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RE: re: re: but how do we know someone is a really a philosopher?
Hi, in
response to Andy
I
wonder if it is really only those who either study or aspire to be philosophers
that are concerned whether someone calls themselves a philosopher or not.
The vast majority of people just go about their lives oblivious of any
contribution from philosophers, or current philosophers at
least.
It may
be telling that the winner of the BBC radio 4 In Out Time 'Greatest
Philosopher' vote was Karl Marx. I have no idea how he might feel
about being so popularly acclaimed if he were alive. In the vote he romped
way ahead of Hume, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Kant, not to mention the ancients.,
and I don't think any living philosophers even got a mention. This is
surprising because as I understand it most postgrad studies and current
philosophical debates is on the work of philosophers who were not high
in the popularity pole.
Melvyn
comments are equalling telling:
So, when you strip away the Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet era
and later Marxist theory, who was Karl Marx? Where does he stand in the history
of philosophy? He wrote in his Theses on
Feuerbach, "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways,
the point, however, is to change it" - which begs the question, is he really a
philosopher at all?
So, is a basis upon which we can assess the
contribution that philosophers make when they do what they do? Whether
they really are what they might claim to be?
Perhaps, for the general public (or BBC 4
listeners at least) Marx was the last great philosopher because they cannot see
the impact of the work of more recent philosophers such as Russell's logic,
Ryle's non-ghostly machine, Ayer's verificationism, Poppers falsification
principle, even though all of this work has had an impact on the world and some
very far reaching.
Rgds
Ausser
Hi all,
I havent contributed to the discussion for quite some time, iv been
asleep.
I would like to agree with Brian from Sydney,, but i would also like to
radicalize him somehwhat.
First off all i think that some peoples aversion to naming themselves a
'philosopher' is 1. ridiculous but understandable, 2. false humility, and 3.
based on the assumption that such a claim must be made with arrogance,
ignorance, condescention, and pomp.
On 1.: We all know that the dual etymological root of the word
'philosopher' translates easily to 'lover of wisdom'. with this knowledge at
hand it seems to me that anyone on this list ( or even enroled on a philosophy
course, or even any higher level academic course) would be comfortable calling
themselvs lovers of wisdom, so long of course that that claim didnt come with
any presuppositions about the nature or value of wisdom, apart from a rather
too general, wishywashy idea concerning inquiry, discussion, argument, dare i
say it knowledge.
On 2. and 3. Having said this i do admit that when a person claims to be
a philosopher it (as in 3.) tends to be from a position of esoteric arrogance,
and so (in regard to 2.) can only be said blatemtly or with false humility.
This all sounds very bad, but i would like to advocate this being the case and
diservedly so. Philosophy does indeed keep 'us' on our toes in the most
general important sense. It, necessarily, sufficiently, and almost by very
definition is the prima doctrina. Here i argue from the view point
that philosophy is a transcendental discourse; philosophy is concerned with,
and consists of, the conditions for possibility of intellectual thought
(including as it does sapience, discourse, acedemia, civilization, politics,
ethics, humanity). Thus it is prior and present to all other -ologies
and -isms; it predates, both in historical chronological terms and in
transcendental cognitive terms, distinctions conceived as such.
at least that is what i, with a tongue in cheek infinite arrogance,
think. Of course things wold be different if i were a sociologist,
anthropologist or physicist. But i aint, i am (proudly and embarassingly, a
philosopher) If this isnt acceptable, you could just say that a 'philosopher'
is one who studies philosophy, thereby bowing to the greatness of the great,
from Thales to Plato to Wittgenstein to Derrida.
P.s. all this also means that philosophy aint so much different from
art.
cheers,
andy.
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