In your opinion, what thinker/philosopher/scientists to have lived in the 20th century (they had to die in 1900 or later) has had the most influence on our way of thinking and living?

I think you can make a pretty good case for a few, but I'm gonna go with the expected and say Freud. Introduced words that have become common place like id, ego, superego, anal-retentive, and a whole host of terms. Psychotherapy became much more popular because of him, and he's basically the founder of modern psychology.

If we're talking influence on the everday common person then yes I would probably agree with freud. EVERYONE'S heard of Freud.

However, if we're talking world events I would say Einstein. His theory of relativity ended up resulting in the creation of the atomic bomb, which resulted in the stockpile of nuclear armaments... you can see where this ended up going.

You gave a rather broad range of possibilities there. If we were just talking psychology, or even if we expanded to philosophy, you'd probably be right about Freud (even if I don't particularly like him). But if we're including scientists and other thinkers as well, that opens up the field rather. Einstein is obviously huge -- after all, who hasn't heard of E = MC^2 (even if most people don't know what it means)? Although probably you're looking for someone who affected people more in the way they view the world socially and philosophically (although Einstein certainly did that too) than scientifically. And then there's the question of whether we're talking about the whole world or the USA in particular. I'm going to go with just the USA and throw out Martin Luther King as one of the most influential people on the way we perceive society today. He was almost certainly the biggest and most influential anti-racist advocate in the last century (in the United States, that is).

Of the 20th Century?

Well, Sigmund Freud is obviously there, though like Nevin, I don't particually like nor agree with alot of his thoughts. Albert Einstein for physics and the like. The Wright Brothers would have to be on my list, for their advancements in aviation. Salk or whatever, the guy who invented the vaccine for polio. John Maynard Keynes for the econmic ideals (Had to check if he was 20th century, he was) Its rather broad catagory, I would inculde science in it as well as mathimatics and the like. Hard to really say.

If I had said the past 150 years, I'm guessing you would go with Marx?

Of course. Marx should excellent ideals for his time, a overzealous but needed base for a horrid system of econmics and social issues, pure capitalsim. He offered an alternitive, somthing that, though in its pure form human nature would prove impossible, somthing that ideas could be bulit off of.

Yeah he'd be hard to beat if you extended the time to 150 years.

Tim Berners-Lee is widely recognized as the creator of the world wide web. (Note there is a difference between the internet and the world wide web) Some people argue that it would have been done eventually by somebody, but he actually did it. I think it was definitely the most significant invention of the 20th century; we wouldn't be posting here without. He probably deserves some credit for that.

I was going to say marx too, and got really irritated that you limited it to 20th century. It was almost like you were trying to bias us towards Freud ;)

I think I probably picked einstein largely not to echo freud, but on further reflection I do think a case is argueable. As Nevin pointed out any person on the street has most likely heard of e=mc2, whether or not they know what it means or not is entirely different. And most people would recognize instantly a photograph of Einstein. There is a rather famous one of him giving the camera a raspberry. And his influence on nuclear physics, physics as well as the whole of science and for that matter politics are nearly impossible to refute. So I stand with Einstein.

It's definitely Einstein. No argument.

Enstein is up there, but its coming to pass that a few of his theorys are not being able to hold up, such as light speed and the like. I'd still label him one of the most influencal, but even people such as aristotle where wrong in many of their ideas, and their compition not even recongized.

Yeah Einstein is influential, but let's not kid ourselves. It's not like HE started the cold war. I would say that the World Wide Web guy has had close to the same if not more of an effect.

But the point is YOU don't know that guy's name. You do know Einsteins name.

Yes but YOU are using the web right now and YOU are not using the theory of relativity. Or a nuclear bomb. Hopefully.

John Maynard Keynes.

Lorpius, this is the guy behind keynsian economics or "trickle down theory" right? I'll need verification of that before i can think of some response.

The internet wasn't really around until the very end of the 20th century, and only now do I think it's even beginning to reach its full potential as a medium of information distribution

Secondly, i'm pretty sure the theory of relativity has been potentially disproven, however, it is what resulted in nuclear bombs (Einstein saw them as a way of proving the theory of relativity so he intially endorsed the Manhatten Project before understanding the destructive capablitiy of such a weapon... at least that's the common understanding of the letter he wrote to president Roosevelt) and while that did not result in the cold war it's what made a lot of the cold war as scarey and possible as it was.

Without the nuclear weapons and nuclear arms race the cold war I feel would have had to become a hot one at some point.

Keynes wrote the General Theory of Employment, and really started the modern school of economic thought, "trickle down" is something else, and something which Keynes probably would have emphatically disagreed with. He's the one that figured out what was going on in the Great Depression, and is often credited with "saving capitalism" from red revolution.

FYI: The man who thought up the Trickle Down idea as a plan of action for the Regan adminitration was David Stockman, and he later went on to denouce it as falseified.

Yea, I don't think I would add Mr. Stockman to the list of influential thinkers. :no:

Delta,
Keynes doesn't really have anything to do with trickle down, that was me having a brain fart of sorts :)

as Lorpius pointed out Keynes is sort of the grandfather of modern economic principles and thought (of which trickle down is an offshoot, but he's not really responsible for it. It's more of an Einstein and cold war thing, Keynes put forward theories that someone took, and made something, that someone else took and made something that eventually led someone to comeup with trickle down)

I figured as much, but I thought I'd let you know who the actual Trickle Down person was.

Edit: Had to bump this one up.

If we are to consider the individual's depth of impact "in the real world" (as this is the essence of "influence"), I would point towards Lenin. To my mind he is the giant of the 20th century.

Derrida. because he blew it all up.

Game, set, match.

Actually, I've revised my opinion. I think Aristotle is one of the most influential thinkers, and I'm saying this having read very little of his work, but mostly the side comments I get through other people and reading other texts. As far as I understand, he set up many of the major issues we now deal with in (at least a certain brand of) philosophy, namely substantialist ontological distinctions and the telos that guides thinking. It's true, I think, that Aristotle laid many of the foundations that people like Hegel and Heidegger draw from.

EDIT: Blast, just read the OP. Ok, twentieth century? Lacan, because he set up the basis for the formalization of philosophy, according to Badiou.