What does it mean to be a philosopher?
By: Joshua Hehe
Tags: Logic, Philosophy, Etymology, History, Biography

“Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.” — Socrates

Of all the things that I have set out to be, I have worked the hardest at being a philosopher. I even majored in philosophy and minored in psychology because I’m fascinated with consciousness. More to the point, during the second semester of my first year of college, my first-year logic professor (Rebecca Thall) introduced me to my first-year ethics professor (Benjamin Almassi). I’ll never forget when I shook Ben’s hand. Becky told him my name and referred to me as a “philosopher extraordinaire”. In fact, her flattering words have stuck with me ever since. Along with this, right from the start, my very first philosophy teacher (Leslie Hopkins) called me an “expansionist”, not a reductionist like most other philosophers. This makes a really big difference in the way that I think about things, compared to them. Plus, based on the things that I would discuss on campus, some of the other students even took to calling me “the theorist”, within my third year. This makes me a special kind of polymath philosopher, but still just one philosopher among many across time and space. The thing is, what does it actually mean for someone to be considered a philosopher? In other words, what is philosophy?

It’s not like you can just look it up and get a consistent answer. Go ahead and try. I’m here to tell you that every source is different, in one way or another. For instance, according to Merriam-Webster’s Student Dictionary, philosophy is “the study of the basic ideas about knowledge, truth, right and wrong, religion, and the nature and meaning of life.” Whereas, Encyclopedia Britannica defines philosophy as “the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience.” Similar to but still different from this, according to Wikipedia philosophy “is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.” So, which one is right? The truth is that they all are. Philosophy is really many different things, and that’s the way it should be.

Still, in many ways, philosophy centers on logic, and it all began with formal classical logic. Then, informal logic branched off from this. First-order logic deals with our statements as such. In predicate calculus, the focus is on the validity of propositions. Taking this a step further gets us to the higher order logic of type and set theory. Outside of this, there is also modal logic, which is centered on concepts like possibility and necessity. Along with alethic logic, there is also epistemic logic and deontic logic, as well. The former is concerned with knowledge, beliefs, and justification, while the latter is concerned with ethics and obligation. Beyond this, there is non-classical logic, such as many-valued “fuzzy” logic. This gets to things that are both true and false (T ∧ F), not just true or false ¬(T ∨ F). Of course, this is altogether different from what can be proven, which is really a function of computability logic. Ultimately, the point is that philosophy can be broken down in a number of different ways, depending on what you’re trying to understand and how. For instance, there is also a linear and nonlinear logic. The list just goes on and on and on…

In many ways, philosophy is really just the study of anything, which is to say everything. Personally, I’m a philosopher because I study cosmology, theology, geology, ecology, biology, epistemology, ontology, psychology, sociology, neurology, and much, much more. The thing is that not every philosopher is a student of all these things, and more importantly, they don't have to be. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being as knowledgeable as you can about as many different things as possible. You see, although Pythagoras may have coined the term “philosophy”, the concept was far from new even in his time. There have been philosophers for nearly as long as there have been humans. One could even argue that asking and answering difficult questions is what made us human in the first place. Philosophy doesn’t have to be done in the armchair of an ivory tower, but it did give us the schools of higher learning. Again though, the point to be made is that everyone has a different take on what philosophy is exactly. As James Madison said: “Philosophy is common sense with big words.” In my mind though, nothing beats the words of Will Durant, who once said: “Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.”

The bottom line is that if you ask a lot of questions like me, then you’re probably a philosopher too. The way I see it, each and every time you have a deep thought, you’re being a philosopher. After all, things like introspection, contemplation, and rumination are essential to the human condition. Think about it. If you’ve ever wondered what the point of everything is, or where it all came from, or who you are meant to be, or anything of the sort, then you are a philosopher. You don’t have to be a highly trained ethicist, or an epistemologist, or any other kind of academic intellectual to be a real philosopher. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with specializing in a certain profession. In fact, I love philosophers of mind, philosophers of science, philosophers of religion, and much, much more. That’s not the point. The point is that you don’t have to be Socrates or Spinoza to do philosophy. Being a philosopher is really just about thoroughly examining yourself and the world around you. That’s it, plain and simple. Ultimately, that’s what it means to be a philosopher. So, if you ever do anything like that, then you’re a philosopher too. With that being said I will leave you with the immortal words of Eleanor Roosevelt: