14 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: what makes someone a philosopher?
Some people when they hear "philosopher" think it just means anyone who has thoughts about things or makes points about living, or gives their observations of the passing show, or says interesting things. And so, with this understanding, lots of people are philosophers: George Carlin, Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, etc-- essentially anyone who you hear speak or anyone who you regard as insightful.
On a different understanding of "philosophy" -- the one employed in, say, universities, the term refers more to the work and arguments and conversation that have been going for hundreds of years. And in that conversation are people like Plato, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Scanlon, Korsgaard, MacIntyre, McDowell, and lots and lots of other folks pursuing various issues in an academic way. Notably absent from this list would be people like Carlin, Burr, Rogan, etc: these people are not making contributions to the arguments and issues going on among these philosophers. They may have studied it in some capacity, but their work, for the most part, is not really relevant to academic philosophers anymore than a Jim Cramer is relevant to what's going on in economics.
Imagine if we applied this kind of distinction to other fields: is a "mathematican" someone who adds at the cashier, or is it better to reserve the term for folks working in the mathematics tradition? Am I "chemist" because I baked bread, or should that term be more appropriately applied to people with a background in chemistry? Do you get to be an "epidemiologist" because you made a facebook post about covid, or should that be applied to folks who studied medicine? So, in short, if your idea of "philosophy" is just general thoughts about important things, then yes, just about anyone can be a philosopher, but I'm not sure what is gained by using the term in this way.
Most of the big historical names in philosophy taught philosophy, or published works, or engaged with the philosophical community of the time. Depending on the era, this will mean different things for different times. But it's essentially the same sort of shift that happens for all similarly placed terms: scientist, economist, historian, artist, doctor, etc. So, would some layperson today have been considered a philosopher 1000 years ago? I don't know, maybe. I mean, 1000 years ago I would be the greatest mathematician of the day with my college-level knowledge of calculus, real analysis, combinatorics, group theory, etc (to say nothing of the amazing medical advances I could provide to such people!). But I'm not a mathematician. So, the historically famous philosophers were working on philosophical issues of the day, they are important to understand the history of the field as it is today, they often published, they often lectured, they interacted with others in the relevant community-- these things are rather similar to how we might understand the field today, even if the particular details differ.
So, being a philosopher in the above sense is about being part of the academic field, engaging with the literature, teaching the literature, having the relevant expertise with the tradition, publishing papers in the academic venues, being recognized by one's peers in the academic tradition, knowing the relevant history and issues and conceptual space of the discipline--- these are the sorts of things that typically pick out if one is a philosopher, when that term is understood as other academic fields are.
So, do you *need* a degree to be a philosopher? No. Not anymore than you need a degree to be a mathematician or chemist or physicist or economist or historian. But, typically, people who are in these fields today have that degree, or, perhaps a closely related one.
It's a little odd at this point. I usually get inundated with replies that the above is some kind of worrying "gatekeeping" or "elitist" or some such criticism. And I just can only reiterate what I say above: if you want to use the term is such an expansive way that doesn't exclude much of anyone, then you are fine to do so (there's no philosophy-police coming to arrest you!), it's just that doing so doesn't seem to pick out a useful category. And similarly, if you have a different understanding of the term, or want to propose something else, fine: nothing of much significance turns on this.
Comment by HiddenMotives2424 at 27/01/2025 at 03:07 UTC
-1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
So a philosopher is someone who is labeled by other philosophers as a philosopher?