Calling Philosophers Names

This fascinating scholarly book is a breakthrough study about the origins of the term philosopher in Ancient Greece. The title reflects the fact that it was originally a name-calling and norm-policing verbal slight rather than an indication of the love of wisdom. In its original form, the category of sophoi denoted a political advice-giving sage and it seems to have been first more systematically used by the Pythagoreans. Interestingly, sophistry is still pejorative as it was in Plato's dialogues. The three parts trace the evolutionary trajectory of the term, starting with the critique of Heraclitus, considering its various meanings, then looking at Pythagoras in more detail. A central chapter considers Socrates's prosecution as philosophos, asking if he did in fact, like Anaxagoras, exemplify the category in his time. Plato is cautious in his attribution of the term, given its continuing pejorative associations, while Socrates himself considers his prosecution to reflect the subversive role of the philosophos in calling fundamentals into question.

The next chapter discusses the contribution of Isocrates to the development of the term as it moved in the direction of argument, (self-)examination and improvement, and criticism. Then there is a more detailed discussion of the use of philosophos in Plato's dialogues, which embed 'a practice of concentrated and semiformal conversations about matters conducing to virtue and flourishing…philosophy as a beneficial conversational-educational activity.' The chapter on Aristotle demonstrates his absolutely central role in forming the discipline through a historical consideration of his predecessors (who became the pre-Socratics), not to mention his contributions to formal logic. Hence 'the discipline of philosophy depends on its own history; its evidence is the history of its historiography…. as a web of diachronic conversations.' The author shows that there is still continuing ambivalence about the term in the fourth century after Aristotle. Finally, the epilogue connects contemporary philosophy with the history of the discipline, which amounts to more than what is taught and published in universities. He captures its enduring value in its 'attention to detail, validity, and truth, with personal responsibility, and with the hope of a better life.' We need this more than ever in our own era.