A- I was not saying that Machievalli wasn't a political scientist- the distinction is considerably vague and I know so little I don't consider an assertion in the negative justified. However, to claim it was a disservice would imply it was somehow insulting to suggest he was a philosopher. Would it be a disservice to Einstein to suggest he was a biologist? No- however silly it would be in that less ambigious case. B- If we take examples in the period between, say, 1400 and 1600 of "political scientists", and "political philosophers", then the distinction becomes very vague. Most examples are ambigious rather than clearly one or clearly the other. I would venture a guess (though I don't know quite enough to assert it) that most of them would draw on experience of the world (sort-of scientific), not do experiments (impossible for practical purposes to experiment- very ocassionally a ruler could test out a political philosophy but this is the limit and still not scientific), and include implicit philosophy through the use of ethics in terms of what sort of society would be 'best' (for example, Machievalli himself implicitly assumed in the Prince, although I'm given to understand it's a bit different in other works, that the fact men are evil means a ruler is not obliged to treat them in a good fashion. This is an ethical claim).
If there is intended to be paragraph breaks here (including before the "B-" marker) keep in mind that markdown syntax requires two 'enters' to indicate paragraphs.
Since LessWrong is a major congregation point for certain philosophical ideas, and because people here tend to be more objective (in the sense of not being self-deluded) than elsewhere, I thought I'd ask people's views.
To be clear, by "Greatest Philosopher" I am referring not to the most correct philosopher in human history but the one who deserves the most credit for advancing human philosophy towards being more true.
Off the top of my head I would say that a prime candidate would be Hume- amongst other things he rejected the idea of a soul, realised to a much greater extent than his predecessors the limits of human knowledge, and opposed the idea that reason is somehow an objective force that can make priorities independent of emotions.
Aristotle deserves considerable credit relative for his time but doesn't make the list because although it wasn't his fault his ideas were dogmatically accepted and held back both science and philosophy later on.
Your thoughts?