What is a philosopher?
Is a philosopher only a person with at least a master's in philosophy or who has certain published words, or who has created a whole logic system for world order? What is necessary for someone to call themselves a philosopher?
Comments (164)
Everyone is a philosopher as we all seek wisdom in whatever we're doing. Thieves want to be more successful etc etc so the term is really useless.
He's lugubrious
Reads all the way from John to Publius.
The minimal entry requirement is to have the skills of critical thinking. That ought to cover both analysis and synthesis, or deductive reasoning and inductive belief.
But maybe I'm just old school. Others may believe that feeling now trumps thinking. Or the hermeneutics of approved texts is where it is at.
No wait. That just confirms critical thinking ought to be the price of entry to the club. :nerd:
As a retired mathematician, my profession is defined a bit more specifically, citing "using extensive knowledge of mathematics" to solve problems, etc.
There are at least three OP's asking this question.
Generally they end up winding back to the position that a philosopher has a level of competence and understanding of the key problems in philosophy and how they have been answered.
If you are ignorant of philosophy, how can you be a philosopher? You can think philosophically or be philosophically inclined, but that does not make you a philosopher.
A portrait of the earnest as a wrong man?
[quote=Nietzsche]
...a philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes peculiar to him; who is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself—but whose curiosity always makes him "come to himself" again.
<>
...to live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond... To have, or not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against, according to choice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to seat oneself on them as upon horses, and often as upon asses:—for one must know how to make use of their stupidity as well as of their fire.
<>
...the genius of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too hasty hand to hesitate, and to grasp more delicately; which scents the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick dark ice, and is a divining-rod for every grain of gold, long buried and imprisoned in mud and sand; the genius of the heart, from contact with which every one goes away richer; not favored or surprised, not as though gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded by a thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will and current, full of a new ill-will and counter-current...
<>
...having been at home, or at least guests, in many realms of the spirit, having escaped again and again from the gloomy, agreeable nooks in which preferences and prejudices, youth, origin, the accident of men and books, or even the weariness of travel seemed to confine us, full of malice against the seductions of dependency which he concealed in honors, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, grateful even for distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free us from some rule, and its "prejudice," grateful to the God, devil, sheep, and worm in us, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the point of cruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with teeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, owing to an excess of "free will", with anterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, economical in learning and forgetting, inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of tables of categories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night-owls of work even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrows—and it is necessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as we are the born, sworn, jealous friends of SOLITUDE, of our own profoundest midnight and midday solitude—such kind of men are we, we free spirits! And perhaps ye are also something of the same kind, ye coming ones? ye new philosophers?
[/quote]
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm#link2HCH0009
Yeah but that's circular which is why philosophy must be defined in general terms and not specific (what we call philosophy either academically or not).
Your teacher is just gatekeeping. Natural philosophy became science so very technically doing science is doing philosophy. Reapplying this to all that's applicable you see no reason to exclude anything.
Ok. I don't see how it is circular. I also defined it in general terms. Generally when someone calls themselves a practitioner, they have competence and expertise in the thing they practice. I can't really see a way around this. You can't be called a surgeon just because you enjoy cutting people open...
Calling a philosopher someone who has expertise in philosophy offers no real explanatory power. It's weird how you said that first paragraph bit then made the adverb-exclusion second paragraph.
So how does it not explain the idea to say that a philosopher is someone who is familiar with central problems and their proposed solutions in philosophy?
Quoting Shwah
What's that?
You're effectively saying "a philosopher is a person who philosophizes correctly (philosophically)". You'd be using the same word in the definition which creates a recursive issue.
If this is your view do you think there is good and bad philosophy? You seem to see it primarily as a method.
Sure I get your point but even saying competence and critical reading (both words that necessarily apply anywhere, kinda weasel-y words) in the tradition has a circularity where tradition refers to philosophy.
I meant that the study of wisdom naturally applies to all of us in every action and state (we're always and only seeking to do the most wise thing even if it's something very personal or petty even, we try to solve the issue how we best can).
That seems remarkably optimistic. Don't many people act without thinking and generally choose the low road and/or the easiest, most brutally efficacious path possible?
They choose what they think is the wisest track which may be, for a child, the easiest and most shortcut-y path.
Gotta be a lesson in there someplace.
Let's think of philosophy as a profession. What do other professions require? I was an engineer for 30 years. What standard did I meet?
