[lit-ideas] Re: What is philosophy? Susan Langer writes....

Walter writes that the passage from Langer is ambiguous because depending on how the phrase "[a] desire to deal with general ideas from the outset" is understood one could make at least two different responses to it. One response, apparently, is that 'no serious philosopher' understands the business of philosophy to be as Langer portrays it.
Phil Enns responds to John's complaint that the referent of the expression 'serious philosopher' is nowhere described by retorting that 'serious philosopher' is precise enough for government work and that 'modern philosopher' is no more precise. (Take that!)
I'm surprised that Walter has called upon that mythical hero the Serious Philosopher, whose counterpart, the True Scotsman, has already been dismissed from lit-ideas. I wonder, in the spirit of the season, whether the criterion for one's being a serious philosopher is just that one who said, e.g., 'What Langer says about the enterprise of philosophy is dead right,' could have no further claim to the title 'philosopher' or to the adjective 'serious.' If turns out that this is the only criterion perhaps the True Scotsman needs to be taken out of his case in the British Museum so that he can be seen to be stuffed with straw. Let the light shine upon him. If however there are other criteria, for philsophical seriousness, would it really hurt to list one or two of them? 

Cherni H'leb
Professor of Really Modern Philosophy
Mutton College



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