What Even is Philosophy? And Who are Philosophers?

A question has been bothering me, burning itself into my mind from all of the thinking about it:

"What even is philosophy, and who is a philosophy?"

Let us begin with the seemingly simpler question, who is a philosopher? The simple answer, so many people have been giving throughout the ages is simple those that ask philosophical questions. But then we soon end up back to the central question, what is philosophy? Because how do we judge whether a question is philosophical? What counts as a philosophical question? We might meander on the topic of the meaning of it all, but do we really take these simple "philosophical questions" to be philosophy proper?

We might gesture toward the more problematic notion that you have to study philosophy to be considered a philosopher. This is problematic because it is inherently elitist, you can only become a philosopher by one, spending copious amounts of money to sit in lecture halls, and two, you have the luxury of time to study and read philosophy books and articles. But this again then brings us to another question, is philosophy just the study and reading of what others have said?

Now, we can tentatively bring the notions discussed above together: a philosopher is someone who studies philosophy by producing philosophy. It is a conversation you enter via reading and then by responding through written (and sometimes oral) discourse. It is about entering academia and publishing papers discussing contemporary issues...

But now, what about people who publish on philosophy and do not engage with academic discourse? Think about pop-philosophy books and authors writing about philosophy but themselves never publishing academic articles and academic books. Are they not philosophers?

Think alos lecturers who teach philosophy but themselves rarely publishing, maybe a paper here and there, or a commentary here and there but themselves having PhDs and Master's degrees. Are they not philosophers?

For about 10 years, I have been studying philosophy, and in the last three or so years, I have been publishing philosophy papers and book chapters. I have held some contract work jobs, making dribs and drabs in the process and getting paid to teach philosophy and grade papers. So, I have been on both sides of the fence.

Yet, I am still wondering what makes one a philosopher.

There is this idea that one needs to live one's philosophy, coming partly from the Greeks. So, if you could not live your philosophy, it was no good to be called philosophy. But this is highly problematic today because academic philosophy deals with philosophical ideas not really "livable" in the sense that you can live your philosophy.

So, I am again questioning this idea of what philosophy is and who are philosophers.

For I have spent so much time reading and writing, studying and thinking about, practicing and publishing philosophy that I am not yet much wiser to what these answers are.

I am struggling to think about what philosophy is because of this struggle to make sense of toward what I am working.

For we publish papers that few people will read, we write voluminous dissertations that certainly nobody will read, and we slave ourselves to the system that churn out students by the thousands, demanding us to mark these papers and asses whether the students understood the work.

And all the time I am wondering, is this what philosophy is and who philosophers are? Slaves to the system we all questioned when we did our first course on philosophy? Philosophy students are taught in first year to question the system, but when you stand on the other side, you are slowly forced to get in line and not to question...

All of the musings and writings are my own, albeit inspired by these strange questions. The photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300.