Philosophers

[shoppinggirl]

What did the greek philosophers do in Greece

[archbishop]

Philosophise.

[tartanwiz]

Discussed theories together, wrote their own personal theories down, and took classes of students. Often they influenced government, but occasionally they would get into trouble with the political / religious establishment of the day. This happened to Socrates, who met the death penalty - drinking poison - for actively encouraging the young to think for themselves and question everything. He also refused to recant his atheism.

[tartanwiz]

Discuss dialectics, debate materialism versus idealism, and smash chairs over each other.

[Merlin]

They didn't do anything. They just thought about it. But then we know they were because they thought because they were philosophers. Being a philosopher proves your existence. They were therefore justifying their own existence. Is that 'doing' something, though? Are you doing something if you are engaged only in mental activity? If all that you voluntarily 'do' is cause electro-chemical activity in your brain, are you 'active'? What is a philosopher anyway?

[Merlin]

But seriously, though.

First look up Plato and Aristotle (not literally, but literally) and that wil lead you to other philosophers and other schools of thought. Or for something lighter as an introduction to philosophers, read Jostein Gaardner's 'Sophie's World'.

[Merlin]

I deliberately left out Sockers. I strongly suspect that he was actually a figment of Plato's imagination. Plato considered the source of his own knowledge through reasoning and surmised that it came from without. So he invented this character 'Plato' as his inspiration and to be the scapegoat should any of his theories be labelled as nonsense.

[Peter Pedant]

 

I asked my English master this in 1964. It turned out that he was quite a famous philosopher. He turned it into, What do philosphers do, when they think? This plagued him so much that he then had prolonged discussions with other  philosphers in order to supply an answer. The answer was not short by the way.

Clearly anyone who thinks may not be a philosopher. A theoretical physicist thinks, but no-one would really say what he writes about is philosophy.

A school boy suggested that philosophy is thinking about thinking. Short and snappy, and also self-referential for those who like mathematical logic.

A jesuit suggested that theology is philosophy with added divine revelation. I would regard that definition as jesuitical.

Socrates by the way was charged with corrupting youth, on which he was found guilty and condemned to drink hemlock

[Merlin]

So Plato says. Socrates was Plato's imaginary friend. He was able to blame all that sort of thing on Socrates. "I", says Plato, "Could never have anything but a Platonic relationship by definition". Everything that he thought came from "Socrates". Shopping girl (there's a tautology!!!) why restrict it to Greeks?. Check out Descartes - "I think therefore I am" was fairly radical in it's day. Kant (German) was a clever chap too, for his day - he said why do only one or the other - do both! (think and measure, that is). Both of them went off the rails a bit, though, when they came up with their 'proofs' of God's existence.