Julian Baggini
In the early days of the Philosophers’ Magazine, we quickly realised that the easiest and surest way to get attention for our little publication was to run polls. The first of these revealed another truth: when it comes to reputation, people prefer tearing down to building up. In coverage of the results, hardly anyone in the press reported that the philosopher deemed to have made the greatest contribution to the subject was Aristotle. Instead they gleefully dwelt on the list of the most overrated philosophers, topped by Derrida, followed by Marx.