What Is a Philosopher? | Hacker News Reader

What Is a Philosopher?

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

41 pointsgrellas15 comments

A quote from Leo Strauss that I think best describes philosophy: "Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm."

"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as to seem not worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it." -- Bertrand Russell

Ye gods! I'm a philosopher! Hope that doesn't get out.

Great quote, by the way. It's a keeper.

For some reason when discussing the meaning of philosophy I am always drawn back to Mel Brook's History of the World Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl4VD8uvgec

The point being, in humorous terms, just the same as the article -- philosophers have a tendency to be somewhat detached.

What I find more interesting than this piece itself is the fact that it appears to be the first in a newly-launched NYT philosophy blog: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/introducing-...

Not sure what I think about the idea of an NYT philosophy blog. Maybe a good idea? And why now? We'll see, I suppose.

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." --Socrates

I love this remark... Since it is so true - as far as I have observed, what gets people into philosophy is (usually) a misfortune in relationship or some other traumatic experience.

Maybe that's why more men are into philosophy. Because male angst is so different from female - an insecure male is much less likely to get a sexual partner than insecure female.

I think that's probably true of a bunch of "thinking about existence/meaning/etc." occupations. My sense is that biographies in line with those of Van Gogh, Goya, Kafka, Vonnegut, etc. are quite overrepresented among both novelists and painters, for example.

In general, if you're not sure if someone is a philosopher or not, just add a prefix to "philosopher". If you call someone, for example, an "urban philosopher", nobody really knows what that means, and therefore they're going to have a hard time arguing against it. And the rest of us can get along in peace without being drawn into another semantic debate.

There is a good book on the concept of Leisure by Josef Pieper called Leisure: The Basis of Culture

I like Bertrand Russell's essay on the subject, also: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

Excellent. Will read.

Is there a philosophical reason why he is asking "what" instead of "who" is a philosopher?

Probably more of a practical reason. If you saw a headline reading "Who is a philosopher" you might mentally answer "Plato, Heidegger, and Bostrom;" and not read the article.

So he means "what does the word philosopher mean"

A philosopher is whatever you define it to be.

A scientist is, well, you'd have to come up with a theory, then a testable hypothesis, etc.

But for a philosopher, yeah, just go ahead and make something up. :)

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