Seriously. The more I see “Kant and Hegel via pinker, and Plato via Marx, but not the OGs” the more annoyed I get at the state of modern academia. ALL philosophy students should start with the sophists (Heraclitus and Parmenides), then Plato and Aristotle, THEN work towards the present from there. It is only by following philosophy chronologically and tracing its history can one see the patterns and the triggers for the cycles we see in history. Only through THIS insight can one see the flaws in each philosophical system that permits these cyclical transitions, the pros/cons of each system and, therefore, where the major problems of philosophy that allow these shifts lie.