That doesn't really work for a philosopher, but it gets at some principles. Let's try this:
Generally, doing what we do here on the forum does not make you a philosopher. You have to put more on the line than we do. Again, that's a generality.
I would question this; especially the use of the word 'wisest'. I would suspect that many decisions made are instinctive or reactive (not chosen as such) and 'wisdom' is by-passed. Sagacity is not exactly bountiful.
Quoting Shwah
For a child? Do adults not take short-cuts in decision making?
Quoting T Clark
What does more on the line look like?
I think you're using very colloquial useage of the term wise (which is really a general word anyways). I'm using it more trivially in the sense, "man can only do that which they most want to do in the best way possible given the circumstances".
More time, attention, effort, discipline. More risk associated with failure; e.g. loss of money, status, reputation. Just like any other profession.
So in your view to be called a philosopher you probably have to be a professional? The idea of devoting time, attention, effort and disciple would probably mean that not everyone is a philosopher, right?
I don't mean professional as in academic and I don't think you necessarily would need to have any specific education. I committed my life to being an engineer. I went to school, found a job as a junior engineer, worked with more senior people, gained more seniority and responsibility, became certified, and tried to do my work in accordance with the standards of my profession, especially my responsibilities to my clients and the public. I paid my engineering dues. A philosopher should pay their philosophy dues.
Now that's a truly philosophical statement!
I agree, but I am wondering what those dues would look like.
Given that the career path for a philosopher is much less well defined than that for an engineer, I thought I spelled it out fairly clearly.
Not to me. As I see it, what you described is a method. But there is no relationship between the philosopher and the history of philosophical problems. How do you not spend your life devoted to problems long resolved? How do you avoid reinventing the wheel? What if you spend years contemplating what it is we can know with any certainty only to end up with a variation of 'I think therefore I am'?
The question is "What is a philosopher?" That's the question I intended to answer. Seems like you want to know how to do philosophy. Not a bad question, but not the one I was answering.
I think he's saying if you have to "pay your dues" to be a philosopher then how does he know if he's paid his dues? The example was studying over a line in Plato that you may consider mystic for decades and come out with the idea of objective justice after all that? In this sense they're using time and effort in established philisophy to see if that's paying dues. He was hoping for a very specific answer and finish line.
Perfect!
I'm kind of lost. Tired Thinker asked "What is a philosopher?" I gave my answer. It seems a pretty straightforward answer to a straightforward question. I thought the answer was clear. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine. Happens all the time.
Beautiful quote.
I guess I went there because I can't separate the two matters; to me they are one. Maybe that's wrong...
I think you're right, but it's big field, and one man's charlatan is another man's hero. Take Heidegger and Derrida. These dudes were paid professors of philosophy, not back porch belchers, yet some of their fellow paid professors were/are utterly dismissive. I can't think of anything comparable in mathematics, not unless one goes back to Cantor's day (and then at least no one could deny Cantor's early mainstream work from which set theory developed).
Perhaps this is because the history of philosophy is one identity crisis after another. 'Anti-philosophers' with any juice in them are assimilated. I agree with some of these later assimilated rebels that philosophy is (among other things) a genre of creative writing and a conversation with its own internally generated logic (its keywords accumulate meaning like a snowball rolling downhill.) The guy on the back porch who isn't 'read in' is likely to be stuck on some early part of a conversation, making him boring to those who've spent more time exposing themselves to the battle-tested crust of talk that came before.
Political philosophy is not what politicians practice. I think a very easy finish line is saying you have your own metaphysics which can derive a philosophy of history/sex/math/politics/biology ad naseum formally. If you can effectively have an opinion on everything as derived from your metaphysics then you're a philosopher in people's eyes.
Everyone borrows their culture's metaphysics and wisdom and they necessarily seek wisdom so in all senses I would call everyone a philosopher in that they will always benefit from learning philosophy in any endeavor they take. Philosophy is unique in that but if people want the concept of a successful or paradable philosopher then that formal metaphysics works.
I can go the opposite route. In histories of philosophy they generally include freud who either did detest philosophy or would have detested the label. It's hard to include psychologism etc without including all the metaphysical work he did about establishing a variable and developing as much of human psychology (even developing concepts we still use today like subconscious and projections and other bits).
