Hardest philosopher?

Which philosopher(s) would you think to be the hardest to read or understand? I personally would say Hegel, Wittigenstein, and Heiddegger. Soren Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer are pretty hard as well.

 

You Kan't have a list without Kant.



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I am actually assigned to read Kant this semester, looking forward to that =\

 

Hegel.

 

Not that he's terribly hard to understand, but Hobbes had some great material that I feel needs mentioning as well. Maybe I'm not very well versed in philosophy, but he seemed to have some very individual ideas, or at least made them popular.

 

Michael Foucault. Worth the effort to understand though.

 

For me, anything continental is difficult. I could never get the hang of any of it, which is a bit unfortunate for me since I am taking a seminar in Phenomenology seminar this semester. Analytic philosophy has always been so much easier for me to read.

 

Seriously? Wittgenstein, the founder of Analytic philosophy, is literally incomprehensible.

 

I should have been more clear. Contemporary analytic philosophy is easier for me to understand, but that just might be because that is the subject in which I specialize. Anything prior to 1950 and there is a chance I won't get it. Some of Wittgenstein's writing is o.k. I think a lot of it has to do with the whole translation thing. When I read things which have been translated, they seem more "fuzzy."

 

Deleuze and Guttari, although I strongly suspect that this may be because they're just wrong about everything with the fance-pantsiest words they can think of.

 

Heiddegger, definitely! I still think its double talk.

 

Okiefreak, I can definitely agree with you. I am taking a seminar with a guy that is supposed to be a Heidegger scholar, and I never have any idea what he is talking about. Husserl is pretty much just as difficult to read.

 

Sartre

 

my vote goes for hegel.

why weren't smart enough to say things for everyone to understand?

 

Kant. It's not so much his philosophy but the way he expresses his ideas and thoughts that made him the most difficult philosopher for me to understand.
It was like reading 200 pages long instruction manual explaining how to use the dial pad on your phone. You end up more confused than you could ever be before reading it.


Shopenhauer, on the other hand, was one of the easiest to comprehend.
At 17 you could read and feel as if you were reading something you already knew or thought about before and there was his book , confirming and making crystal clear your own thoughts to you.