Why aren't more philosophers interested in Entrepreneurship?

there are, as far as I can tell, three main reasons:

1. philosophers are by their very nature, thinkers. which means that "doing philosophy" consists of sitting in a room with the curtains drawn, thinking, very hard, for long periods of time. this does not, on the face of it, seem to be the sort of thing that get up and go entrepreneurs do. so, at a basic level, philosopher = introvert, entrepreneur = extrovert.

2. there is no money in philosophy, so none of the philosophers you've ever met have a spare half a million lying around in spare cash to set up a think tank or donate to some university science program.

3. entrepreneurs don't tend to do things that are good for society, they tend to do things that are going to work out well for them. hands up anyone who thinks that Elon Musk's spaceship to Mars is helping anyone on Earth right now? Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk et al don't particularly care about homeless people or third world plumbing or affordable health care or overcrowded prisons, all they really care about are their pet projects and how many shiny tokens they own. there will be exceptions to this, of course, like Bill Gates for example, but without spending three years studying the entire corpus of world entrepreneurs and their philanthropic habits I think we can safely generalise that, as a species, they do not think about the rest of us at all. which is how they got to be like that in the first place.


Kaarlo Tuomi

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Gitonga

So why is it that most people that are interested in philosophy aren't interested in Entrepreneurship?

Most people generally are not interested in philosophy, at least the sorts of issues we talk about here. Unless you have data suggesting otherwise, I'm not convinced that entrepreneurs are less interested in philosophy than other types.

If the question though is why there aren't more entrepreneurial efforts to promote philosophy, the answer probably is that philosophy simply doesn't sell.

Quoting Hanover

If the question though is why there aren't more entrepreneurial efforts to promote philosophy, the answer probably is that philosophy simply doesn't sell.

It creates value in forms invisible to balance sheets. It's worse for it than not selling.

"What actionable insights does philosophy give you?"
uhhh... - philosophy graduate
"Hey can you monitor this production chain and assess if the desired tolerance is violated?"
Sure, boss! -engineering graduate

Reply to Gitonga Maybe "business' is just to... I don't know, real and substantive, down to earth.

The following statement is certainly not true for everyone interested in philosophy, but it IS true of some: some philosophers are not rooted in their own bodies or in the material world. They yearn for the abstract 'other world'.

In my opinion, philosophers need to be well grounded in the physical world of their mammalian bodies -- including their mammalian brain -- and the sensory environment to which the body is very sensitive. Get grounded before you get into too much abstraction.

Acceptance of one's embodiment and groundedness can be difficult to achieve.

I am now departing for a week on the north shore of Lake Superior. I'm taking along plenty of printed matter so I don't have to be too embodied and grounded in cold lake water and skin-frying sunshine, hordes of mosquitos, and all that hideous physical stuff.

Entrepreneurship consumes an incredible amount of time. Philosophy can consume a large amount of time. The two pursuits don't directly contribute to breakthroughs in the other.

However there are some philosophers who have made some of the crossover. Donald Davidson attended Harvard Business School. Wittgenstein studied engineering.

I may be wrong but I think I remember Socrates studied at the London School of Economics. It's where he came up with the lyrics to "You can't always get what you want."

Perhaps the missing piece of ethical sciences is what dissuades philosophers from entrepreneurship, if indeed they are thus dissuaded, which sounds plausible to me. I imagine engineering and philosophy get along better, because there is a bridge between engineering and philosophical topics about reality and knowledge: the physical sciences. I’ve proposed that a field of ethical sciences could likewise bridge the gap between the philosophy of morality and justice, and entrepreneurship:



Every practical activity involves using some tool to do some job. At the lowest level of abstraction away from the actual use of whatever tools to do whatever jobs, technological fields exist to maintain and administrate those tools, and business fields exist to maintain and administrate those jobs.

A level of abstraction higher, engineers work to create the tools that those technologists administrate, while entrepreneurs work to create the jobs that those businesspeople administrate.

Those engineers in turn heavily employ the findings of the physical sciences, which could be said to be finding the "natural tools" available from which engineers can create new tools tailored to specific needs. And though this step in the chain seems overlooked in society today, the ethical sciences that I envision could be said to find the "natural jobs" that need doing, inasmuch as they identify needs that people have, which we might also frame as market demands, toward the fulfillment of which entrepreneurs can tailor the creation of new jobs.

And those physical and ethical sciences each rely on philosophical underpinnings to function, thereby making philosophy, at least distantly, instrumental to any and all practical undertakings across society.

Science and business go hand in hand. Karl Popper's philosophy shaped the modern scientific method.

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

entrepreneurs don't tend to do things that are good for society, they tend to do things that are going to work out well for them.

What a narrow minded assertion! Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone.

Reply to A Seagull Entrepreneurs create businesses, human social organizations that use wealth (or resources generally) to do something. The successful ones do something that can sustain the business itself, so those are the ones that stick around. But beyond keeping the business itself going, what the business does can be anything. It doesn't have to be creating new wealth, or making the world a better place. It can just be funneling wealth to its owner.

