn't work. Knowing about Descartes doesn't make you better than Plato at the thing Plato was doing. McGinn acknowledges this distinction ("Not as original, to be sure, but better equipped, more knowledgeable") but then proceeds to collapse it for the rest of the essay.
The four criteria. This is where things get genuinely interesting as a case study in motivated reasoning.
Clarity. McGinn's claim to be the clearest philosophical writer who ever lived is not absurd on its face—he is a clear writer, and many people have told him so. But "clarity" in philosophical writing is not a simple scalar. Kripke's Naming and Necessity is dazzlingly clear about fearsomely difficult matters. Russell's prose in The Problems of Philosophy is crystalline. Nagel's What Does It All Mean? is a model of lucidity. More importantly, clarity is easier to achieve when you are not attempting to say something that strains the resources of ordinary language. Wittgenstein is "unclear" in part because he is trying to express thoughts that resist conventional expression. One can be extremely clear about relatively safe claims. McGinn's criterion rewards a certain kind of philosophical temperament—careful, moderate, not given to the extreme—and then declares that temperament best.
Breadth. The breadth claim is more factually grounded—McGinn has indeed published across many areas—but it conflates publication breadth with depth of contribution across those areas. Publishing in an area is not the same as shaping that area. Russell contributed foundationally to logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and political philosophy in ways that defined the direction of each field for generations. McGinn has published in many areas, but his lasting impact is concentrated in philosophy of mind. Writing a book on Shakespeare is admirable but it doesn't make you a broader philosopher than someone who reshaped multiple core areas of the discipline.
Quantity. The quantity criterion is where the argument becomes most transparently self-serving. Five hundred blog posts are not equivalent to five hundred peer-reviewed contributions. McGinn essentially changed the rules of the game by counting his blog output—written after retirement, without peer review—alongside the refereed publications of working academics. This is a bit like a retired tennis player counting practice rallies alongside tournament matches.
Rightness. McGinn's handling of this criterion is the most honest and most revealing part of the essay. He admits this is where things become subjective, and he half-concedes that every philosopher thinks their own views are correct. But then he says "I don't think there is any serious doubt that there is more truth in my philosophical work than in anyone else's," which is either a joke or a staggering claim. His argument for his own rightness essentially amounts to: I'm careful, I hate being wrong, I don't make outlandish claims, and smart people tend to agree with me. This is not so much an argument as a character reference written by the defendant.
The elephant in the room. The final line—"it does make me shake my head over my current situation"—and the comment section's response reveal what the essay is partly about: McGinn's professional exile following the sexual harassment allegations at the University of Miami in 2013. The essay reads differently when you understand it as, in part, a cri de coeur from someone who feels his professional reputation has been unfairly destroyed and who is making an elaborate, semi-ironic case for his own significance in the absence of the institutional validation that once came naturally. The self-aggrandizement is less pure vanity than it is a displaced form of grievance. This doesn't make the arguments better, but it makes the psychology more comprehensible.
Overall assessment. The essay is about 30% genuine argument, 30% self-promotion by someone who feels undervalued, 20% provocation designed to elicit exactly the kind of response I'm now giving, and 20% something close to a philosophical parlor game. McGinn is a good philosopher—a genuinely clear writer, a serious contributor to philosophy of mind, and someone with real range. But the claims in this essay are not defensible by any reasonable standard, and the criteria are tailored to produce the desired result. It's worth reading as a document of philosophical ego, professional resentment, and the genuine difficulty of evaluating philosophical achievement—a difficulty that McGinn exploits rather than confronts.
2. Top 10 Greatest Living Philosophers, and a Ranked Top 3
Evaluative criteria. Before making any list, we need to be explicit about what we're measuring, because different criteria produce wildly different lists.
The first and most important distinction is between influence (public or professional) and philosophical achievement. Lists in popular outlets tend to conflate these, which is how you end up with Žižek, Cornel West, and Jordan Peterson on "greatest living philosopher" lists alongside people who have shaped the technical foundations of the discipline. Public influence is real and matters, but it measures something different from what most professional philosophers would recognize as philosophical greatness.
Within professional achievement, several dimensions matter:
Depth and originality of contribution. Has this philosopher produced ideas, arguments, or frameworks that have genuinely changed how the discipline thinks? Not just published in an area, but altered its trajectory? Kripke's Naming and Necessity (1980) is a paradigm case: it restructured philosophy of language, resurrected metaphysics, and introduced tools that are now standard equipment. This is the hardest criterion to assess and the most important.
Breadth. McGinn is right that breadth matters, but it has to be significant breadth—making contributions that are taken seriously across multiple areas, not just publishing in them.
Rigor and argumentative quality. Does the work withstand scrutiny? Is it careful, precise, and responsive to objections? This is where much continental philosophy gets marked down by analytic standards (and where much analytic philosophy gets marked down by continental standards for being arid and unimaginative).
Generativity. Has the work opened up productive research programs for others? A philosopher who produces a single brilliant insight that spawns decades of work by others arguably ranks higher than one who publishes prolifically without generating downstream activity.
