Who are the 'Philosophers' anyway?

['docmartin' (Dr Martin Cohen)]

Dan Dennett is both a professional philosopher and a popularizer.

How about - an academic philosopher. That he popularises the subject is commendable - but surely not necessary to include?

Whenever the New York Times wants a "philosopher's" take on something, there is Dan -- occasionally on the front page of that August Institution. And aside from Doug Hofstater, who else is a well-known popularizer?  The fact that some of his books are bestsellers sure makes them notable to me! Not to include this info in an article about Dennett would be like writing an article about Steven King and calling him a philanthropist and youth-baseball-league enthusiastic who lives in Bangor, Maine -- and omitting any mention of his novels. It may well be that both Dennett and King will be forgotten 50 years from now, but in the here and now, if someone sees either of their faces in the NYT, then I think CZ articles about them ought to contain the info about their main claim to fame in public life.

All I meant was 'in the summary description' - eg Einstein was a 20 century physicist - we gild the lily if we add 'and a populariser of physics'. Surely Dan must have his 'popularising' mentioned in any article...

[Hayford Peirce]

Ah, mea culpa. I didn't realize you were referring only to the definition.

In any case, there's a philosophical debate to be made about these "definitions" in the first place:

I think that they are being created on a strictly ad hoc basis, by whoever chooses to do so, with a couple of guidelines, sure, but not much more.  Ie, "one sentence only", "don't put the name of the subject into the definition", etc. Beyond that there's nothing.  As, actually, how could there be?

So that:

1.) Some people write the very minimum definition: "Babe Ruth was a baseball player."

2.) Other people (me, for instance) tend to try to put more info in: "Babe Ruth (1884-1947) was an American baseball player who dominated the game during the 1920s and revolutionized the game by his introduction of the home run as a major part of it."  Or some such.

Both, I suppose, are correct.  I've never really understood why we are creating Definitions in the first place, although I've had it explained to me and I seemed to grasp the concept at the time.  But it's elusive, at least to me.

So, in sum, I guess that there are minimalists and maximalists when it comes to Definitions....

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Ah, mea culpa. I didn't realize you were referring only to the definition.

In any case, there's a philosophical debate to be made about these "definitions" in the first place:

I think that they are being created on a strictly ad hoc basis, by whoever chooses to do so, with a couple of guidelines, sure, but not much more.  Ie, "one sentence only", "don't put the name of the subject into the definition", etc. Beyond that there's nothing.  As, actually, how could there be?

So that:

1.) Some people write the very minimum definition: "Babe Ruth was a baseball player."

2.) Other people (me, for instance) tend to try to put more info in: "Babe Ruth (1884-1947) was an American baseball player who dominated the game during the 1920s and revolutionized the game by his introduction of the home run as a major part of it."  Or some such.

Both, I suppose, are correct.  I've never really understood why we are creating Definitions in the first place, although I've had it explained to me and I seemed to grasp the concept at the time.  But it's elusive, at least to me.

So, in sum, I guess that there are minimalists and maximalists when it comes to Definitions....

There's a quality of "who's on First." Are you speaking of Definition Pages, articles that Define professions or skills, or definitions in the body of articles?

Apropos baseball, I am reminded of the guy who went into the bar and said his dog talked. The bartender said that would get free drinks, if proven. So, the guy turns to the dog and asks, "what's on top of this building?"

"Roof!"

The bartender asks, "who was the greatest baseball player in history?"

"Roof!"

After the man and dog pick themselves off the sidewalk, the dog looked at him and asked, "should I have said DiMaggio?"

Somewhere in this is something about the philosophy of definitions.

['docmartin' (Dr Martin Cohen)]

Ah, mea culpa. I didn't realize you were referring only to the definition.

In any case, there's a philosophical debate to be made about these "definitions" in the first place:

I think that they are being created on a strictly ad hoc basis, by whoever chooses to do so, with a couple of guidelines, sure, but not much more.  Ie, "one sentence only", "don't put the name of the subject into the definition", etc. Beyond that there's nothing.  As, actually, how could there be?

So that:

1.) Some people write the very minimum definition: "Babe Ruth was a baseball player."