Kaarlo is saying that the kinds of entrepreneurship we tend to see is in our world today is the kind that does that. Probably because the only people who have the resources to succeed at it are the kind of people who tend to do that, because everybody else gets fucked the way we run things today and only the most ruthless (as well as lucky, and yes skilled too, but it's got to be all of those, not just the last one) can make it against the stacked odds.

Quoting A Seagull

What a narrow minded assertion! Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone.

I think that what you are doing is conflating your opinion of what some entrepreneurs have done, with the motivation of entrepreneurs generally to be entrepreneurial.

some entrepreneurs have done things that some members of society views as progressive or beneficial. sure. my local library was started by Andrew Carnegie who not only paid for it to be built but stuffed it full of books, and this is in a town he never visited in a country he was neither born in nor lived in. some folk would call this philanthropy rather than entrepreneurial and the difference is probably relevant. entrepreneur means person who sets up a business, taking a financial risk that they will return a profit. which quite clearly says that entrepreneurs are motivated by the desire to make money. that some folk think their companies are progressive and beneficial to society is not the point of what they do, but a coincidence.

Quoting A Seagull

Entrepreneurs create wealth...

which benefits them and, no one else. how do you benefit from the wealth of Jeff Bezos?

Quoting A Seagull

they put ideas into practice

robbing a bank is putting an idea into practice. are you able to explain how this is of benefit to society?

Quoting A Seagull

They make the world a better place for everyone.

some entrepreneurs make the world a better place for some of the very small minority of the world population that have access to whatever their business does. Elizabeth Holmes was an entrepreneur. are you able to cite a single person for whom the world was a better place as a result of her actions?


Kaarlo Tuomi.

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Quoting Adam's Off Ox

Entrepreneurship consumes an incredible amount of time.

Compared to having a 9-5 job?

Entrepreneurship only takes more time as you're setting up the business but not after.. After they get more time

Reply to Gitonga
Ludwig Wittgenstein was born into one of the wealthiest families in Europe. He gave all his share of the wealth to his brother, because, being the very intelligent person he was, it didn't take him long to understand that wealth and power doesn't bring happiness or fulfilment.

Reply to Bunji I think they're several clear examples where money does bring happiness and fulfilment. Like medicine.

Quoting Gitonga

So why is it that most people that are interested in philosophy aren't interested in Entrepreneurship?

Is it too simple answer to say that entrepreneurship seems like focusing on income and money, where as philosophy on thinking and knowledge? Yet we shouldn't forget that some philosophers (on the right) think quite highly of entrepreneurs.

Reply to Gitonga

I think they're several clear examples where money does bring happiness and fulfilment. Like medicine.

Medical research can be funded by the state. Can wealthy-powerful pharmaceutical companies be trusted to serve the public interest when, for example, they deliberately try to get people addicted to opiate pain killers? Furthermore. medicine in and of itself is not happiness and fulfilment.

Quoting Gitonga

Compared to having a 9-5 job?

Entrepreneurship only takes more time as you're setting up the business but not after.. After they get more time

In my experience, entrepreneurs who continue to own successful businesses also continue to spend 50, 60, 70+ hours a week nurturing their business.

Reply to Gitonga
Unsubstantiated premise, naive view of entrepreneurship and your ideas about what a philosopher is cannot be characterised as "what philosophers claim".

Reply to Gitonga

Can't help but want to label this as a good and productive thread. Even though some concepts, unbeknownst to the purveyor, can have insidious qualities.

If you "enjoy" something, does it not make sense to ensure you have ample time and resources to do so? Absolutely. But that's not what philosophy is about. It's about experience, perception, "viewing things from all angles" especially the most common and even at times the most undesirable and from there rationalizing and so and so forth new or forgotten avenues of thought one can use in life. Usually with the goal of benefiting a society, people, or perhaps even yourself.

Does philosophy make money? If you're a highly paid professor at a top university, it sure will. Or an author with an interesting and original enough premise. Or just the go-to guy who always has something intrinsically useful, beneficial, or at least interesting to say, will get you ahead in life. On a cynical hand, some may say something along the lines of if the doctor is too good the hospital will close. You'd want to hope most don't think like that but like it or not the logic is there. Many applications that philosophy has, sciences particularly theoretical fields, counselors, therapists, business analytics, trends, there's hardly a field that doesn't have at least a tangential use for philosophy.

As far as the entrepreneurship part goes, one view is that the logical man seldom gambles. He can. And may make a fortune. But it's a risk. Granted the more planning and fail-safe-esque procedures and mechanisms you can employ reduce it. But some just don't live life like that.

Quoting Brett

You have no idea what you're talking about.

one way to think about it is to consider the following:

if entrepreneurship is good for everyone, and entrepreneurs have increased since the invention of the internet with dotcom millionaires and online trading and ad revenue for clicking on websites and hundreds of new opportunities that never existed before so that we now have more billionaires than have ever previously existed, then how come wealth inequality has increased during the same period of time?