Engagement with other disciplines. Philosophy at its best is not hermetically sealed. Philosophers who engage productively with science, law, political practice, or the arts often produce work of greater lasting value.
Writing quality. This matters but should be weighted modestly. A poorly written philosopher who produces epoch-making ideas outranks a beautifully written philosopher who produces elegant trivialities.
Now, with those criteria in mind, and restricting ourselves to philosophers who are alive as of early 2026:
A Top 10 (unranked beyond the top 3):
Saul Kripke died in 2022, Daniel Dennett in 2024, Derek Parfit in 2017, Hilary Putnam in 2016, Jerry Fodor in 2017, David Lewis in 2001—so these titanic figures are all out. This dramatically thins the field.
Here is my best attempt at a living top 10, understanding that any such list is deeply contestable:
Timothy Williamson (b. 1955) — Transformed epistemology with Knowledge and Its Limits (2000), arguing that knowledge is the fundamental epistemic state rather than justified true belief. Has also made major contributions to philosophical logic and methodology. Widely regarded as one of the most technically accomplished philosophers working today.
David Chalmers (b. 1966) — Reframed the entire consciousness debate with the "hard problem" distinction in The Conscious Mind (1996). Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, the conceptual vocabulary he introduced is now inescapable. More recently, his work on extended cognition and virtual reality (Reality+, 2022) shows continuing range.
Thomas Nagel (b. 1937) — Though long retired, his body of work across philosophy of mind, ethics, and political philosophy remains extraordinarily influential. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is one of the most cited philosophy papers of the 20th century. The View from Nowhere is a landmark. Mind and Cosmos (2012) was controversial but showed he was still willing to challenge orthodoxy in his seventies.
Peter Singer (b. 1946) — The most practically influential philosopher alive. Animal Liberation helped launch a global movement. His work on effective altruism has channeled billions of dollars toward poverty reduction. He has reshaped how people think about ethical obligations in a way that few philosophers ever achieve.
Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947) — Extraordinary breadth spanning ancient philosophy, political philosophy, ethics, feminism, law, emotions, and animal rights. The capabilities approach (developed with Amartya Sen) influenced the UN Human Development Index. Winner of the Kyoto Prize and Berggruen Prize.
Judith Butler (b. 1956) — Gender Trouble (1990) is one of the most influential works of late 20th-century philosophy, period. Whether one comes from an analytic or continental tradition, the impact on feminist philosophy, queer theory, and social ontology is undeniable. Among the most cited humanities scholars alive.
Kit Fine (b. 1946) — Perhaps the greatest living metaphysician and philosophical logician. His work on essence, ground, vagueness, and arbitrary objects is technically dazzling and philosophically deep. Less well-known outside philosophy than others on this list, but among specialists his reputation is enormous.
T.M. Scanlon (b. 1940) — What We Owe to Each Other (1998) is the most important work of contractualist moral philosophy since Rawls. His framework for thinking about moral reasoning has shaped a generation of ethicists.
Christine Korsgaard (b. 1952) — The leading contemporary Kantian moral philosopher. The Sources of Normativity (1996) and Self-Constitution (2009) are major works that have reinvigorated deontological ethics.
Slavoj Žižek (b. 1949) — The most prominent living continental philosopher, and a figure who defies easy categorization. His synthesis of Hegel, Lacan, and Marx, applied to cultural and political criticism, has an enormous following. Analytic philosophers often dismiss him, but his influence on political philosophy, aesthetics, and cultural theory is massive.
Honorable mentions would include Alvin Plantinga (who revitalized philosophy of religion), Crispin Wright (philosophy of language and logic), Philip Pettit (political philosophy), John Searle (though his reputation is complicated by misconduct allegations), Amartya Sen (if we count him as a philosopher), and Tyler Burge (philosophy of mind and language).
Ranked Top 3:
This is where I have to commit, and where the criteria really bite.
1. Timothy Williamson. This might surprise people who expect a more famous name, but if we weight depth, rigor, originality, and generativity within the discipline, Williamson has the strongest claim. Knowledge and Its Limits didn't just contribute to epistemology—it overturned its foundational assumptions by arguing that knowledge is not analyzable into belief plus further conditions, but is itself primitive. His work on vagueness (Vagueness, 1994) is similarly field-defining. His contributions to philosophical methodology (The Philosophy of Philosophy, 2007) challenged how the profession thinks about its own enterprise. And his technical work in modal logic is first-rate. He combines the rigor of a logician with the ambition of a systematic philosopher.
2. David Chalmers. The hard problem of consciousness is now so embedded in how philosophers, scientists, and the educated public think about the mind that it's easy to forget it required someone to articulate it with the precision and force that Chalmers brought. His zombie argument, his formulation of the explanatory gap, and his defense of property dualism have defined the terms of the consciousness debate for thirty years. He is also an unusually broad philosopher for his generation—working in philosophy of language (two-dimensional semantics), philosophy of technology, and metaphysics alongside his core work in philosophy of mind.