Quoting T Clark
:up: :up:
Quoting TiredThinker
Plato calls them "sophists" and in his Dialogues depict Socrates engaging some in dialectics. Off the top of my head (for their egregiously fallacious rhetoric ("BS" ~ H. Frankfurt) and/or promiscuously underdetermiined / vague (obscurant) concepts): Ayn Rand, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Leo Strauss, Jacques Lacan, Jiddu Krishnamurti, L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Campbell, C.S. Lewis, Fritjof Capra, Deepak Chopra, Ken Wilbur, Sam Harris, Marianne Williamson, William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson, Richard Rorty ... :eyes: :shade:
Quoting TiredThinker
While politicking, politricksters are sophists par excellence (i.e. ideologues, propagandists and/or opportunists).
:up:
This is close to explaining the meaning of my username.
words
Fact: The rumor is true
Some though, by clever tactics and strategies, try to ride along for free or are way overdue.
I was only talking about what I thought you needed to do to call yourself a philosopher, not necessarily what you need to do in order to be a good philosopher.
Can one buy their way in?
Sure. There are lots of bad engineers, but they're still engineers. Ditto doctors, butchers, elephant trainers, Presidents of the United States.
For me the question has never been what makes a good philosopher, it is what makes a philosopher - good, bad or indifferent?
What attributes does a thinker have in order to be called a philosopher?
Quoting Fooloso4
:cool: :up:
It's a kind of thinking.
In today's world, what people really mean is someone who has credentials, teaches, or has published works dealing with these questions. I don't buy that myself, but I think that's the general usage.
If that were true, it would completely devalue what calling someone a philosopher signifies. It would become meaningless. If you and I are philosophers, then no one is.
Then there is philosophical banter, enjoyed by millions.
:up:
Hiya ! 'Publishable quality' might mean something different in philosophy than in math. I'd bet dollars to donuts there's a journal out there that you or I or others on this thread wouldn't use for toilet paper (choose your preferred pejorative adjective, itself presumably a function of your politics and skillset, etc.)
I think we both love Nietzsche, yet it's hard to see how the dark prince himself avoids the categorization of sophist.
Perhaps a defense is that he's too rich & strange to jam into that drawer?
I like it.
He also wasn't selling it. He was out their alone, trying to tell the truth about truth, also trying to find words for new ways of feeling and being, to forge a conscience for the humans to come...and he was hilarious when we wanted to be.
I didn’t make that claim.
A philosopher is someone who, presumably, engages in philosophy — I’d say more than occasionally.
Occasionally doing mathematics doesn’t make one a mathematician, either.
Regardless— the term is fairly meaningless anyway. What most people signify with “philosopher” is, in my view, already worthless. So there’s little to “devalue” — unless you accept the common usage.
I don't agree. "Philosopher" is a good name for what Aristotle, Plato, Russell, Wittgenstein, and all those other guys are. It's a useful term.
A good example of Nietzsche's irony:
Nietzsche said he is a complete skeptic when it comes to Plato. Nietzsche’s perspicacious reading of Plato is instructive not only for how we are to readi Plato but for how we are to read Nietzsche. Nietzsche the skeptic teaches us to read skeptically, esoterically, to read between the lines, to make connections, and not take things at face value.
Nietzsche says he is a complete skeptic when it comes to Plato because both he and Plato are skeptics. We are accustomed to thinking of Socrates as a skeptic (“I know that I do not know”) but do not think of Plato as a skeptic because of his talk of Forms. We assume that Plato knows the Forms or at least defends a “theory of Forms”. Nietzsche is skeptical of this. He thinks that Plato was a skeptic, that he too knew he did not know.
Only one who is skilled at sophistry can teach us to guard against sophistry. But sophistry can be put to good use. It is often necessary to get people to let go of the beliefs and ideas they cling to before they can being to learn from the philosophers. They must first be persuaded by "the weaker argument" before they can begin to evaluate the strength of an argument and then in turn reject the argument that persuaded them in their pursuit of finding and creating stronger more rationally persuasive arguments.
I'm not sure they would agree. But even if they did, it's pretty easy to point to what is traditionally (and commonly) used as examples of what a "philosopher" is. I don't think that tells us much -- especially if it does nothing to clarify what philosophy or science is.
Before the word "philosopher" was even coined, what was happening? Was there no "philosophy"? I don't think so. I think Parmenides was as much deserving of the label "philosopher" as anyone.
Every human being can think; not every human being is a thinker.
[Also, it may be useful in an everyday sense -- but certainly not in a technical sense. So while I find nothing wrong with "work" as a useful word in everyday life, that itself doesn't make it useful in physics (where that string of letters takes on a completely different role, and is given a technical meaning).]
Pythagoras coined it right?