Kaarlo Tuomi

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

which benefits them and, no one else.

Who built the house you live in, who made the coffee you drink in the morning after you put on your pants that someone made, who opened the cafe where you had your breakfast, who transported the food across country, who produced the food, who made the bed you slept in, the table you sat at, the shoes you walked?

Reply to Brett Not entrepreneurs, but people whose surplus value the entrepreneurs siphoned up.

Reply to Pfhorrest

Quoting Pfhorrest

Not entrepreneurs, but people whose surplus value the entrepreneurs siphoned up.

Maybe there’s confusion here about what an entrepreneur is.

Reply to Brett Someone who starts a business venture, which typically in our capitalist society operate for the benefit of the entrepreneurs and other investors, with any benefit to the customers or employees seen as an unfortunately necessary cost that only impedes that core motivation.

Reply to Pfhorrest

So why aren’t the examples in my post entrepreneurs?

Reply to Brett Those are the employees of the entrepreneurs, not the entrepreneurs themselves.

Reply to Pfhorrest

The person that opened a cafe, the person that opened a factory to make shoes, the person who bought trucks to begin a transport business, the person who bought a farm and grew oranges? They aren’t employees.

Reply to Pfhorrest

Quoting Pfhorrest

with any benefit to the customers or employees seen as an unfortunately necessary cost that only impedes that core motivation.

So the customer is an impediment. Where do you imagine the profits come from? The customer doesn’t go in the cost margin, they go in the income margin.

Quoting Brett

The person that opened a cafe, the person that opened a factory to make shoes, the person who bought trucks to begin a transport business, the person who bought a farm and grew oranges? They aren’t employees.

They also aren't actually doing any of the work you listed, they just own the businesses that employ the people who did the work.

Quoting Brett

So the customer is an impediment. Where do you imagine the profits come from? The customer doesn’t go in the cost margin, they go in the income margin.

The production of the products or services that the customer trades money for -- the good done for the customers, by the employees -- is a cost. The money the customers trade for that is income. Income minus costs is profit -- for the owners, not the people who actually do the work.

This is econ 101 stuff here.

Quoting Brett

Who built the house you live in, who made the coffee you drink in the morning after you put on your pants that someone made, who opened the cafe where you had your breakfast, who transported the food across country, who produced the food, who made the bed you slept in, the table you sat at, the shoes you walked?

I think the point Brett is making is that I have purchased stuff, and since this is made by companies that were started by entrepreneurs then I have personally benefitted from what entrepreneurs do.

this is not on the face of it an unreasonable point. except that me owning a pair of shoes and a bed isn't really illustrative of the claims made for entrepreneurs that I was refuting. the claim was, "Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone."

me owning a bed isn't an example of wealth being created for anyone other than the entrepreneur. capitalism is a system designed to specifically make money for the folk who put money into a business to get it going. these investors are called capitalists and the money they invest is called capital, which is why the system is called capitalism. the system is designed to benefit them. if anyone else benefits at all that is a coincidence not the purpose. take, for example, the system of buying cheap electronics from China so that more profits can be made for the entrepreneurs, but this also destroyed the manufacturing industries in the West which has cost millions of folk their jobs. and it abuses the human rights of the folk working in those electronics factories so your cheap computer benefits one consumer and a bunch of entrepreneurs, but destroyed many jobs and ignored the human rights of many. if that's what you call making the world a better place for everyone then I can't help you.

me owning a bed also ignores the millions of folk who live on less than three dollars per day.

me owning a bed doesn't offset the fact that we had to make laws to force websites operated by entrepreneurs be available to handicapped people. if entrepreneurs benefit everyone, why did they have to be forced to do this, with threats of fines.

me owning a bed does not offset the millions of folk who have no indoor plumbing, or affordable health care, or the huge wealth gap that entrepreneurs have created, and folk who sit in their ivory towers clapping their hands with glee because they're all right Jack because they can buy books from Amazon, are the problem, not the solution.


Kaarlo Tuomi

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi :up: :clap: :100:

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

"

Kaarlo Tuomi;435168:which benefits them and, no one else.

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

The above is what I disagreed with, not your refutation of this;

"Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone".

Quoting Brett

The above is what I disagreed with, not your refutation of this;

okay we're getting down to the fine detail now and Brett wants to concentrate on wealth formation. Brett thinks that entrepreneurs create wealth and that this is somehow a net benefit to society. I guess if you grew up on the economics of Paul Krugman and Alan Greenspan that might not be a sloppy assumption to make but there is very little evidence that it works. it used to be called "trickle-down economics" but today books on it are found in the section devoted to Fairy Stories.

