As the creator and curator of the Substack blog “Citizen Philosophers”, I’m compelled to comment!
Quote:
“The philosopher’s business is to organize what matters”
Although the assertion: “We all engage in philosophy all the time”, follows logically from your previous statements, I disagree. What a word points to can be so expanded that it becomes useless. For me, in seeking to organize what matters the philosophically inclined dig deeper: what lies below the immediate? what lies below that? Perhaps this is what you mean if your “to everyone” is added to the quote above.
I take it as a fundamental truth that the dizzying array of human behaviors and abilities is not uniformly distributed; all have some lows, a large middle, and a few highs. It is a combination of their ability, and desire, to dig deeper, that distinguishes a philosopher. Furthermore, to actually be a philosopher one must communicate the results of their thoughts to others.
Although I think that only a few are called to philosophy, engaging in philosophy has never been easier. Tools for doing so are as close as the nearest internet connection and billions of us now have such a connection immediately at hand! The stage is set for “the return of the citizen philosopher”. Unless darkness descends, genuine philosophers will appear. But doing so requires that they turn a deaf ear to many enticing and distracting pied pipers.
“Thinking about thinking” and digging deeper are certainly things that philosophers do, but there’s more. ChatGPT3.5 (11/01/24) tells me that the word “philosopher” was first used by Pythagoras around 500 BCE. About the same time savants in what is now China began to speak and write what the Greeks would call “philosophy”. Under a different name philosophers were active in India in 1000 BCE.
ChatGPT concluded its response with “This early usage and the stories around it highlight that philosophy was seen as both a discipline and a way of life, not just abstract theory.” So, from the get-go “philosophy” referred not only to modes of thought, but also to ways of living. This denotation is what most people mean by “philosophy”; as in “my philosophy is …”.
Some of us are presently pretty sure that the root cause of every action we make lies in the pattern and movement of electrons, molecules, and cells in our brains. For each of us, at a fundamental level some of these patterns are “our philosophy”. Across more than a hundred billion individuals in more than 20 thousand generations no two of these patterns are identical, although they can appear so when expressed in words. Since the action of every human being is controlled by these patterns, every human being has “a unique philosophy” of life. But only a very few of us actually think about these patterns (and many other things!). I suggest that we call only those that do “philosophers”. Everyone has a philosophy. Only a few philosophize.
Many thanks for engaging, Frank - it is fitting, since October's pieces were all inspired by topics you brought into my consideration, that the final piece references "Citizen Philosophers". It is not a coincidence that this is the name of your Substack... 😉
That everyone performs philosophy is an important an oft overlooked point, and to my mind is much more important than whether we should want to restrict the term 'philosopher' in some pragmatic way. Likewise, everybody maintains libraries (of books, music etc.) but not everyone is a librarian... still, the former observation is the interesting one to me. The universal human experience of philosophy is especially important at a time when citizen democracy is being usurped by dubious assertions of 'expertise'.
It is not just that "everyone has a philosophy", as you say, it is that everybody performs (at least some) philosophical tasks for themselves, just as nearly everyone does mathematics but are not necessarily mathematicians, or use languages and are not necessarily linguists. They may conduct philosophy badly, of course - plenty of humans do plenty of things badly! But the process of orienting ourselves in the conceptual geography we live within is not optional. There is no escaping it!
I shall decline to engage on 'root cause' right now, as that would mean digging into Aristotle's "four becauses". Perhaps a future topic. 🙂
Hi Chris.
As the creator and curator of the Substack blog “Citizen Philosophers”, I’m compelled to comment!
Quote:
“The philosopher’s business is to organize what matters”
Although the assertion: “We all engage in philosophy all the time”, follows logically from your previous statements, I disagree. What a word points to can be so expanded that it becomes useless. For me, in seeking to organize what matters the philosophically inclined dig deeper: what lies below the immediate? what lies below that? Perhaps this is what you mean if your “to everyone” is added to the quote above.
I take it as a fundamental truth that the dizzying array of human behaviors and abilities is not uniformly distributed; all have some lows, a large middle, and a few highs. It is a combination of their ability, and desire, to dig deeper, that distinguishes a philosopher. Furthermore, to actually be a philosopher one must communicate the results of their thoughts to others.
Although I think that only a few are called to philosophy, engaging in philosophy has never been easier. Tools for doing so are as close as the nearest internet connection and billions of us now have such a connection immediately at hand! The stage is set for “the return of the citizen philosopher”. Unless darkness descends, genuine philosophers will appear. But doing so requires that they turn a deaf ear to many enticing and distracting pied pipers.
“Thinking about thinking” and digging deeper are certainly things that philosophers do, but there’s more. ChatGPT3.5 (11/01/24) tells me that the word “philosopher” was first used by Pythagoras around 500 BCE. About the same time savants in what is now China began to speak and write what the Greeks would call “philosophy”. Under a different name philosophers were active in India in 1000 BCE.
ChatGPT concluded its response with “This early usage and the stories around it highlight that philosophy was seen as both a discipline and a way of life, not just abstract theory.” So, from the get-go “philosophy” referred not only to modes of thought, but also to ways of living. This denotation is what most people mean by “philosophy”; as in “my philosophy is …”.
Some of us are presently pretty sure that the root cause of every action we make lies in the pattern and movement of electrons, molecules, and cells in our brains. For each of us, at a fundamental level some of these patterns are “our philosophy”. Across more than a hundred billion individuals in more than 20 thousand generations no two of these patterns are identical, although they can appear so when expressed in words. Since the action of every human being is controlled by these patterns, every human being has “a unique philosophy” of life. But only a very few of us actually think about these patterns (and many other things!). I suggest that we call only those that do “philosophers”. Everyone has a philosophy. Only a few philosophize.
Many thanks for engaging, Frank - it is fitting, since October's pieces were all inspired by topics you brought into my consideration, that the final piece references "Citizen Philosophers". It is not a coincidence that this is the name of your Substack... 😉
That everyone performs philosophy is an important an oft overlooked point, and to my mind is much more important than whether we should want to restrict the term 'philosopher' in some pragmatic way. Likewise, everybody maintains libraries (of books, music etc.) but not everyone is a librarian... still, the former observation is the interesting one to me. The universal human experience of philosophy is especially important at a time when citizen democracy is being usurped by dubious assertions of 'expertise'.
It is not just that "everyone has a philosophy", as you say, it is that everybody performs (at least some) philosophical tasks for themselves, just as nearly everyone does mathematics but are not necessarily mathematicians, or use languages and are not necessarily linguists. They may conduct philosophy badly, of course - plenty of humans do plenty of things badly! But the process of orienting ourselves in the conceptual geography we live within is not optional. There is no escaping it!
I shall decline to engage on 'root cause' right now, as that would mean digging into Aristotle's "four becauses". Perhaps a future topic. 🙂
With unlimited love,
Chris.