That's often claimed. But I don't think we know for sure who did.
Most terms are problematic. What is the alternative to using the word philosopher? It's useful to have a vase to put the flowers in, even if the vase is not to our taste and some of the flowers are dead... :joke:
I laid out what I see as the requirements for being a philosopher. The people I listed all met those requirements. My point was to show that my set of criteria will identify people who we normally think of as philosophers. That helps show that my definition is consistent with everyday usage.
Quoting Xtrix
I don't see how this relates to the things I've written.
Quoting Xtrix
Sorry, you lost me.
I don't know if there is one alternative, but I don't see why "thinker" can't be used as meaning basically the same thing, if by thinking we mean the type of thinking involved in what is normally called philosophy (which, to me, is distinguished by the questions being contemplated).
Quoting T Clark
I don't see how it's useful in any way. Yes, it's easy to point to Socrates. I'm sure most people would agree. Most people would agree Newton was a scientist. That doesn't tell us much about philosophy or science.
Quoting T Clark
I'm certainly in agreement with the first one. So maybe we just disagree about what philosophy is.
I keep coming back to the idea that to be successful in philosophy (as I see it) one needs a solid awareness of the tradition and how ideas have been explored thus far. One can be a thinker and have no idea about the work already achieved. For me this latter part is important.
Who wants to keep reinventing the wheel?
Don't forget Neurath's boat or Sisyphus' rollin' philosopher's stone. :smirk:
How, then, is "success" measured?
Probably not by getting hundreds of posts on a thread one starts on TPF.
No idea, but it involves knowledge of the subject
Quoting jgill
:up:
I would include engagement with others, alive or dead, as part of philosophy -- and therefore part of the kind of thinking I was referring to. But you're correct in that one may ask themselves universal questions without ever having read a prior thinker who also engaged with the same questions. But here we don't have a real metric either. What if one engages with one's community and never picks up a book? I personally know many people who have barely read the original texts of a good many philosophers; if anything, they read commentary and synopses. Where does that fall in measuring success?
Perhaps I'm being uncharitable. I generally know what you're saying -- that a general awareness of these questions is valuable, and I agree. I think depriving oneself of the riches of the past is exactly like you mentioned, reinventing the wheel. But whether or not that is important in defining what makes a "philosopher" is debatable, and I'm skeptical of it.
Again, I consider Parmenides to be a philosopher. There were few people prior to him to read. Skip to today, and we call all kinds of people by their occupation -- from philosophers to economists to physicists -- who have read very little of the influential texts in their field. They still "do" what they do, and we don't find it odd to call them x, y, or z. I know several economists who've never read Adam Smith, and several programmers who have never read Boole's work.
I understand where you are coming from and you make a good case. I come from a background where philosophy has played a minor role, so the question has a particular resonance for me. I decided to join this forum to see what I might have missed by not being involved in philosophy. I was (and remain) particularly interested in morality, aesthetics and epistemology. But I don't read books for pleasure these days and find most works insufferably dull. I'm interested primarily in hearing or reading philosophical discussions/essays that have 'real world' or, shall we say, quotidian applications.
Quoting Xtrix
Of course. People do all sorts of jobs without reading historically significant texts in their area. The key issue in work is accreditation and/or competence, not books read.
And it's the question of competence that I am interested in and how this might be understood in relation to philosophy. Christ knows if it's possible. My thoughts, maybe they are reactions, are galvanized by the claim some make that anyone is a philosopher, that all it takes is a kind of reflection or a sort of love. My sense is it needs to be deeper than this.
I think you’ll find that many of the greatest philosophers formulated the kernel of their innovative ideas when they were too young to have read other philosophers. So where did they get their ideas from? By forming a novel interpretation based on their exposure to those around them while growing up, as well as pieces of the culture as expressed through publicly available art, music, science, etc. I don’t think we would know about them as philosophers if they had not eventually gotten around to reading other philosophers, or at least those in fields relevant to philosophy( Wittgenstein had read relatively little in the history of philosophy, but knew the sciences, mathematicians and a certain cohort of contemporary philosophy quite well). One needs to have this exposure not in order to come up with great original thinking , but to come up with and refine a language of expression of the ideas. The same original kernel of genius one begins with early in life may find its language of expression in science or the arts rather than philosophy, depending on which form of expression one discovers is most satisfying.
Quoting Joshs
A significant dimension.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, I have often thought this. But could Heidegger have done the same work as a movie director? I wonder if certain projects require a particular expression?