I'm going to start by pointing out that Brett has not yet answered the question I asked yesterday:

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

how do you benefit from the wealth of Jeff Bezos?

not only has he not answered this, he has also not provided any evidence that "wealth" is a thing that can benefit folk who do not possess it, or that the benefits of "wealth" can somehow filter down to the folk at the bottom of the poverty ladder.

that there is a poverty gap is not contestable. that this poverty gap is getting wider is not contestable. that the rich now own a greater percentage of the wealth than they did a mere twenty years ago, is not contestable. all of these facts suggest to me that wealth does not trickle down. and if you read that article I linked to you will already know that the rich get more of their income from investments and securities than they do from salary and wages or business. which means that the rich acummulate wealth and invest it in themselves. the only folk who benefit from this, other than themselves, are investment brokers and life insurance salesmen.

please prove me wrong. don't just say I'm wrong. don't just accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about. say something that demonstrates why you believe the things you believe and make a point you can back up with data or examples.

I am, for the purposes of this discussion, going to temporarily accept the possibility that wealth can somehow benefit folk who do not possess it. which would require someone to provide some evidence of an actual process by which I, and millions of folk just like me, benefit from facts such as Elon Musk owns a town in Texas, or Jeff Bezos earns more money per day than I earned in my entire professional life.

whilst figuring out how to demonstrate any of those things you might also like to consider the following questions. all of these start: if entrepreneurs are a net benefit to society, and they are actually interested in the greater good of everyone, and wealth does actually trickle down, then how come...

1. ...the entire tobacco industry lied to us for decades about the benefits of their products?
2. ...the entire oil and gas industry has destroyed billions of acres of irreplaceable environment in a quest for more profits?
3. ...class action lawsuits exist? these are necessary so that small folk like me can join together to fight the illegal oppression of massive companies that care not one jot for the little people who buy their products.
4. ...the entire hospitality industry has to rely on tips to make a living wage?
5. ...folk with full time jobs have to rely on food banks to feed their families?
6. ...minimum wage laws exist? these are only necessary because entrepreneurs refuse to pay folk a proper wage for their work.
7. ...Uber were refused a licence to operate their service in many cities around the world? this happened precisely because they refused to give their drivers the benefits that employees are legally entitled to.
8. ...the oceans are full of micro plastics generated by the products entrepreneurs who "put ideas into action" put there but refuse to do anything about?

folk like Brett point to a company like Amazon and marvel at the utility of being able to order a replacement light bulb and have it delivered the next day, and they see this as a marvelous and wonderful thing that helps millions of families shop for essentials without wasting time driving to the shops and carting bags of essentials home again. instead, they get to spend more time with their kids, doing gardening, or playing online strip poker.

whereas when I look at Amazon what I see is a great long line of delivery trucks poisoning everyone's environment for the benefit of a few folk too lazy to do their own shopping. to me, Amazon is the definition of selfish consumerism. it ruins it for everyone for the benefit of a few.


Kaarlo Tuomi

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

Brett thinks that entrepreneurs create wealth

I’m pretty sure I haven’t said that.

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

how do you benefit from the wealth of Jeff Bezos?

I didn’t say all entrepreneurs were moral. Why ask me to defend Bezo? What does that have to do with your denial of any benefits from entrepreneurs?

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

he has also not provided any evidence that "wealth" is a thing that can benefit folk who do not possess it,

Nor did I state this. I said entrepreneurs benefit people through what they produce. Without entrepreneurs there would not be the products people use every day to get by.

Nor did I say wealth trickles down.

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

they are actually interested in the greater good of everyone

I didn’t say that so I’m not going to address your long list of complaints.

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

folk like Brett point to a company like Amazon and marvel at the utility of being able to order a replacement light bulb and have it delivered the next day, and they see this as a marvelous and wonderful thing that helps millions of families shop for essentials without wasting time driving to the shops and carting bags of essentials home again. instead, they get to spend more time with their kids, doing gardening, or playing online strip poker.

This is just an attempt to trivialise my point about what entrepreneurs create.

Once again, if you believe this;

Quoting Brett

which benefits them and, no one else.
— Kaarlo Tuomi

then you don’t know what you’re talking about. But you do, don’t you? It’s just your ideology getting in the way.

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

philosophers are by their very nature, thinkers. which means that "doing philosophy" consists of sitting in a room with the curtains drawn, thinking, very hard, for long periods of time. this does not, on the face of it, seem to be the sort of thing that get up and go entrepreneurs do.

How do you know this?

I want to apologise for making assumptions about you. and to thank you for pointing out that I was doing that. you have in fact told me nothing and actually made no substantive point of any kind. all you have done is ask questions, and then played the, "I never said that" game. the sum total of everything you have said in this thread (apart from a minor debate with another poster on the definition of entrepreneur) is to first claim that I have no idea what I 'm talking about, than list some consumer goods you think I might have purchased.

I therefore have no idea what point you are trying to make, or which claim I made that you disagree with, or why you are even engaging here. maybe this is just sport for you, I can't tell.

you did however, disagree with my claim that wealth creation is only of benefit to entrepreneurs. I think I have already presented sufficient evidence for my claim, or at least sufficient evidence for why I believe that, and your refutation appears to consist entirely of the fact that I can buy shoes in a shop. you choose to ignore all the negative effects, including that every single person involved in the production, distribution, marketing and sale of those shoes is being exploited by the entrepreneur, and you reply that the only reason I disagree with you is my ideology. which I consider to be potentially true but irrelevant.