3. Thomas Nagel. Nagel edges out Singer and Nussbaum for the third spot because of the sheer philosophical depth of his best work. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" and The View from Nowhere are not just influential—they are works of genuine philosophical profundity that grapple with the deepest structural features of the objective/subjective divide. His range across ethics (The Possibility of Altruism, Mortal Questions), political philosophy (Equality and Partiality), and philosophy of mind is matched by few contemporaries. At 88, his work retains a freshness and willingness to challenge consensus that is rare.
The case for Peter Singer at #3 instead of Nagel rests on practical impact: no living philosopher has changed more lives or redirected more resources toward reducing suffering. The case for Martha Nussbaum rests on her extraordinary combination of classical scholarship, political theory, and real-world policy influence. Both are defensible choices. I give the edge to Nagel because I'm weighting philosophical depth—the quality of grappling with the hardest abstract problems—somewhat more heavily than applied impact.
3. How would the lists change if we included all philosophers active in the last 30 years?
Expanding the window to include philosophers who were active from roughly 1996 to 2026—including those who have since died—transforms the landscape dramatically. Several towering figures re-enter the picture.
The top 10 becomes much stronger and more obvious:
Saul Kripke (1940–2022) immediately becomes the leading candidate for #1 overall. Naming and Necessity is arguably the single most important work of analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. His contributions to modal logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind are matchless in their combination of technical virtuosity and philosophical depth. He was doing important work—teaching and lecturing on Naming and Necessity at Fifty—right up until his death.
Derek Parfit (1942–2017) re-enters as perhaps the most important moral philosopher since Sidgwick. Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters (2011) are monumental works that reshaped how philosophers think about personal identity, consequentialism, and the foundations of ethics. The fact that he published On What Matters during this window makes him fully eligible.
David Lewis (1941–2001) re-enters as the supreme metaphysician of the late 20th century. His modal realism, counterpart theory, contributions to philosophy of mind (the topic of mental causation), philosophy of science (laws, causation), and philosophy of language make him perhaps the broadest and most technically gifted analytic philosopher of his generation.
Daniel Dennett (1942–2024) comes back in as the most important philosopher of mind working from a naturalistic/scientific perspective. Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and his later work on free will and religion made him the most publicly visible serious philosopher in the anglophone world.
Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) re-enters with his extraordinary range across philosophy of mind (functionalism, then its critique), philosophy of language (semantic externalism, the twin earth argument), philosophy of mathematics, and epistemology. His willingness to change his mind—publicly and rigorously—is itself a philosophical achievement.
Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) returns as one of the most important philosophers of cognitive science. His language of thought hypothesis, his defense of nativism, and his work on modularity shaped the entire field.
The expanded top 10 would look something like: Kripke, Parfit, Lewis, Williamson, Chalmers, Dennett, Putnam, Nagel, Singer, and Nussbaum—with Fodor, Fine, Scanlon, and Butler all pressing hard at the edges.
The top 3 becomes, I think, fairly clear:
1. Saul Kripke. The depth, originality, and downstream impact of Naming and Necessity alone would secure this spot. Add the Kripke semantics for modal logic (work he began as a teenager), his writings on Wittgenstein, his theory of truth, and the vast body of unpublished material still being processed by the Kripke Center, and you have a philosopher of the very first rank—someone who belongs in the conversation with Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein.
2. Derek Parfit. Reasons and Persons is one of those rare works that makes you feel the ground shifting under your feet as you read it. His arguments about personal identity, his demolition of the self-interest theory of rationality, and his attempt in On What Matters to show that Kantianism, consequentialism, and contractualism converge—these are achievements of the highest order. Parfit also had an unusual combination of extreme rigor and moral seriousness that is hard to find elsewhere.
3. David Lewis. Lewis's systematic metaphysics—modal realism, the Humean supervenience program, his accounts of causation, laws, counterfactuals, and convention—constitutes the most ambitious philosophical system-building of the late 20th century. He was also a generous and serious interlocutor whose seminars and correspondence shaped a generation. His early death at 60 was one of the great losses to the field.
A top 30 for the expanded window would add figures like: John Rawls (who died in 2002 and was still influential through this period), Bernard Williams (d. 2003), Donald Davidson (d. 2003), Robert Nozick (d. 2002), Philippa Foot (d. 2010), John Searle, Alvin Plantinga, Tyler Burge, Crispin Wright, Philip Pettit, Amartya Sen, Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas (who at 96 is arguably still active), Jacques Derrida (d. 2004), Judith Butler, Christine Korsgaard, Slavoj Žižek, Kit Fine, Ruth Barcan Marcus (d. 2012), Elizabeth Anscombe (d. 2001, just barely), Onora O'Neill, Robert Brandom, and several others. The 30-person list would be far richer and more obviously defensible than any living-only list, simply because the last three decades included an extraordinary concentration of philosophical talent.
The biggest shift in going from "living" to "active in the last 30 years" is that the analytic tradition's dominance becomes even more pronounced in the top ranks. Kripke, Parfit, and Lewis are all firmly in the analytic tradition, and their technical contributions are easier to evaluate and compare than the more diffuse impact of continental thinkers. Whether this reflects a genuine asymmetry in achievement or merely a disciplinary bias in how we assess philosophical greatness is itself a philosophical question worth taking seriously—and one that McGinn's essay, for all its self-absorption, doesn't even begin to consider.