The reason cultural eras can be depicted in terms of movements that encompass the whole range of cultural
creativity( Classical, Renaissance, Enlightenment , Modern, post-modern) is because in each of these eras what was expressed in painting or music or science amounted to variations on a common theme of ideas(worldviews) .
Eventually there will be Heideggerian poetry, dance, art, music and science. There are already approaches within cognitive psychology , political theory and psychotherapy that are Heideggerian to some extent.
I think it is deeper than that, yet without relying on credentialism. There is no clear way to determine when one becomes worthy of the title "philosopher." Bertrand Russell once said that he didn't consider Marx a philosopher, for example -- and I know that's been debated quite sincerely.
But I would say that if one has been fascinated by the questions mentioned, has struggled with them (meaning thought them through for herself), persistently, for nearly all one's life -- I would say that qualifies. Whether one has read or had access to the classic books, has been formally educated, or has been credentialed is less relevant, but not entirely trivial (as it often, but not always, indicates much of the former factors have been met).
I dislike the term, ultimately, and personally I wouldn't describe myself that way until I at least contribute something original to these questions -- and not simply a synthesis. Yet that also rules out many others far more "credentialed" than I, who often do employ that label.
So it's tricky. I think it's fine for everyday use. But when we start seriously discussing it, I don't find it very useful.
Well, I could call myself a philosopher and others would let that pass without comment. But if I called myself a mathematician, some sort of proof - like credentials - might be expected. Philosophy is poorly defined, a collection of notions tied together with loose verbal strings.
The hobbyist philosopher. Enjoys talking about philosophy. But cares about other things more.
The academic philosopher. A scholar and teacher of philosophical traditions. Doesn't necessarily embody wisdom. May mistake knowledge for wisdom.
The lover of wisdom: Someone who devotes their life to the persuit of and embodiment of wisdom.
The sage: Someone who embodies wisdom.
It could also be the fact that philosophy is poorly regarded, a collection posturing, untied and incomprehensible. :wink:
By this definition the first philosopher (if that is even conceivable?) couldn't have been a (successful) philosopher...
Which comes close to mathematics! :smile:
Of course. The first doctor would not have been successful either. Or dentist... yikes! The point is, a discourse or tradition is built gradually over time. Ignoring this might get you making those early mistakes all over again...
- Someone who actively studies philosophical texts with rigour (a scholar of philosophy).
- Someone who is erudite and interested in multiple fields that enjoys sharing and discussing/expressing ideas (more of a colloquial definition).
- Someone who builds ideas on previous works by philosophers with a high degree of analytic, discursive and critical thought (more of a professor/student level beyond scholarship).
- Someone interested in knowledge and information, meaning and existence and general ‘purpose’ of living/life questions without much rigour (more of an armchair philosopher or navel gazer).
- Someone actively involved in ‘spiritual’ pursuits. Be this of religious doctrines or other esoteric ideas and views.
Only two of these are technically viable whilst the others are just colloquial terms. For myself I straddle between the professional and colloquial sense. I am interested in multiple fields and have always been inclined to think and study. I have studied philosophical texts and lectures to some degree, but my over all view is not really akin to framing myself as a ‘philosopher’.
A lot of people just think they can call themselves a ‘philosopher’ because they have done a degree in philosophy or simply because they sit around thinking about things a lot. Others have themselves as a guru of sorts. Many others are failed politicians or wannabe politicians.
In a derogatory sense I guess I am more of a ‘sit around and think a lot’ person. I didn’t bother to read much actual philosophy until I was in my thirties.
I have repeatedly defined myself as a wannabe intellectual. I sometimes think I have the potential to offer up something of value to everyone … other times I view the pursuit as a whimsy. There is something egotistical involved to announcing yourself as a ‘philosopher’ I feel, but it is more or less a thankless task that is only ever really appreciated by future generations long after we’re gone (unless we get the opportunity to publish something popular or teach).
I have a general contempt for anyone calling themselves a ‘philosopher’ if I’m being brutally honest - but that is part of my anarchical nature.
Newbies trying to find their way or veterans engaged in soul-searching. What else, oui?
I'm quite taken aback that you don't mention wisdom (sophia) [philosophia]. Perhaps wisdom is an amalgam of those qualities/skills you were so kind to list in your definition of a philosopher. Perhaps I'm wrong to say that, dunno!
The ancient philosophers were trailblazers, terra nova, everything they did - even their BS - was important and, by they way they frequently, sooner or later, pop up in discussions, is still.