Quoting Brett

What does that have to do with your denial of any benefits from entrepreneurs?

I didn't say that. (see, two can play that game). I did not claim that there were no benefits from entrepreneurs. I said their wealth benefits only them.

Quoting Brett

How do you know this?

I didn't claim to "know" it. I said that it seemed, on the face of it, to be that way. entrepreneurs have to first have an idea, then persuade other folk to believe in them and invest in them, and persuade other folk to come and work for them, planning, organising, number crunching and all this requires a lot of social and inter-personal skill and an outgoing personality with a persuasive mentality and demeanour to get people on their side. philosophy does not require any of those skills or manifest any of those qualities, beyond having an idea. but what happens after they have had the idea would be quite different. divergent, even.

consider that you were the first person to discover that you can do GPS tracking through a mobile phone so that your position at any time over the last ten days could be plotted on a map.

an entrepreneur would go to find a coder who could produce an app so that parents can keep track of where their kids are and the police can locate missing persons and the fact that ads can be displayed to produce some income from this is obviously not a bad idea, too. can we licence this to the coastguard for locating surfers?

a philosopher would write a paper on whether or not this constitutes knowing.


Kaarlo Tuomi

Reply to Brett

Who built the house you live in, who made the coffee you drink in the morning after you put on your pants that someone made, who opened the cafe where you had your breakfast, who transported the food across country, who produced the food, who made the bed you slept in, the table you sat at, the shoes you walked?

Workers.

Reply to Azimuth :up: :100: :clap:

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

that there is a poverty gap is not contestable. that this poverty gap is getting wider is not contestable. that the rich now own a greater percentage of the wealth than they did a mere twenty years ago, is not contestable.

Try going back 200 years.. when the reverse was true.

Reply to A Seagull
We should not go back 200 years.

Reply to Azimuth

How about just 50 then. Your avatar suggests there's something you value about that time.

Another reason could be as far as why entrepreneurship has declined in general... is that some believe something along the lines of "everything that can be invented already has" and the same with thoughts, words, concepts, and ideas.

I don't think there are many strip malls or plazas I could visit today that, assuming they keep everything in stock, wouldn't be able to keep me alive, happy, and then some for several lifetimes. Of course, for all we know they said the same thing 2,000 years ago...

Seems to be the future is technological innovation. Advancing medicine, computers, science, all that. Not so much neat trinkets or personal devices. Though it will produce plenty.

The idea of a philosopher using his knowledge and insight to "set up a company" and earn money in a way that becomes exponentially easier after the initial hard work up front is what we're talking about I gather.

Well aside from the fact that competition and variety for the consumer is needed to spur innovation and be a natural guard against price gouging, there's always gonna be hard or at least constant work to stay ahead or even afloat. It can be done. With patents. But unfortunately logic alone won't guarantee a successful and profitable business, especially in today's moneymaking fields of technology, science, medicine, defense, etc. You need technical "nitty gritty" knowledge as well. Gotta either learn it all yourself or find someone who does you can trust (which is the real challenge) and go from there.

I imagine some interesting apps could be made using philosophy, if one was to wish to do so.

I only chose this avatar because I enjoy Hedy's imagery here.

Quoting Azimuth

I only chose this avatar because I enjoy Hedy's imagery here.

Right. Fashion as dictated or defined rather by the society of that time.

Reply to GitongaAn issue I see with your suggestion that philosophers should be entrepreneurs is that philosophy isn't something like rocketry a subject removed from the actual process of living, having a life. Philosophy is about living, living the good life as it were. That being so, it's not just entrepreneurs who should do philosophy but everyone, from the farmer to the rocket scientist, must be philosophers capable of thinking rationally and in possession of a knowledge bank where deposits of critical information pertinent to how to live one's life have been made.

Quoting Azimuth

?A Seagull
We should not go back 200 years.

Well if you want to look at trends that are real it is pointless looking at short intervals as they will show random variations. It is necessary to look at long intervals.. such as 200 years.

Quoting Outlander

The idea of a philosopher using his knowledge and insight to "set up a company" and earn money in a way that becomes exponentially easier after the initial hard work up front is what we're talking about I gather.

Thales is a good example.

Reply to Outlander
True, but I try to appreciate design and imagery for what it is rather than for the time period it happened to be in.

Quoting Azimuth

Who built the house you live in,
Workers.

Bricks and mortar?

Reply to Azimuth

And thanks to those who lived there now we can.

Not a necessity now sure, but there's something to be said about the life, society, and culture of a period that inspired the art, idea, or creation in the first place.

These days we just have things like "Duchamp's Urinal" and "Work No. 837". If that's fine then wonderful. But don't act like you didn't or don't appreciate what was. Rather how it came to be for our own use and vain enjoyment.

