You Can Call Yourself a Philosopher but Not a Sage

I Figured Out Why the YouTube Commenters Get Salty

nabbed this beautiful picture from here

In the introduction sections of my ParkNotes YouTube videos I often say:

“welcome to ParkNotes, I’m Parker Settecase, I’m a philosopher and theologian and this is a channel where I help you study, think, and read more deeply.”

This has offended a small, but not insignificant, portion of my audience, and I never understood why. What offends them? That I call myself a theologian? Rarely. It’s the philosopher bit that really sticks in people’s craws.

Why? Because I only have a Master’s degree in philosophy and not a PhD? Surprisingly no. Now, that would actually make sense to me. I didn’t want to call myself a philosopher until I had earned my PhD. I bought in pretty heavy to an old gate-keepy expression about a PhD being a license to do philosophy or some dumb crap like that. I’ve had many PhD philosophers on my podcast over the years and most have told me that I am a philosopher and should refer to myself as such and how Plato and the greats before the mid 1900s didn’t have PhDs because they weren’t a thing yet—that’s why modern folks like Richard Swinburne don’t have a PhD but are stupid good at philosophy nonetheless. But, if a PhD’d philosopher commented on my ParkNotes vids and said something like “hey man, you probably shouldn’t call yourself that until you earn the right to by defending a dissertation in an accredited program” then I’d at least understand that sentiment. But that’s not where the affronted YouTube commenters are coming from.

They think something like “no one gets to call themselves a philosopher, it’s pretentious, pompous, presumptuous, or self-aggrandizing”. Now if you’ve been around academic philosophy programs, you’ll find this notion odd. You know philosophers who literally make their living by being philosophers. It’s their job. How is it arrogant or pretentious to say “I’m an X” when being an X is literally how you sustain yourself?

Well, perhaps they’d reply with something like Descartes or Emerson’s contention that today there are professors of philosophy, but no true philosophers—which is a pretty sweet burn actually. Though, if they hate these more obscure quotes in mind, then they’d probably have studied a good deal of philosophy and would have met some actual professors of philosophy who are good philosophers in their own rights and might not get incensed enough to comment on a YouTube video, even if they believed the sentiment.

No, I think something else is going on. The knee-jerk, “you can’t call yourself a philosopher” response used to baffle me. I’d get all worked up and start listing off my qualifications, usually in my head, but occasionally in the comment section as well. “I have a Master’s degree in philosophy. I earned two Theology Master’s degrees, one of which was heavily focused on analytic philosophy of religion and the other of which was focused on analytic theology and continental philosophy. I’ve published in academic theology journals on philosophical theology and in an interdisciplinary artificial intelligence journal on the philosophy of machine consciousness. I spend all my time researching ancient to cutting-edge philosophy for my philosophy podcast where I interview leading philosophers, or creating public-facing philosophy content to Trojan-horse into videos about philosophical notebook and study methods. Blah blah blah…”. On and on I’ve gone listing my credentials and trying to justify my use of the title ‘philosopher’.

But it rarely satisfies the commenters and I think I finally know why! I’ve been studying the bifurcation of the ancient wisdom traditions and the Western philosophical tradition lately and it hit me: when I say ‘philosopher’ those who get all worked up hear ‘sage’. They think ‘philosopher’ is something like an honorific, something that conveys esteem, high regard, etc., they think that by calling myself a philosopher I’m claiming to have exceptional wisdom or to be some kind of great philosopher—as if I’m calling myself Pythagoras or Socrates.

If we lived somewhen before the split between the wisdom tradition and the Western philosophical tradition, they’d probably be right to think that. The more ancient view of philosopher definitely incorporated more of a philosophical-sage aspect to it, even if folks like the Stoics held that true sagery may be an unrealizable ideal.

But the two traditions have come apart somewhere along the line and to be a philosopher is definitely not synonymous with being a sage.

There are lots of ways for someone to be a philosopher today, but only one way for someone to be a sage. You can be a professional philosopher, i.e., someone who works as a philosopher and presumably earns a living from it (yes, yes, large pizzas and feeding families and all that, so funny). Professional philosophers are often academic philosophers, i.e., they work in an academic institution, most likely teaching philosophy to others and writing academic articles in order to keep their jobs (you publish or you perish in the academy). But a professional philosopher may work in the private sector as well, as an ontology engineer or some kind of logician for a tech company, for instance, or as an idea person in some kind of firm. One could also be a public philosopher like Mortimer Adler or Tom Morris who earned their livings teaching philosophy to the public through books and through high paying business conferences.

There are also different philosophical traditions one could have been trained in, like ‘analytic’ philosophy which emphasizes rigor, logical analysis and notation, and pedantry—oops, uh and “getting clear on interesting questions”. Then there is so-called ‘continental’ philosophy which asks really great, actually interesting questions, but which apparently gives each philosopher the privilege of inventing their own languages in trying to answer those truly interesting questions. There’s also the more classical kind of philosophy which prioritizes past thinkers and schools of philosophy, and those guys are usually pretty profound and awesome if I’m being honest.

There’s also a spectrum on the quality of one’s philosophy. You can be a really good philosopher. You can also be a really bad philosopher. You can be a novice philosopher. You can be a seasoned philosopher. You can be a lay philosopher. There are just a ton of ways that one could be described and self-described as a philosopher.

But can the same be said of the sage? I really don’t think so. If sages exist, that is, if that quality is instantiable—wait that was less clear—if ‘sage’ is not just an unrealizable ideal, but actually an achievable goal, then still there are very few of them. I’m not sure it makes any sense to say “sure, I’m a sage, I’m just not a very good one”. What would that even mean? You’re not a very wise sage? Then you’re not a sage. You’re not very moral or virtuous? Then you’re not a sage. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that can come in degrees like that.

Even more importantly, ‘sage’ doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we could call ourselves. It’d be like saying, “why yes, I am very very wise. I have indeed achieved the pinnacle of human wisdom”. It sounds so arrogant and crazy. A true sage would never commend themselves as such. That’s really for others to decide and declare. It truly does seem like a kind of honorific.

So, if someone hears me saying “I am a sage, I am exceptionally wise” when I say “I’m a philosopher” then I totally understand their revulsion. To them it’s as if I’m calling myself super handsome, but maybe even worse. They are mistaken, however. Philosophers and sages are not the same thing today. It’s pretty easy to be a philosopher but super difficult to be a good one. But it may be impossible to be a true sage.

But as always, this is not the last word on these things. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, especially if your thoughts agree with mine.