Philosophy and arrogance

[pmaniati <pmaniati@bigpond.net.au>]

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You out there who are lovers of wisdom!! You seem to treat the term
"Philosopher" as depicting  some kind of a profession or vocation or job and
by doing so you attribute to it qualities such as great, mediocre, good or
bad. A philosopher is none of the above. A philosopher is rather someone who
loves wisdom.

We can say that the intensity of love towards wisdom is more intense in one
person rather than another but that intensity does not make one a better
philosopher than another - or a great philosopher for that matter.

To make it clearer let us define the term "wisdom". We must agree that
wisdom is some kind of understanding. In the hierarchy of understanding,
wisdom is at the top. It is when we understand the principles of things. Or
it is when we are able to evaluate understanding itself.

So a philosopher is one who loves to reach that kind of understanding. Non
philosophers are content with the understanding of "how" to apply data and
information, which is plain knowledge.

Now back to whether a philosopher can be called great or not so great, can
be applied only in relation to the love of philosophy - whether he/she is a
great lover of Ph. or not so great and so on. This was how Socrates used the
word - philosophos.

So Nick you can call yourself the greatest philosopher that ever existed if
you love the search for wisdom with the greatest intensity. That, however,
will not necessary make you a great thinker in understanding the principles
of things nor a great communicator in passing down your great thoughts to
others, as Plato and Aristotle or Kant did.

Cheers
Peter




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