Reply to Outlander
I don't disagree on some levels, however you can separate the creation from the society that surrounds it if you wish to. If I appreciate Catholic Iconic art, that does not mean I need to appreciate Catholic doctrines or even the time period it was created in (just an example, nothing against Catholics). If I appreciate an image of a woman with a star tiara, it does not mean I must appreciate all the rest of that time period that comes with it.

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi We have a finite length of time in order to get our life’s work done, so of course we don’t have time to do everything, therefore we tend to go where our interests and abilities lead us. Philosophy and entrepreneurship are vastly different disciplines, so very few individuals would be able or even interested in making that sort of crossover.

Reply to Stan

Quoting Stan

Philosophy and entrepreneurship are vastly different disciplines, so very few individuals would be able or even interested in making that sort of crossover.

This seems to over simplify things to me.

I know a few people who we would call entrepreneurs. Each of them has a particular philosophy they live by, and it’s not about making money. The making of money supports their chosen way of life which is based on a view of life they have and how they engage with it.

For instance one of them decided he wanted to be free and independent in the world instead of being beholden to someone who decides what he gets paid, what his hours will be, how he’ll do the job, and what his future might be. He has four children, he wants to raise them in a similar way. He believes in honesty and integrity. He takes nothing from the state and receives nothing from them. If things go badly he loses and takes it on the chin and hopes to recover in the near future. He has a set of beliefs about society, family, government and business. He’s created jobs, given people the opportunity to develop and grow and even go out and start their own business. I would regard him as having a particular philosophy in life. This is the philosophy of action instead of contemplation. That’s why philosophers aren’t interested in entrepreneurial activities, it requires risk and actually engaging with the chaos of the world.

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

Just to be clear about who I’m talking about when it comes to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs exist all over the world in incredibly varied circumstances. I would hazard a guess that it’s the entrepreneurial spirit that keeps many families in India housed and fed. Their business might be in translating letters, or riding bikes, selling second hand phones or fruit at a roadside stall.

Closer to home; a couple or individual decide they want to open a cafe. They borrow money from the bank and contribute their own savings towards the investment. They find a space and sign a long term agreement, they fit out the space, buy the equipment and hire staff. Or they borrow more money and buy an existing cafe. Whatever the profits they make each week they pay the staff, rent and utilities first. They take a wage themselves and they reinvest everything they make. Generally no one expects to do well in the first year, they just want to survive. But whatever the ups and down the bank still expects their payments to be made, the landlord expects his rent, the energy company expects their payments, the good suppliers expect theirs. There’s no charity. In time things even out a bit more. They might grow the business, employ more staff, take on a chef to create a new menu, create a bigger customer base, and finally begin to make some money. What’s wrong with any of this? If they can’t deliver the goods the customers stop coming. Then everyone loses. Who are the risk takers here?

Reply to Brett He has a philosophy of life in the everyday and colloquial sense, as do we all: a basic set of principles for operating in the world, but that isn’t mostly what we’re doing here. We’re participating in something, a set of questions and answers, discussions that resemble academic philosophy, the most salient aspect of which is a set of rules. Formalism is the best word I can think of right now.

True, some of us are better at formal language than others, and there’s no strict requirement as such, but I see that as the ideal. I’m only self-taught, but it seems to me that for many philosophical questions the ideal formalism would be the syllogism; 1. Major premise 2. Minor premise 3. Conclusion.

No, that’s not a requirement here, and it’d probably make some discussions less interesting, but to return to my original argument, this’s probably not the sort of discussion the typical successful entrepreneur would be interested in. He or she would, I think, have little patience for that.

Reply to Brett To oversimplify even more, I evaluate most philosophers as introverts and most entrepreneurs as extroverts. Yes, I know those personality traits are arbitrary models, and even so most individuals are both in some degree.

Reply to Stan

Quoting Stan

We’re participating in something, a set of questions and answers, discussions that resemble academic philosophy, the most salient aspect of which is a set of rules.

Who said it was that? And what’s it for even if it is that? What’s its purpose?

“ He has a philosophy of life in the everyday and colloquial sense, ”

Edit: if it’s not for this then what is philosophy for?

Reply to Stan

Quoting Stan

this’s probably not the sort of discussion the typical successful entrepreneur would be interested in. He or she would, I think, have little patience for that.

Another broad simplification.

Reply to Brett Ahem. Everything we write or speak or think is a simplification, an estimate of reality. My last word on this for a bit. Maybe later..

Reply to Stan

But you’re smart enough to know what I mean.

Reply to Brett I’m smart enough to know that “seems to oversimplify” or “another broad simplification” is not a worthwhile objection to every statement that you happen to disagree with. Later.

Reply to Stan

Quoting Stan

I’m smart enough to know that “seems to oversimplify” or “another broad simplification” is not a worthwhile objection to every statement that you happen to disagree with.

Quoting Stan

To oversimplify even more, I evaluate most philosophers as introverts and most entrepreneurs as extroverts.

I thought we were on the same turf here. You oversimplified and I pointed out another simplification.

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi

I’m not trying to harass you here, just putting my thoughts down as they arise.

This is the core question of the OP;

Quoting Gitonga

So why is it that most people that are interested in philosophy aren't interested in Entrepreneurship?

