Quote:
Originally Posted by VideCorSpoon  If philosophy had a purpose of its own, I fear the world would get a lot warmer from all the hot air everyone would be blowing. Aristophanes had a great quote that said of Socrates, “I tread the air and contemplate the sun.” Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels said that the preoccupation of one scientist/philosopher at the academy was to, “extract sunlight from cucumbers.” Truly, philosophy is a noble profession. |
I meant, of all the purposes traditionally we assume philosophy has, don't you think there is one that is the essential one? What do you think that is the cause of people's thinking about thinking and about people thinking?
Sorry if I seem to be below the standards... I don't know much about famous philosophers (I have read Gulliver's Travels, even Plato's Dialogs, but I have never gone much further).