What Is A Philosopher?
And when does it start paying out since we're just asking questions here.
At times, I find myself wondering precisely what a philosopher might be. This ponder generally follows hot on the heels of having been accused of being one. Naturally, I'd like to know exactly how hard these people think they are insulting me.
A quick sniff around the internet wasn't much help. Google served up cold tripe about a philosopher loving wisdom, but I have known philosophers, sirs. They love nothing. Amor nihili, Seneca calls it. In my mind if not ever in reality.
Perhaps one can turn to Webster? Alas. Don't. Definitions are usually not much help with these things. There's a problem in language where everything is relational.
Look at any dictionary definition and you will find references to other definitions. If you duly and dutifully check another, you'll see the problem continues without ever reaching the bottom. Definitions are pilings driven into a swamp. Uncertain.
Nothing is defined on its own. This is why folks say things like, “Define your terms!” Or “Quit moving goal posts!” Etc, prior to refusing to do so themselves. The trick is to trick your debate opponent, not to get to the truth. The audience’s mileage may vary.
Conversations regarding definition drive people mad. You can define just about anything as whatever you want, so long as you hitch said definition on another relational definition. I don’t know if that works beyond getting one up on someone.
So, I won't argue definition, I suppose. I could just do what countless philosophers have done and simply say whatever I do is philosophy. But nah, only as a last resort. That seems somewhat dishonest and vain, though it doesn’t disqualify it from philosophy.
But let's try something else first.
Perhaps we aren't able to identify one of these troubling creatures by characteristics they possess. Let's try identifying one of these think-critters based on characteristics they do not possess. We can even call this via negativa if we want to sound smart.
A philosopher does not march duly through life without asking questions. This does not mean they ask the right questions. Merely that they question. Question what, I'm not entirely sure. I don't think it matters. Philosophers aren’t necessarily sharp.
I submit this essay to the court of public opinion as Exhibit A.
Presumably, a philosopher is not ignorant as they pursue and love wisdom. But everyone is quite ignorant, I'm afraid. You, me, that super smart professor who eats her boogers when she thinks no one is looking.
Which reminds me. If a man says something in the woods and no woman is around to hear it, is he still wrong? Timeless question that. I don’t know the answer, but I bet my wife does.
All of us are most ignorant on some topic or another. Most topics, in fact. I am ignorant of more things than I am knowledgeable of. And so are you. That's not an insult. It's mathematics. It’s just the way it is and always will be.
No need to worry, though. If a problem is so widespread it affects each and absolutely every person, it ironically isn't worth worrying at. This seems counterintuitive, but again, it is just math. Humans are ignorant. All of us. It is our default mode.
I may be onto something here, but ultimately the number of characteristics a philosopher does not possess are infinite. You can't know something by what it isn't, because whatever it may be, it isn't everything. Via negans. That way is negated.
Still following? Philosophy can be weird. And stupid. But I'm told it pays out. Not in cash, of course. That would be useful and philosophy as a rule simply is not. Ah, via negativa again. We got through that after all!
Still, this isn't satisfying. It’s philosophy. I'm going to throw it all out, since it's the kind of thing someone does while staring at shadows on a cave wall. Just sitting around. Thinking about thinking in circles, but you know, with a peer review.
No fun in that when I could be out reggae clubbing or collecting rare copies of Karl Popper's books. Besides, that kind of thing costs money.
Oh! Eureka, bitches! I got it. An idea, I mean. Not money. I'm quite poor.
Poverty forces philosophy. I don’t mean it forces a man to think about thinking. It does not do that at all. It forces him to apply a philosophy other than that of a rag doll cat limping its way through life.
A poor man must, every single day, examine his own situation. Further, he must take action or perish. This ain’t your Hegelian philosophies, or your Hobbesian, or any other Ian, for that matter. It is useful for people who aren’t tyrants, for instance.
Instead, it is Diogenic. Plato once called Diogenes “Socrates gone mad.”
This was the only intelligent, honest thing Plato ever said. Don't pretend this dude was great. He talked nothing but shit, which he stuffed into a great man's mouth to steal a veneer of respectable character. Plato sucks. Apologia was good, though.
The self-examined life is a daily exercise to the poors, of which I currently find myself. One must attempt to suck every drop of marrow from what passes as income and most of all they must learn what to do without. A different kind of via negativa.
Any idiot knows how to live with something. Just… do nothing. Carry on. Easy. But living without is an art. The comfortable buffoon only sees value in addition. The lean and mean pauper sees value in subtraction. They have no other choice.
You quite quickly learn what you don't need. Or, you already know and just need to make the cut.
You carve those unnecessary love handles straight off like that guy in that Se7en movie with the Kaiser Sose fellow. But metaphorically. Because that dude does die when he does it not metaphorically.
You are forced to be creative and innovative on how you go about navigating a world demanding currency. Or failing that, doomed to misery. Everything costs money, they will say. If one owns the air, one pays to breathe.
The impoverished philosopher will of course disagree. And not just to be a contrarian ass, either. Not this time. But because joy is free. One need only contradict someone in conversation. Oh, the fun I can find wherever I look, with minimal digging.
In fact, one can even find joy in the digging itself. I don't know precisely how much a shovel costs, but a figurative shovel is even cheaper, I bet, since it has no physical form and all. It works on abstract stuff.
Like worrying whether I will die of prostate cancer before or after my medical insurance card shows up in the mail. That kind of thing.
Can't wait to see the stunning conclusion to that race. I suspect I lose either way. But hey! That's death. A free man doesn't fear death. He smiles back at the bitch and makes her his. Or so I'm told. I have only ever feared for my life twice. I am free.
Once, after jumping off a freight train straight into the path of an oncoming Amtrak. This was a momentary fear shared with the conductor, who blasted the horn as if I somehow didn’t see his 200-ton ass. I mean, I didn’t at first. But the horn didn’t help.
Second, at a Mad Caddies show down at El Corazon in Seattle. The crowd was rowdy, enthusiastic, beautiful, smelly, and took slam dancing quite seriously. The plaster from the ceiling rained down like manna from heaven. I saw a chunk hit a girl’s head.
I'd never been more afraid. And yet, I'd never been more willing to die, either. Those guys are mad all right, ya dig? If death isn’t to be feared, it is to be embraced when the time comes. Which brings me to a most uncomfortable position.
For some of you. Not for me. I’ve seen to it.
Interestingly, I see those with more material stuff in their lives are generally more fearful than those who do not have a ton of baggage. You'd think more things would bring peace of mind, but it does not. One becomes afraid of losing them, instead.
It is foolishly viewed as “progress” when in fact, it is simply producing new fears. The things you own end up owning you and I will simply never bow to a pickle jar. Even if it is the President of the United States.
This fear produced from comfort is poison. It kills. Worse, it kills not the one who feels it, but those around them. Often, the people they love. You need only look at the lockdown enthusiasts during the 2020 COVID-19 thing.
A bigger bunch of cowards I never saw in my life or in any history book than in 2020 USA. I read, a lot. And I stand by this statement. Pick a panic, any panic, from the past, and see how the educated, academic, intelligent modern day out-panicked it.
Did you see a single poor person demand a lockdown? I didn't. They couldn’t afford it. When someone wouldn’t quit lambasting me to inject useless junk into my arm to protect me from a disease I wouldn’t die of even a little, I demanded dollars.
If I missed any work from being laid out from an untested vaccine (full disclosure, I’ve worked as a professional tester for two decades) I would need compensation or I and my wife would starve. So, I got paid. And I got laid out, as expected. Cuz philosophy.
All comfortable, fart huffing retirees and lunatics perfectly fine with obliterating the lower class so long as they could FEEL a smidge safer in their minds. If not in reality. Some say evil doesn't exist. It does and it is banal. It played out in 2020 for all to see.
Still, I don't know if just being poor is enough to practice philosophy. I know dirt poor dullards content with their lot and feel no need to adapt or improve at all. So, I could ask religion. Folks seem to like that JC fellow.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. - Matthew 19:24.
Huh. That's somewhat comforting in terms of an eternal class war, but not satisfying otherwise. Let's try Old Mo.
And to Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And We have instructed those who were given the Scripture before you and yourselves to fear Allah. But if you disbelieve – then to Allah belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. And ever is Allah Free of need and Praiseworthy. - Quran 4:131
Well, shit. Let’s just say philosophy is as philosophy does and leave it at that, I suppose. There are worse fictional heroes to have than Forrest Gump.
Sic vivitur