2.) Other people (me, for instance) tend to try to put more info in: "Babe Ruth (1884-1947) was an American baseball player who dominated the game during the 1920s and revolutionized the game by his introduction of the home run as a major part of it."  Or some such.

Both, I suppose, are correct.  I've never really understood why we are creating Definitions in the first place, although I've had it explained to me and I seemed to grasp the concept at the time.  But it's elusive, at least to me.

So, in sum, I guess that there are minimalists and maximalists when it comes to Definitions....

Roof, roof!

I think the idea must be that we're really supposed to offer summaries, not so much definitions... a bit like a newspaper article has a bit in 'bold' type... but the nature of summaries is that they impose short-cuts and require 'summation'...

Reading entries, for mysefl I find the one line 'definition' irritating, it comes over as mere repetition and clutters the page, but the three line summary helpful.

[Hayford Peirce]

There's a quality of "who's on First." Are you speaking of Definition Pages, articles that Define professions or skills, or definitions in the body of articles?

Definition pages only. The last I heard, they were supposed to be brief summaries of no more than a single sentence and without the article's title repeated in this phase. I can see how I got you confused. I should have said, anent the Babe Ruth article, that the definiton might read: ''American baseball player who hit a lot of home runs." Or some such.  Sorry for the confusion, sloppy thinking on my part. (Please pass the cup of hemlock, with a little bit of Noilly Prat Vermouth in it....)

[Hayford Peirce]

I think the idea must be that we're really supposed to offer summaries, not so much definitions... a bit like a newspaper article has a bit in 'bold' type... but the nature of summaries is that they impose short-cuts and require 'summation'...

Yes, I think you're right.  But, as I was trying to say in my inept way, no one really knows how much or how little info should be put into them.

Reading entries, for mysefl I find the one line 'definition' irritating, it comes over as mere repetition and clutters the page, but the three line summary helpful.

Well, this whole idea of "definitions" is, to me, sort of a puzzlement.  Smarter people than I have found good reasons to have invented them, however, so I'm just trying to go with the flow....

[David E. Volk]

Regarding definitions, they work nicely with the "r" template to give a quick explaination of a term to further interest the reader.
See http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Vietnam_War/Related_Articles as a nice example.

[Chris Day]

Regarding definitions, they work nicely with the "r" template to give a quick explaination of a term to further interest the reader.

In fact, definitions exist because they were needed for the [r] template to function in a useful way. There are several things to consider when trying to understand why they are necessary in their current form.

1) The more restrictive guideline for writing a definition is due to the limited space on any Related Articles subpage.
2) A definition of a topic can exist without the article. Thus, lists of topics on a Related Articles subpage can have a definition even when no article exists.
3) When any definition is improved that edit is immediately seen on any Related Articles subpage that uses the definition.  This is critical for maintainability of the Related Articles subpages.

Definitions are not seen on the actual articles because there is an assumption that the opening summary will be superior to the more concise definition.

['docmartin' (Dr Martin Cohen)]

Regarding definitions, they work nicely with the "r" template to give a quick explaination of a term to further interest the reader.
See http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Vietnam_War/Related_Articles as a nice example.

Yes, it certainly makes sense there. Pity about the effect on the topic pages themselves - maybe. Swings and roundabouts.

[Tom Morris]

Oh, this question is a fun one: who decides whether someone is a philosopher? It would be so much simpler if becoming a philosopher were like learning to drive: you'd take the test, and pay the fee and you are in. As a rough litmus test, I'd say that anyone who advances an idea that gets discussed in philosophy classes at the university level passes the test. This test solidifies most people's intuitions. Locke, Hume, Plato, Sartre, Wittgenstein - all pass the test easily. Now, Ayn Rand. If I search my university's library, there are eighteen books on Ms. Rand. I've seen a few of them lurking on the shelves in the philosophy section, although I'm guessing many of these books would probably be found in the literature or the American studies sections (said library has one of the finest collections of books on American politics, culture and history). The same library has 956 books on Plato and 619 books on Locke, just as a point of comparison. I do remember that in my first year ethics lectures, we very briefly studied Rand as a prototypical example of an ethical egoist. I think Rand's standing as a philosopher would be reasonably easy to figure out: call up a bunch of random philosophy professors and ask them whether they'd tell off a student if they had cited Rand in an essay.

