7 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: what makes someone a philosopher?
do you think processes of legitimization in this case have been used as codes of exclusion in professional academic philosophy? what makes legitimization the determining criteria for whether or not someone is a philosopher? non-phd’s have contributed just as much if not more to philosophy than those who are professionalized in the narrow sense.
Comment by loserforhirex at 26/01/2025 at 19:04 UTC
19 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Are you counting people like Plato and Aristotle non-phds? Because if not I think it’s plainly the case that lay people have not contributed more to philosophy than those who engage in its study and practice. I do think the analogy with science holds. We all go about our days learning from the world, testing hypothesis, and adjusting our understanding of how the world works based on input. But like, we aren’t all scientists.
It’s about how it is done, and not as much what is done. There is philosophizing about subject X and then there is just talking about X. Both can be enlightening, but only one involves certain scholastic methods and with an attention to prior contributions and distinctions that might not be practically significant.
Also I’m not certain that it’s desirable for it to be the case that everyone who sits there and has a think about right and wrong to be a philosopher.
I’m fine excluding Tupac from being a philosopher. I don’t think that takes away from his life, work, or the meaning people have found in those things.