Re:Philosophy Needs a New Definition
by 0xCMP on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @02:55PM
(#15963614)
The author makes the point that these are philosophers, but our current pure, strict definition of that makes them just writers and filmmakers. Like you said, more people have seen one of their films, or read one of their books, than read an academic philosophy paper
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Well, yes. My complaint is really about the idea of "our current pure, strict definition". Who gets to make that definition, and when was it ever different?
When Randy Cohen ran "The Ethicist" column in the NYT, and a similar program for NPR ... didn't most non-academics consider it philosophy?
When people talk about "The Trolly Problem" ... isn't that also philosophy?
So it seems to me that many more people are engaged in philosophy - "not only our cognition, but also our imagination, emotions, artistic sensibility, religious impulses" - than the author acknowledges.