Who is the most important individual to western civilization?

>>2723251
Constantine or Charlemagne.

That guy who comes up with the next spicy meme.

>>2723251
GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR

Justinian

Alexander the Great

Plato

Martin Luther

>>2723251
Romulus

>Plato laid the very foundations of Western philosophy and science.[4] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."[5] In addition to being a foundational figure for Western science, philosophy, and mathematics, Plato has also often been cited as one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality.[6] Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, "Platonism for the people."[7] Plato's influence on Christian thought is often thought to be mediated by his major influence on Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important philosophers and theologians in the history of Christianity.

Jesus

File: 0.jpg (17KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

17KB, 480x360px

>>2723251
Yakub

Pericles

>>2723268
What about Jesus?

Augustus

>>2723251
Plato

Donald J. trump

Probably Jesus but also Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Constantine

Franco

me

>>2723251
Jesus, if he counts.

Otherwise probably Augustus

Harriet Tubman

Elijah Muhammad

Moot.

>>2723255
Constantine wasn't part of Western civilization

Sargon of Akkad, founder of Akkadian Empire.

>>2724541
Doesn't make him (or any Greek, Roman or Jew) any less important to the West.

File: wiseguy.jpg (67KB, 540x562px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 540x562px

Plato

Not even memeing

>>2723251
unironically Jesus

File: 1474320760598.png (128KB, 374x347px) Image search: [Google]

128KB, 374x347px

>>2724541
He wasn't part of Western civilization?

So the Roman Empire, Catholicism, or the Catholic Church aren't part of Western civilization either?

Was Charlemagne really that important?

I mean sure, he was extremely important, but I can imagine Western civilization existing without him. His 'Renaissance' was fairly short lived, his empire broke apart, his title devolved into a /his/ meme, and the West basically just went back to the 'dark ages' after he died until the 11th century.

Jesus or St Paul on the other hand completely changed the course of history, and the West as we know it couldn't have existed without them. Muhammad too, since if there was no Islam the Mediterranean would have never been divided and might have remained as a unifying cultural heart for Christendom, so that Western Europe might never have split off into its own distinct entity.

Really though, the most important person to the West, or anywhere, was probably some random nameless jackass like the Greek merchant who decided he wanted his own version of Phoenician writing or whatever Bronze Age Ukrainian sheep-fucker decided to keep a wild horse for a pet.

>>2723251
Jesus Christ. "Western civilization" is a meme whose predecessor is the concept of "Christendom".

Columbus

Mohammed

Without Islam, Mediterranean civilization wouldn't have been divided into the West and the Islamic world

>>2723251

It's clearly Jesus.

t. atheist

>>2724591
The Roman Empire wasn't. In its strict sense, Western civilization means post-Roman Latin Christendom, sometimes starting with Charlemagne. The intellectual, institutional and political world of Latin Christendom in the west diverged enormously from Orthodox Christendom in the east, and Islam too took a chunk of the classical world to form its own civilization, so it makes sense to think of western civilization as one of three offshoots of the Greco-Roman world, rather than the Greco-Roman world being retroactively 'western' (unless you just mean 'western' as opposed to the Persians or something, but western civilization is more specific than that).

>>2723267
>>2723277
>>2724349
>>2724580
Socrates was more significant than Plato.

>>2724691
Bait

>>2724699
>hurrr but everything we know of Socrates was through Plato!!!
Then why did Plato write so much about Socrates? Why didn't he just write what he thought instead of incorporate it into someone else's name? Clearly Socrates had so much of an impact on him that he compelled him to do everything he did. Socrates was the more significant dude in the picture.

>>2724706
Bait

>>2724810
Socrates: the most important person in western civilization to the strong, to the revolutionary.
Plato: the most important person in western civilization to the weak, to the degenerate.

Gutenberg

File: Gutenberg_Printing_Press.jpg (48KB, 580x386px) Image search: [Google]

48KB, 580x386px

>>2724932
Fucking this.
Anyone who says otherwise is illiterate.

>>2725768
I think he's more replaceable than someone like Plato or Jesus. somebody would have figured out how to mass print things eventually, probably not long after he did. Without Plate, Socrates, or Jesus (examples, not that they're necessarily the top 3), who would have taken their place?

Not that Gutenberg isn't important - he is - just not as irreplaceable some others ITT

File: image.jpg (21KB, 628x676px) Image search: [Google]

21KB, 628x676px

>>2725953
>Without Plate
gj me

>>2723251
u

Homer or Shakespeare

>>2723251
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

>>2723251
Scipio Africanus

>>2725953
You seem to be saying Gutenberg was much more a matter of "right time, right place" than Plato or Jesus, but there are reasons that Plato or Jesus weren't just one more guy saying stuff, soon forgotten.

Time & place happens to everybody. We never hear about people who might have said exactly what Plato or Jesus said before them.

So if the ones we know about hadn't caught on, maybe another would have come along pretty soon.

>>2725768
Or, you know, maybe chinese, since they had moveable types printing presses centuries earlier.

>>2727182
OP asked about Western civilization.

>>2726946
can't agree more,
I would put him ahead of even Alexander the great as the legacy of the latter dissipated after his death while the order Scipio established would go on for a thousand years+

>>2727182
OP asked about civilization.

>>2724706
Why did Nietze write so many things about Wagner?
Generally speaking, if somedy comes out as P E R F E C T, something really dodgy is going on.

Aristotle

Aubrey De Grey