What is a Philosopher?
What is a Philosopher? Who are/can be Philosophers? I would quite like other people's opinion on this question. Many discussions have been started to discuss various philosophical topics and questions but none have actually asked to define what a Philosopher is yet.
Comments (43)
So, there is a range from "professional" to "innocent of philosophy". Most people are either "c", "d", or "e". Here there are some who are "b", and perhaps 1 who is an "a". But even people who are "f" may think about philosophical questions such as "What am I here for".
I view philosophy as something that many people do very inexactly, informally, and only occasionally. The same can be said of people and music, people and literature, people and science, and so on.
(Y) Measured, as always.
A philosopher is someone who chooses to think.
Most people simply follow the herd, and allow others to think for them.
Even many who devote themselves to academic philosophy just do so
as a means to a scholastic careerist end.
You are no doubt aware that your idea of people being a herd and allow others to do their thinking for them is an idea (maybe a 'meme') YOU picked up from a different herd.
It is possible to derive this from observation. Creativity and individual expression are pretty much suppressed from the time one first enters into the educational system right through their career. The great thing about retirement is that it becomes less so a challenge to experiment with self-expression and creativity - as long as one isn't seeking admiration or acceptance.
This is all true, but it is also true that certain velcro-coated ideas are floating around just waiting to glom onto a receptive surface. That "people are a herd and don't think" is one of them and is neither entirely true nor entirely false.
Yes, yes, yes, I know all too well how much creativity, or even slight innovation, is guarded against in most schools and work places. #Itoowasscrewedoutofadecenteducation.
The thing is though, that even the creativity-suppressed, thinking-discouraged masses have to account for their individual existences one way or another. Some people don't need any help; some people are too stupid to benefit from help; but the masses can benefit from all the help and encouragement thinking people can give them. That's why it is a bad idea to dismiss them as dull-witted cud-chewing bovines. (I don't mean to disparage cud-chewing bovines, of course. I have the utmost respect for cattle. Of course, we don't know what they are thinking about while they lie in the shade chewing away. Maybe they have exquisitely perceptive thoughts. Probably not, but who knows?)
I find this approach to be very satisfying. Philosophy is an immutable inexorable, necessary process of life, no matter its quality. It can’t be dismissed as an abstraction, or esoteric, or something that requires completion / conclusion. And thus, neither can I.
And lots of people who aren't all that educated still have effective bullshit detectors, and some educated people can't tell shit from shinola.
In some measure, I suppose everyone is a philosopher. Pretty much everyone you talk to has opinions about what the world is like, the existence of God, the soul, freedom, how we ought to live, what we can know and so on. Some people think about those things more than others. A philosopher is a person that thinks about certain topics. I don't think those topics have much in common, except that answers to some of them naturally encourage certain answers to others.
PA
Ok.. I'm confused? Is the left not connected to the right (like up is connected to down?)
As is the idea that whatever's right must somehow lie in the middle of every two polemic views.
This was an idea which I was friendly with in my previous post, but I am now doubting the point of saying it. We could count as a philosopher anyone who thinks about certain topics. Then almost everyone will count as a philosopher. But then we could also define "scientist" as anyone who thinks about the nature of the physical world, and then almost everyone will count as a scientist. Perhaps a more careful distinction is one which insists that being a Philosopher requires spending a substantial amount of ones time thinking about certain topics, where "substantial" is left un-explicated.
Prejudice creates discrimination, the foundation of prejudicial ignorance is to be discovered with nurturing, where a remaining propensity for wider disparity of years still lingers, with jealous fathers, and of course with the media, It lays homage to only that story which an already prejudicial society wishes to hear, and where wide disparities in years are concerned very little of the real world good news would be handled as such by this virtually universal prejudicial mind. Instead of philosophers simply being in the business of trying to prove which of them has the largest brain there is a considerable amount of actually useful philosophy to be done,in this area of social philosophy, and on an accessibly every day level. Simple one liner sentiments can both direct and educate.
I do n`t think of philosophy as having any association at all with individual issues, to the contrary, it must be equally applicable to everybody else in the world under those same said circumstances. Less than this I consider merely a failed attempt at philosophy..
My Kates David on Facebook (with an image of a guy, me, running) posts what I consider to be philosophy in its simple and useful form.
That is, if you prefer, philosophy is an activity, not a thing. Someone who only sets out the thoughts of others is not doing philosophy, and hence not a philosopher; perhaps an historian, or a preacher, but not a philosopher.
Philosophers ought not set out to tie knots, but to loosen them. The goal out be something along the lines of coherence and consistency. Disposing of confusion.
It's over thirty years since I gave up tutoring in philosophy and went to do something useful. I guess that the other part of being a philosopher - not having a choice. I keep coming back to it, against my own better judgement.
Perhaps consider self-reflective logic.
Lets assume that you are correct - my argument is a herd-like reaction.
But then you affirm the very existence of such herd-like reaction by claiming
that my argument is just that: a herd-like reaction. Thus you yourself are making
a typical herd-like reaction BECAUSE your own argument implies that such
reactions are therefore herd-like. Thus you prove yourself to be of the herd.
The way in which you do this is to simply invert the subject with the object
without any deeper self-reflection as to whether that fits the empirical world.
Sure, you are perhaps correct, in assuming that my point COULD be herd-like.
So many people do this, that I can hardly blame you for making such an assumption.
But had you followed through more deeply you would have to then evaluate your
own response in similar terms: What is so original about the nature of your own reply?
Moreover, the very word 'meme' is so riddled with malapropism, and that word itself
is a herd-like 'meme' - or rather - a cliche: A typical herd-like reaction.
Culture is a herd product; it's simultaneously produced, modified, and utilized by the herd. So sure, we all engage in herd activity. But, contrary to the sneering tone of people who like the term "sheeple", we don't suspend our individual intelligence to utilize our cultural resources. Most people take at least some meals from "fast food" joints during given year. It isn't all McDonalds. A gyro, for instance, or pad thai are both "fast foods" -- street foods, or can be, anyway. The old-fashioned diner was fast food; so were coffee shops, with a menu of sandwiches, ready to serve blue plate specials (like roast beef on white bread with mashed potatoes, peas, and gravy uber alles) and pie. Herd.
Most people read a newspaper and their opinions are affected by what they read; true, there is a difference between reading the New York Times and the National Enquirer, between the PBS News Hour and Fox news. Herd
Even intellectuals and philosophers like to watch popular movies and TV shows. Herd.
Jefferson Airplane will feed you sheep and look after you lambs. They're the shepherds.
They tend to be really pretentious assholes with over-inflated egos and an inferiority complex.
Depends what you mean by “education”. Formal education or the ability to tell shit from shinola through observation and critical thinking?
All of the above, and then some...
Thats why there is good psychological evidence that we reincarnate to and from animal lives.
During various ages, we've had various shepherds.
Right now, I reckon its mostly me,
until I meet someone who better comprehends the world than I do,
I have to conclude that I carry that burden.
Sorry if that sounds egotistical, its not.
My ego would rather be a rock-star or cricketer than a philosopher.