It’s about “most people”. My priority here is to clearly establish just who the philosophers and entrepreneurs are. Some people see entrepreneurs as Gates or Bezo, which warps the idea severely, and some view philosophers as those who do something that resembles academic philosophy.

Of course there’s no crossover there. They probably hate each other. But that leaves plenty of room for crossover between others, don’t you think?

Quoting Brett

He takes nothing from the state and receives nothing from them.

Well considering all it did to ensure his residence and very existence and all it does toward his continued survival and security doing so when of sound mind and able body would be pretty egregious come to think of it. What are we going to do next? Start clapping and jumping up and down for joy when our 10 year olds don't piss all over the seat? It's an unfortunate fact that that part was actually worth mentioning. And it is. Again, unfortunately.

Reply to Outlander

Is that all you could take from my post?

Quoting Outlander

Well considering all it did to ensure his residence and very existence

What are you referring to?

Reply to Gitonga

Isn’t the question then, if there is a difference, what’s the difference between those who philosophise and those who do business?

Reply to Brett I was being ironic.

Quoting Brett

he wanted to be free and independent in the world instead of being beholden to someone who decides what he gets paid, what his hours will be, how he’ll do the job, and what his future might be

So does everybody. The difference, among those who even take any action to do something about it, is between saying "we shouldn't put up with this! we should all do something about this so nobody has to be beholden to someone else like that!", and those who say "I'm not going to put up with this! I'm going to be the one people are beholden to, not the one beholden to people!"

Reply to Pfhorrest

I don't understand all the cherry picking here.

How do you think jobs are created, where does the tax the government collects come from?

Brett,

you seem to be getting farther and farther from the point you said you were trying to make.

let's just refresh ourselves what this is about.

1. I claimed that the wealth entrepreneurs create benefits no one but themselves.

2. you disagreed.

specifically, I said:
Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

which benefits them and, no one else.

and you replied,
Quoting Brett

The above is what I disagreed with...

so, focusing the conversation specifically on wealth creation rather than the other claims previously made for entrepreneurs...

3. I gave a long list of reasons to believe that wealth does not trickle down and benefit anyone other than its creator or owner, and I asked you to provide examples of this in action to prove your point, which you declined to do. I also gave you a selection of rhetorical questions for you to consider, and you have responded to none of this...

4. instead, you describe a mom and pop cafe who generate no wealth at all.

how, exactly, is that making your point?

if the point you wanted to make was that not all entrepreneurs are immoral parasites, then mom and pop might make your point, but no one in this thread has ever made that claim and it has nothing to do with the point you said you were interested in, which was that the wealth entrepreneurs create is a net benefit to society. mom and pop don't do that, and actually make my point rather than yours. mom and pop is a clear demonstration that wealth does not trickle down.


Kaarlo Tuomi

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

I claimed that the wealth entrepreneurs create benefits no one but themselves.

So you mean the entrepreneur providing a service or a utility doesn't benefit anybody?

How insane is that idea?

Quoting ssu

So you mean the entrepreneur providing a service or a utility doesn't benefit anybody?

neither a service nor a utility are wealth.

Kaarlo Tuomi

Reply to Kaarlo Tuomi But that's simply wrong.

An entrepreneur can make a good, and some person can make a transaction with him or her, meaning the person can buy it from the entrepreneur. Now the person has something that is relatively scarce and that can be viewed as an asset.

So if a artist paints paintings and people buy them, the people have paintings. The entrepreneur, the artist, has created wealth. Hence the simple fact is that wealth is created by entrepreneurs, just as in generel wealth is created. (A thing that many people don't understand)

Quoting Adam's Off Ox

Entrepreneurship consumes an incredible amount of time. Philosophy can consume a large amount of time. The two pursuits don't directly contribute to breakthroughs in the other.

True it comsumes much of the same time (though I like to akin it to bandwidth) and energy that one person has to expend on their various aspects of their lives. When starting up a company that you hope will have agility and adaptability to withstand the curve balls life will those you, the bandwidth needed is huge and stratified. I don't know of a single successful entrapenuer that did not spend their early days, hyperfocused on the way to succeed no matter what stood in their way only to succeed to Level 1. Level 1 is a bit higher than start up mode with all the same responsibility, all the liability but your best skill is fire putter outter.
Once you reach Level 2 you can start to feel strong enough to bring on help and such goes careful and frugal movement.
At the heart of every company there is a philosopher, not the loud one that thinks they know what is happening, but it's usually the quieter one that sits at the right hand of the CEO.
I say this because the assistant to the CEO knows the philosophy that the company was founded on, and if as I said, we are talking about a successful entrapenuer, that person knew the philosophy they themselves were guided by to get them to where they are today.

Reply to Brett Jobs are created by people who have needs, and something to trade for the facilitation of those needs.

In a reasonable world, entrepreneurs would create newer more specific jobs to accomplish those “natural jobs” (fulfilling people’s needs), just like engineers create newer more specific tools out of the “natural tools” given by the universe and discovered by science.