As for Rand's philosophy? I see nothing intrinsically irrational in subscribing to the various components of her philosophy, but it's the glue that puts them together where the problem is (plus all the cultish stuff around Rand is a bit too creepy for my liking).

[Troy Williamson]

Hmmmmm.  Don't misunderstand--I am not taking offense--but the discussion of the question is interesting.  I hold a master's degree in philosophy, and I currently teach philosophy at the undergraduate level.  But, alas, I teach at a two-year college where I also serve as the chair of the academic division and have other duties that are a part of my job, leaving precious little time for research and writing.  Because of that, I'm not contributing to the body of knowledge, and that means I'm not a philosopher.  Hmmmmm.  I'd never thought of it in that way, I suppose.

That would mean that one might be (a) a philosopher, (b) an instructor of philosophy, (c) a writer of philosophy, etc.  Is that the distinction that is being drawn?  So I'm an instructor of philosophy, but not actually a philosopher--and Rand is a writer of philosophy, but not actually a philosopher (or something along those lines?).

[Hayford Peirce]

Hi, Troy,

Are you a member Citizendium?  If not, this particular Forum site is for members only, who have *also* registered to be Forum members.  Both things are easy to do!

If you *are* a Citizendium member already, and a Forum member, welcome aboard!  And to conform to our rules for participants in these Forums, would you kindly go to the little tab in the middle of this page that says Profile, then go to Forum Profile Information on the left side of the screen (under MODIFY PROFILE),  then scroll on down to the bottom of the screen and where it says Signature, and put in something more or less like:

My CZ user page: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Your_CZName

This will enable your profile to be easily viewed by anyone who reads one of your messages here in the Forums. And thereby enables us, up to a point, at least, to make some sort of initial judgment about how much credence/deference/respect/belief/etc./etc. to give to anything you happen to post since there are always new people joining our discussions....

Thanks!

Hayford Peirce, Constable

PS -- for non-members, there *are* Forum sites where they are very welcome to participate

[Troy Williamson]

My apologies ... I just joined, so I appreciate the information on how to get the profile "linked" to the forum.  I'll get that taken care of.

Looks like that worked (at least on my view).  Thank you again for the helpful instruction on how to get that set up.

[Chris Day]

That would mean that one might be (a) a philosopher, (b) an instructor of philosophy, (c) a writer of philosophy, etc.  Is that the distinction that is being drawn?

Can you be a phiolosopher without a formal training.  I would think so. i think its more about what you say and do than your qualifications. Should any person with a phiolosophy degree be considered a phiolosopher? Perhaps, at least in a descriptive way to describe their education.  I guess its all context at the end of the day.

[Troy Williamson]

In another thread of this forum ("Where is everyone?"), Aleta Curry referred to:
     "non-serious scholars"?, students, newbiews, people with experience but not professional credentials
Perhaps I'm saying more about myself than I intend (lol), but I'm not quite sure what a "non-serious scholar" would be.  And what credentials count as "professional credentials"?

Again, I'm not offended ... I actually find the question very intriguing.  If we are going to define "philosophy" as a certain sort of pursuit, how do we accurately (and fairly) identify those who are "philosophers" (in the sense of being engaged in that pursuit)?  That is not an easy question, to be sure.

It may be true that there are some whose views are unfounded, so they have not contributed to the body of knowledge with which philosophy deals.  But have they participated in the philosophical pursuit?  The difficulty here, of course, is that every contemplative would meet the definition ... they have engaged the pursuit.

So perhaps the answer is that the definition must be qualified.  By "philosopher," for the purposes of this article, we would be identifying those who have contributed positively to the body of knowledge which makes up the field of study.  That doesn't mean that there are not other "philosophers" out there ... those who are "philosophers" in a different sense of the word.

Philosophy depends, after all, on a careful definition of terms.  I would think that the manner in which we identify a "philosopher" would need to be done with the same care that goes into all else that is pursued within our study.

But maybe I'm missing something.