Everyone is a Philosopher!

Some “professional” and academic philosophers will hold their status and pedigree with a certain level of elitism so that they don’t want to call other people who don’t have a high-level degree a philosopher. But in reality, most people are philosophers some more than others, and children being philosophers we can learn a lot from since their curiosity is at such an all-time high at such a young age. Most people are philosophers because although they may not all dabble in the history of philosophy and look at old philosophical ideas and try to use them to influence their own views, they all have beliefs and philosophical systems of thought that influence their direction and choices made in life.

Us older philosophers myself included need to learn from children that our curiosity shouldn’t die out when we age just because we become jaded and lose our joy in existence because a big spark for children being endlessly curious is that they don’t have years of experience with existence and struggle that an adult has but if as an adult we can learn to find joy and beauty in life I believe that curiosity will come right back and make us better philosophers for it. As children our parents and authority figures are responsible for instilling and building up our philosophical system that will influence our choices and direction for the rest of our lives. While we age our system and direction will change and grow but the foundation was put in place which is why it's so important to instill curiosity in children at a young age even if they are naturally curious we need to teach them that curiosity is a virtue.

We see then that children are philosophers because of their natural curious tendencies but what about adults? Adults are because if you ever ask an adult who isn't an academic philosopher a philosophical question like does God exist? They will have an answer even if they didn't study philosophical literature surrounding the topic like an authority in philosophy would have. Since these people do have opinions about philosophical questions then it's clear they are indeed a philosopher that may not have the same training as other philosophers but have a philosophical system to understand the world makes one a philosopher even if you're not a good philosopher. This shows the important role public philosophy could play in a philosophical space of academia because there could be insight and value in the public consensus of a philosophical belief.

So next time you're having a deep conversation with someone about the meaning of life tell them their opinions are validated since you're both philosophers trying to understand existence and there truly is beauty in that. And as always stay curious!