-14 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: what makes someone a philosopher?
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Comment by theideaofkhan at 26/01/2025 at 21:14 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
While most people do have these implicit kind of beliefs, there does appear to be a distinction between me as someone who plays sports every week and an athlete. Similarly to me, philosophers are those who go beyond the everyday theorizing that we all do and engage with philosophical questions in a more systematic, formal or in-depth way. That application of the term seems more commonsensical to me. In other words, being a philosopher is not an honorific but rather a description of what the person is engaging with during their day to day. What you call "philosophers in the deliberate or formalized sense".
This does not necessarily preclude people not in academia being deemed philosophers, but I think it's much more difficult to make substantive contributions to the conversation if one only engages in it part time (as you note).