Modern philosophers, since there's no point reinventing the wheel, are forced to spend a considerable amount of their resources on learning ground covered by their predecessors and their contemporaries. This inevitably leads to stagnation in my humble opinion as many older perspectives on philosophical matters aren't open-and-shut cases. Back and forth between philosophers mostly involve one dead-and-buried philosopher's take against another long-dead philosopher.
To borrow a term from business, innovation is not exactly high on a present-day philosopher's list of priorities. "Nothing unexpected," a real philosopher might opine. Philosophy is nothing more than an anthology of problems that have been passed down from generation to generation, each step of the way marked by the addition of more problems, questions rather, to this fast-growing list.
What is a philosopher?
A philosopher is a person who understands or attempts to understand age-old problems/questions better. Answers/solutions? Another time, pal!
Having a ‘love of wisdom’ is kind of pointless if you are talking about ‘wisdom’ in a sense that means something different from others.
You are right. The more common modern conception frames philosophy as more concerned with questions. I think that might be why a great many people feel they are able to jump in as they feel it is ‘safe’ to avoid conclusions.
Have you seen any Malick films?
To be a philosopher, you must engage with one question above all others: the question of being.
I don't think so. I'd rather ask "what is love?"
Can a person be a (good) philosopher if they live in isolation from society, not reading philosophy works nor sharing their thoughts?
I can't think of a reason why not, any more than I can think any reason an isolated artist should not be called (or could be) an (good) artist.
Quoting I like sushi
Where would the likes of ancient or modern day Stoic philosophers fit into those categories?
How much do I have to study and contribute to the Stoic tradition before I can be accurately regarded as a Stoic philosopher?
I think it is this modern day academic usage of the word 'philosopher" that should be considered colloquial in nature.
The most basic and oldest definition of philosopher does not say anything about tradition, academia, credentials, contribution, rigor etc.
I hear this kind of thinking from people who are just too lazy to put the work in tbh. You might be different. I just don’t think it makes any sense for anyone to label themselves as a ‘philosopher’ if they have never actually read ( and I mean REALLY read) an actual work of philosophy.
Note: Lots of people don’t know how to read, they just ‘read the words’ and think they have read and understood something. Sadly it is skill most people don’t develop much beyond teenage years - if that!
Too many people out there (including myself) here some brief excerpt from a philosopher and think themselves enlightened because ‘we thought/knew that already’.
I don’t regard people who have been to university to study philosophy as ‘philosophers’ though. Just stating it is pretty damn silly to paint yourself as something without having partook in some rigorous and active sense with what is already there.
Stoicism is like electronics is to physics. Someone can specialise in electronics and know very little about cosmology … I have no idea where any line of distinction could be between specialist subjects and a more broader overview? I probably would not approach a stoic to get feedback about most epistemic issues as I have a fairly decent suspicion that the discussion would lead into ethical realms and that might not be of focus for me.
I'd say it is unlikely, but who knows? Can you name an example?
Our views are quite different. I think the natural state of a human being is philosophical. So, if someone stops seeking after fame and wealth (primarily) and instead re-awakens philosophical wonder and keeps that wonder at the center of their life, they are a philosophers, to me.
I don't see philosophy as something that started or as being a tradition, or anything like that. I see it as a sort of attitude, way of being, or approach to things.
Quoting I like sushi
I view it as one must become a philosopher first. I view it as the beginning, not the end. Like one must become a seeker before one can be a finder.
How can anyone attain(if that is the right word?) wisdom without first becoming a philosopher, a lover of wisdom?
Quoting I like sushi
I consider the words of dead philosophers the words of dead philosophers. They can be useful, but they aren't philosophy itself.
The key to me is the motivation. Is one passionately seeking the truth, or just studying philosophy as a hobby or to make a living or reputation?
Are academic philosophers (on the whole) interested in the true spirit of philosophy, or just on the letter of the law?
Anyway, I'm probably way too opinionated.
A few. Turgid and dull as I recall, except Badlands but it's been 30 years since I saw it. I hated Tree of Life...
The Hindus condensed the totality of the universe into one word that even infants, during there babbling, can say, OM! Any idea what OM means? :lol:
What exactly is the point of being a philosopher anyway? Science is far more interesting.
I think this is certainly part of it. But this says nothing about competence or rigour. What exactly does 'seeking the truth' consist of in your view; how would someone go about this?
No, but I suspect the probability of their having existed and existing now is high.
