04 April 2008

Heroes of Philosophy

I recently discovered the work of contemporary Glaswegian sculptor Alexander Stoddart, whose work is often classical in spirit, and monumental in proportion. Consider this statue of David Hume on the High Street of Edinburgh, across from St. Giles:



























Or this work depicting Immanuel Kant, worthy of a Stoic wise man:





















His statues of St. Augustine, Adam Smith, and John Witherspoon are more along usual lines:
























Clearly Aristotle or Plato would be worthy of this sort of treatment. But what about a recent philosopher? It seemed to me that perhaps Rawls -- although an objection might be that his personality was set against any kind of display drawing attention to himself. What do you think?

2 comments:

Theophrastus said...

I think one should make a statue of Rawls if and only if it would improve the lot of the least-well-off person in the world.

Michael Pakaluk said...

Hah! And yet it's easy to imagine possible worlds in which that least-well-off person is the 'starving artist' commissioned to make the statue!