Overrated Philosophers

This crowd enjoys a cultural standing beyond their merit because they fill coalition needs.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) is the patron of Jewish liberal humanities intellectuals. Origins of Totalitarianism is powerful as literary-historical writing but soft as causal analysis. Many historians have disputed her conflation of Nazism and Stalinism. The Human Condition reads more like poetry than political theory. The banality of evil thesis turned out to be wrong about Eichmann, as Bettina Stangneth (b. 1966) showed in Eichmann Before Jerusalem. Arendt remains huge because she lets literary intellectuals think about politics in their preferred register, because she is the rare woman in the canon, and because she is the Jewish Heidegger student who broke with him politically though never personally. Strip the coalition function and she becomes an essayist with strong style and dubious arguments.
Judith Butler (b. 1956) depends on the coalition of academic feminism and queer theory. Gender Trouble of 1990 won the Bad Writing Contest of 1998 for a reason. Her prose is obscure. Her central claims about gender performativity are derivative of earlier feminist work and of Erving Goffman (1922-1982). Without the coalition need for a philosophical figurehead, she might be a competent but unremarkable theorist.
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) earned massive prominence in the humanities, but his arguments rarely survive paraphrase. Analytic philosophers have mostly judged his work either trivial or incomprehensible. The coalition is literary theorists who need a method that lets them claim philosophical depth without engaging the historian’s evidence or the analytic philosopher’s argument. Deconstruction served that need.
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) has a prominence far past the merit. His historical work is often wrong on the facts. Madness and Civilization has been demolished by historians of medicine. His genealogical method is rhetorical rather than rigorous. Without the coalition use by activists and humanities scholars, Foucault is a brilliant essayist whose historical claims are mostly wrong.
Slavoj Žižek (b. 1949) is a performance artist with a Lacanian vocabulary. His prolific output is full of self-contradiction. The coalition is the leftist intelligentsia who want a celebrity in their register. He is quick and funny. He is not, in the technical sense, doing philosophy.
Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929) is German liberalism’s philosophical patron. Theory of Communicative Action is influential beyond its merit. The coalition is European social democrats who need a serious foundation. His prose is grindingly difficult. Many of his core distinctions do not hold up under analysis.
John Rawls (1921-2002) has a standing inflated by his role as the patron of post-1960s egalitarian liberalism. Without the coalition need for a philosophical justification of the welfare-state project, Rawls might be a respected but not towering figure. The original position, the veil of ignorance, and the difference principle have all received serious criticism that the coalition mostly ignores. He is treated as having settled questions he in fact reopened.
Cornel West (b. 1953) is prominent as a Black public intellectual. His philosophical output is thin. He is a preacher and a celebrity. The coalition is Black liberal-left intellectuals plus White liberals who want to platform a Black philosopher.
Peter Singer (b. 1946) writes clearly, but the arguments are often simple. His prominence rests on the utilitarian commitments of much of the secular liberal class. He says clearly what they already believe.
Sam Harris (b. 1967) is not a philosopher despite the doctorate. His arguments on free will, moral realism, and Islam are weak. His prominence rests on the New Atheist coalition that needed a public figure.
On the conservative side:
Leo Strauss (1899-1973). A high-status Alex Jones type. His readings are often forced and his patterns imposed. A coalition of conservative intellectuals needed a serious figure and Strauss filled the role.
Russell Kirk (1918-1994) is inflated by traditionalist conservatives who needed a respectable founder. The Conservative Mind of 1953 is more anthology than argument. Kirk is rhetorically gifted but not a major thinker.
Ayn Rand (1905-1982) is not taken seriously by academic philosophy, but she is treated as a philosopher inside the libertarian coalition. Her prominence outside that coalition is small.
Jordan Peterson (b. 1962) is a clinical psychologist who became a public intellectual. His philosophical claims are confused. The coalition is conservative-curious young men who needed a figure who would speak to them directly about meaning and order.
Among religious and traditionalist coalitions:
Alasdair MacIntyre (b. 1929) has a standing inflated by Catholic and traditionalist circles who need a serious critic of liberalism. After Virtue of 1981 is substantial. The later work is more apologetics than philosophy. Charles Taylor (b. 1931) is inflated by communitarian and Catholic coalitions. A Secular Age of 2007 is more sociology than philosophy and he is treated as having said more than he in fact said.
A note on public intellectuals who present as philosophers but are not. Steven Pinker (b. 1954) is a psychologist who writes about progress. Yuval Noah Harari (b. 1976) is a historian who writes Big Books that fall part upon analysis. Robert Sapolsky (b. 1957) is a biologist who writes about behavior and makes dubious claims. Jonathan Haidt (b. 1963) is a social psychologist who writes about moral intuitions and makes dubious claims. All four are treated as authorities on philosophical questions because they serve the educated rationalist-liberal coalition that needs accessible figures who confirm its self-understanding.
Cultural prominence is a coalition product. The merits are often hard to measure in philosophy, so the coalition function takes over more easily than it does in fields with clearer standards. The same logic that drives Spinoza’s inflated standing drives the standing of these figures. Each one solves a coalition’s problem of needing a serious thinker who validates its position.