Consider how much great art and music is probably out there which never made it mainstream. I think it's the same with great thinkers.
Fame is rare, I think, because it requires a lot more than talent and dedication. It requires having the right connections, people being ready for it, and so on, possibly also a desire for recognition, which not all artists or thinkers necessarily would have.
Quoting Tom Storm
Well I should think competence is a result of practice, which one puts in enough of if one has sufficient motivation.
I doubt anyone ever began with high competence.
And I'd think the same about rigor.
One's amount of rigor depends on one's degree of caring about accuracy. Would you say?
However, many have said that waiting for motivation is a recipe for failure. "You gotta show up whether you feel motivated or not." sort of thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me...
Something must motivate someone to do something they feel a lack of motivation for doing, right? They might not feel the motivation, but it must be somewhere.
I'm not satisfied with my own level of commitment and seeking, so I don't want to say much about what I consider to be seeking after the truth to consist of, or how to go about it. That feels hypocritical.
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Yohan
:up:
Philosophy: forgetting to live while trying to find out how to live? Replace "i" in live with "o" and it still makes sense.
Quoting TiredThinker
Quoting TiredThinker
Quoting TiredThinker
:up:
This garden universe vibrates complete.
Some we get a sound so sweet.
Vibrations reach on up to become light,
And then thru gamma, out of sight.
Between the eyes and ears there lay,
The sounds of colour and the light of a sigh.
And to hear the sun, what a thing to believe.
But it's all around if we could but perceive.
To know ultra-violet, infra-red and X-rays,
Beauty to find in so many ways.
Two notes of the chord, that's our fluoroscope.
But to reach the chord is our lifes hope.
And to name the chord is important to some.
So they give a word, and the word is OM.
(Edge, Pinder, 1968)
Doesn’t answer the question, but cool as hell anyway.
Fool.
In its own way, it does!
The point of OM is seen only when reflected in a mirror placed at the bottom end of the word, OW!!
:roll:
I don't think anyone ever said high competence is found at the start of any pursuit.
Rigor and accuracy are only assessed in relation to something external - a criterion of value. What would that be?
What does accuracy look like in philosophy?
I’ve conversed with people about Kant who have never actually read Kant first hand and refer entirely to someone else’s commentary on Kant … I find that kind of approach strange/delusional if one then says ‘I am a philosopher’ after that when really they are just knowledgeable about said philosophy (which isn’t useless). It it something like watching a movie and then acting like you’ve read the book. At least it isn’t as bad as reading a review of a movie and acting like you’ve read the book (those are the ‘lazy’ ones). Of course there are geniuses, but they are not exactly common.
I think the most fruitful path is the harder path. Read the original text without any commentary and draw your own conclusions/questions from it. Once you’ve done that then look at commentary. Sadly, in reality, students and those interested in such mostly skim over things because there is just too much to look into.
If you haven’t read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, at least three works by Nietzsche and have a pretty solid reading history of Plato and Aristotle, then you are not a ‘philosopher’ worth listening to but you might be a decent point of reference for the works you have some knowledge of or as someone to bounce ideas off for a ‘philosopher’.
What are these questions about? I'm not getting the picture of where you are.
Does not accuracy look like non-contradiction?
That seems like too easy an answer, that you'd already know...I suppose you think I have some less popular view on how to measure accuracy?
PS. I meant to say rigour.
I'm not sure what you mean. I am asking questions about your position as I don't understand it fully, that's all.
Quoting Yohan
You tell me? I don't know what accuracy means when it comes to philosophy. Accurate against what standard?
Basically you are summarising epistemology. How do we know?
Goodnight.
Unfortunately dentists are far less regulated than MDs.
I don’t see why. One can be a musician having never read a music book — or ever hear Beethoven.
Quoting Yohan
I don’t think that’s true at all. I think many questions (usually considered philosophical) are very human, very universal — but as I said earlier, not everyone who thinks is a thinker.
Quoting Yohan
Agreed.
I was really impressed with Thin Red Line, and liked the New World — but over time I’m less impressed. Still, supposedly he’s a Heideggarian.
What’s the point of being a scientist?
For me the heart of philosophy is, "How ought I to live"?
Going deep into things I'd say is part of the equation. But deep diving into philosophical works is not an adequate measure of how philosophical someone is, in my view.
Ok not everyone is a thinker.
All birds have wings, but not all birds are flyers.