I don’t have any problem at all with entrepreneurship in that regard.

The problem that @Kaarlo Tuomi is on about, that you disagreed with, and that I’m now supporting, is that in the actual world more often than not that isn’t how and why entrepreneurship gets done. There are people with needs and people who would be able to fulfill those needs (i.e. to produce) if only they had the means (of such production, i.e. capital) to do so, which they don’t, because almost everyone is poor and struggling even to meet their own needs. Then you’ve got the tiny fraction of people who control all that capital and want to use it to extract more of it so that they can keep paying other people to satisfy their own needs without ever running out.

Those people, to their own ends, thus agree to let the actual producers use (not have, just use, borrow) their capital as a means of production, on the condition that a large part of the money that the people in need (the customers) pay in exchange for that product go to the capital-owner, rather than the people doing the actual production. And those capital-owners just inserting themselves between the producers and customers get called “entrepreneurs” and “job creators”. Which is like calling the Mafia “security guards”, because so long as you pay them they’ll make sure that your shop doesn’t get wrecked, by them. The capital-owners similarly “create jobs” merely by allowing the use of capital so long as you pay them for it, instead of them just hoarding it all to themselves merely as incentive to make people’s pay them to borrow it.

Quoting Pfhorrest

The problem that Kaarlo Tuomi is on about, that you disagreed with, and that I’m now supporting, is that in the actual world more often than not that isn’t how and why entrepreneurship gets done. There are people with needs and people who would be able to fulfill those needs (i.e. to produce) if only they had the means (of such production, i.e. capital) to do so, which they don’t, because almost everyone is poor and struggling even to meet their own needs. Then you’ve got the tiny fraction of people who control all that capital and want to use it to extract more of it so that they can keep paying other people to satisfy their own needs without ever running out.

But that's not in any way what Kaarlo Tuomi is saying:

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

I was refuting. the claim was, "Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone."

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

1. I claimed that the wealth entrepreneurs create benefits no one but themselves.

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

wealth does not trickle down and benefit anyone other than its creator or owner

Quoting Kaarlo Tuomi

neither a service nor a utility are wealth.

What you are saying somebody cannot be an entrepreneur because they cannot start their business endeavor. That's totally different what Tuomi is saying. In his answer to actually Reply to A Seagull he argues that the entrepreneur doesn't create any other wealth than for himself, which obviously misses totally the issue of the entrepreneur producing something, a service or a good. Kaarlo thinks this isn't wealth, as if produced goods aren't equivalent to money, which is just a medium of exchange, a value of account and store of value.

In your own answer first you said:

Quoting Pfhorrest

But beyond keeping the business itself going, what the business does can be anything. It doesn't have to be creating new wealth, or making the world a better place. It can just be funneling wealth to its owner.

The entrepreneur likely creates a service or a product that you aren't forced to buy to live, so the transaction between you and an entrepreneur is voluntary. Guess then there has to be a reason just why you would give some of your hard earned money to someone else.

Reply to ssu What I said is an elaboration of the mechanisms behind what Kaarlo said. “Entrepreneurs” in our capitalist world are more often than not just people with capital who want more of it, so they “create businesses” (lend their capital) where those who do the actual work can produce (using the borrowed capital) for those who pay the actual money, and then the “entrepreneurs“ take their cut off the top of that process. Enabling producers to actually produce and fulfill the needs of customers is incidental: they’ll do as little of that as they can get away with, only as much as they have to in order to achieve their goal of multiplying their capital.

Reply to Pfhorrest Seems like you are talking about franchising or simply what banking does. Besides, if a philosopher gets his or her income by writing books, that is entrepreneurship. However the smug philosopher usually has tenure in an university today and writes articles to a journal of fellow minded people, so you could call him or her an employee.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Enabling producers to actually produce and fulfill the needs of customers is incidental: they’ll do as little of that as they can get away with, only as much as they have to in order to achieve their goal of multiplying their capital.

That's why you need competition and why monopolies tend to suck big time.

Quoting ssu

Seems like you are talking about franchising or simply what banking does.

Not just that. Anyone who buys buildings and equipment and then pays other people to operate them is letting others use their capital (the stuff) in exchange for money (the difference between what the customer pays and the employee receives).

The only reason the employees would agree to such an arrangement is because they don’t have and can’t afford the stuff they need to do their jobs themselves.

The philosopher is interested in being right, while the entrepreneur is interested in what works. The philosopher doesn't really face consequences for being wrong, while the entrepreneur could be financially ruined by a misstep or a poor investment. Philosophers theorize and system-build - historically speaking, often from the top down while the entrepreneur needs to be firmly routed in the concrete realities of the economy/market first and foremost. The philosopher has endless time to contemplate while the entrepreneur must make decisions and take risks otherwise there could be great costs.

?

Reply to BitconnectCarlos

Assuming the philosopher is employed as a philosopher say in a setting with other philosophers and the entrepreneur is stupidly wealthy... you can inverse the two and your post would still be correct.