Thank you Jong Camallere for such a candid question.
I am going to start by saying something that many philosophers will consider ridiculous: philosophers do not seek truth, but clarity. The philosophically minded individual must not seek truth, and must even be willing to accept that truth may be unattainable. There are several behaviours that constitute what it is to be philosophical: exploration, analysis, and anti-authoritarianism. I’ll explain how each of these works, and then show how, when taken together, they enable a person to be philosophical.
Firstly, a philosophically minded individual must want to explore: not just ideas, but everything, as they cannot know in advance whether something will be relevant, interesting, or useful. If they are presented with an argument, they must want to look at every detail in order to see it for what it is. They must be like a chef who goes out into the world trying to find new ingredients and comes back into their kitchen to experiment with them in as many ways possible. Most importantly, the philosophically minded individual must not be concerned with how others feel about what they are doing; no matter how strange or dangerous their exploration might seem, they mustn’t permit themselves to believe that other people already know what is and what isn’t worth investigating.
Secondly, a philosophically minded individual must be critical. They must not accept things as they appear, but rather look closely at them, so that the previously familiar becomes unfamiliar. Philosophy is the attempt to see the unfamiliar in places where it is concealed by the familiar. Take the idea that humans are individuals, for example. When Descartes claimed that he could know, for certain, that he existed because he was thinking, he was unable to see past the familiar idea that humans are conscious beings with minds and bodies. His critics would later point out that none of these things are certain; and that even if there are ‘thoughts’, it doesn’t mean that there must be a ‘thinker’. We are forced to look at reality in an unfamiliar way and to see that what we considered true was merely familiar. (This is one of the reasons many works of philosophy are very difficult to read; for they are attempting to explore and describe the unfamiliar as it is, not conceal it behind more familiar language). To be critical is to actively investigate the familiar and unfamiliar in order to have a clearer understanding of what they are.
Lastly, a philosophically minded individual must be opposed to all authority, without exception. In order to be an explorer and a critic to the extent required for philosophy, a person must not accept the authority of anyone or anything. They can learn from those who are more experienced in certain matters, and they can prefer certain methods of doing philosophy if those methods help them make the best sense of reality. But at no point can they ever allow their thinking to be dictated by a set rules. You might object that this answer is itself a set of rules, and in a way you’d be right. But it is also an attempt to describe what philosophers do in order to clarify the practice of philosophy, and any philosophically minded person would out of necessity both explore and criticise everything I’ve written here.
Taken together, these characteristics comprise what it is to be a philosophically minded individual.
What do you think? What makes someone a philosopher? Let us know in the comments.
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Image: Diogenes (detail), by John William Waterhouse (1882)
I did my BA in Philosophy & Creative Writing at London Metropolitan University, then completed MAs in Continental Philosophy at Warwick University and Social & Political Thought at Sussex University. I started (but didn’t complete) a DPhil at Sussex University, and have taught at Sussex, King’s College London and Birkbeck. I am particularly interested in political philosophy (both analytic and continental) and have studied modern philosophy (especially Descartes and Hume), Existentialism, Phenomenology, Critical Theory, and post-structuralist thought. I am most interested in the ancient Greek practice of parrhesia (the art of speaking frankly), as I think it is something we need very much right now.
This was a good read!
Thank you for this article. I have been trying to understand my reasons for being interested in philosophy. When you said, in the first paragraph, ‘philosophers do not seek truth, but clarity’ I had an immediate light-bulb moment.
When analysing my approach to intellectual matters (especially in my academics) I have found that it has always been to come to a good understanding of them (synonymous with clarity) rather than an absolute need to know the truth. For example, when studying physics at school, one of my central objectives was to critically understand Newtonian mechanical theory, which isn’t exactly the truth of nature’s inner workings. However, I would still want to know exactly what that truth is.
I always felt guilty for this, I felt like an imposter whose focus has mainly been clarity instead of truth. But it is nice to know this is perfectly okay and is the norm.