I figured. I'm not keen on serious 'issue' films. My sense is Heidegger is difficult enough to understand without further obfuscations and the interpretive impressions of some lofty auteur with a movie camera. :razz:
Just act!
No! Don't ask me why?
Funny thing that your quote definitely excludes mathematics as a branch of philosophy, in effect declaring by omission that math is not philosophy. Whilethemore math IS an inquiry into a branch of philosophy. The logic component of philosophy, to be pedantic.
That's too easy. Even a robot with no mind can do that, and much better too, than a philosopher.
Wrong logic. All birds have wings, therefore all birds are winged animals. This is a correct conclusion.
Not everyone who thinks is a thinker.
Again, the wrong logic. The very action of thinking is what defines the actor as a thinker.
??? Whence do you suck these false statements out of, Xtrix? Are you by any chance the same user who goes under the name of Bartricks? You certainly sound like him or her.
Is this an honest question, Xtrix? Are you really incapable of answering this question yourself? If you are, then why are you asking this? And if you are not, then what are you doing on a philosophy website?
You're being excessively "logical". When logic goes beyond common sense, it becomes trivial
Robots don't act. They pretend but they're fucking mindless fucking technology. I would kill every fucking robot in sight. Fucking technology. How powerful we feel ourselves with FUCKING technology! Fucking dildos!
Are you nuts? Robots don't pretend. It requires a mind to pretend. And you can't kill something that is not alive... you can destroy them maybe?
I don't know, but I think that contrary to your opinion, dildoes are VERY useful robots. You just have to learn how to use them.
You may be right... but logic can't be wrong if it's right. Can somebody be "excessively" right? No. Can something not fly if it has wings? Yes. Can something not have wings if it has wings? No. So I don't stand corrected; you must admit that I made no logical mistakes.
How you judge the end result of logical arguments is beyond my ability to influence. So you can call this trivial, and I have no argument against that.
If someone misses the forrest for the trees, they are off the mark, as I see it. Maybe not wrong to the letter, but wrong in spirit.
I'd rather be right in spirit and be only good enough technically, or even wrong, than precisely right technically but wrong in spirit.
"As I said earlier..." Where I made a clear distinction by what kind of "thinking" I'm here referring to: philosophical thought. Which you'd know if you gave yourself the slightest pause before jumping in to point out an utter triviality.
The context: Quoting Xtrix
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I have no idea who or what you're talking about. But it's entertaining.
Quoting god must be atheist
Here's some advice: try keeping up with the conversation by doing the bare minimum of reading both the response and what was being responded to.
The question, "What is the point of being a philosopher?" -- followed by the statement "Science is far more interesting" deserves the question I pose.
But feel free to continue prowling the forum for opportunities to display your intellectual superiority by responding to context-free fragments.
It's too rigorous to be considered philosophy. :cool:
It's a quite perverted mode of thinking though. In that sense it finds a good place in philosophy!
Yes. And in solitude. Philosophy takes one the doorstep of religion, and there you sit like some abandoned child. Don't let them take you IN!!!! But stay there, take a look around the place; look at terrain, peak through a window. Take notes. THEN: Find the SOB who left you there!
Yes, the philosophy of knitting....ponderous, provocative. But then, why are we born to suffer and die? One of my favorite philosophical questions. It can be just knitting with an attitude; or, it can be so profound it'll drive you mad. The former lines up with analytic philosophy. The latter with continental. More or less.
It is truly something, one could argue, to really grasp the indeterminacy that all presumption to know.
I should add, minus the attitude.
Yeah I think anything continental covers that analytic can or does but not vice versa.
I was just about to quote "knitting with an attitude"...
That depends on your theology.
But one gets hung up on clarity with just this rigorous standard, and the when things get interesting, clarity gets dogmatic, as if the best we can do is stick with old vocabularies. Nah! Not that feeling trumps thinking; but that feeling is there for the analysis
Is there nothing there theology cannot handle? Something that persists regardless?
The eternal universe made by the gods.
I think they just gave up in the analytical US. So controlled, but so tedious, mostly.
Do you have any candidates in mind who you think are contributing to this new dawn? I don’t know of any living philosophers who are offering anything significantly beyond what writers like James and Nietzsche produced over 130 years ago.
Rather a man who puts on an image of being right. Or at least, talking right.
Someone had to say it. Everyone on TPF knows it down deep inside. Now that it's in the open one can stand erect, proud to advance what we all know to be true! :halo:
I can't tell how ironic this statement is. I do think it's...metaphorically true....or not so crazy a theory...