IS KANYE WEST A PHILOSOPHER?
One of my professors at Oxford used to say “the beginning of wisdom in philosophy is to learn not to jump straight in to answering questions but to begin by questioning the questions themselves.” Granted, this is exactly the kind of saying that tends to give philosophy a bad name, but we’ve got to side with him in this case. What is a philosopher? As you might expect, philosophers can’t even agree on this. Here’s a selection of definitions that have been proposed over the years: A lover of wisdom This is the definition you get by analysing the etymology of the word. ‘Philo’ is Greek for love and ‘sophos’ is Greek for wisdom. Ergo, a philosopher is a lover of wisdom. I think this is an overly-romantic definition for what is often, in its current guise, a thoroughly unromantic discipline. When I hear the w...