What counts as philosophy

 

What counts? That is a question that is of high importance to philosophers. What counts as ethical action? What counts as a heap? What counts as free will? What counts as philosophy?

                That last one was placed in stark relief recently on Twitter of all places.  A woman (I am not using her name, nor linking the tweet because she doesn’t need more crazy aimed at her) posted a funny tweet. It was two pictures. The first was an image of David Hume with the caption: “what people think philosophers look like”. The second, an image of her captioned: “what they really look like”.

                It was a cute meme. It did the job of reminding us that philosophers exist in today’s world, not just way back in them days, as the kids say.  It also pointed up that when most people think of philosophy, they picture old white men and that isn’t the entire picture.

                The poster has a MS in Philosophy. Is working on a PhD, also in philosophy. Has been published in peer reviewed philo journals and teaches philosophy at a university. All of this I to say: she is a philosopher.

                But, are all those credentials necessary? Surely a philosopher is anyone who does philosophy, right?

                If you are wondering how this went for the OP, well, she was flooded with hate, misogyny, “well actually”s, comments about her appearance, people who are clearly very sexually attracted to Hume, and so much more. It was a big damn mess.

 

What’s all of this to do with Bloodfest the Podcast?

 

Well, we are philosophers and here is the proof: