Before you entered this subject, you lnust have heard or used a number

of jokes about philosophers. Philosophers have been the object of laughter for

as long as the world can remember. Thales, himself. was known to have been

laughed at one day when he was busily gazing up the heavens, and fell into

a clstem. Another Greek philosopher, Socrates, was comically portrayed by the

comedian Aristophanes. He said that Socrates, and all the other philosophers,

are ugly and unkempt because they have no lime to bathe. They have a"big

tongue"and they teach the young rebellious thoughts that encourage them to

beat their fathers (Nussbaum, 1997),

In our context, we have used thc ter 111"pi/n, lopa " to refer to someone who

asks a lot of questions, many of which are judged as nonsense or out-of-this-

world. We often do not take a"pito, vopo"seriously because we think of them

as simply trying lo get attention by annoying other s. But is this really what a

philosopher is?

To answer this question, let us analyze the origin of the word Philosophy.

Philosophy is the joining of two Greek words, plzilos or pltitein ; which means

love ; and Soplzia, which generally means wisdom. Taken together, this means

that pltitos-soplzia is the tove Of Tvisdom, what is the love of wisdom? We can

best appreciate this by recalling the story of Socrates, whose life and death, is a

moving picture of this love.

Socrates (C. 470-399 13. C.) of Athens, Greece, is known through the

writings of his student, plato (c. 427-348 B. C.). Jn one of Plato's writings

(Apology), a friend of socrates went lo a priestess (an oracle) to ask who

was the wisest nian. The priesless answered that."There is no man wiser than

Socrates. " When Socrates heard this, he djd not believe it. He was certain that

he did not know anything.

For I knew I h(ld no wisdotn. Alier thinking it over Jor a long time,

I decided thttt l heul to. fin«l (l ltiall wiser than myself so could go back

to the god k or crete w itlt this evidence. So went to see a politician who

was. F{nnous Jor his \ pisdom. But when q uestioned him, I realized he

reali!? was ?tot wise, although many people-he especiallp-tholtght

he wils. Sol tried to explain to him that althottgh he thougltt himsev

wise, he really was not. But all that happened was that he came to

hate nle. And so did many of his supporters who overheard us. So I left

him, thinking to myself as I lefit that although neither of tts really knew
anything about what is noble and good, still I was better ojJ. For he

knows nothing, and thinks that he knows, while I neither know nor think

that I know. And in this J think I have a slight advantage.'

Then I went to another person who had even greater pre tensions to

wisdom. The result was exactly the same. I made another enemy. In this

way went to one man aliter another and made more and more enernies.

I Jett bad about this and it Jrightened me. But I was corrtpelled to do it

because I Jelt that investigating god oracle camejir st. I said to myself

J must go to everyone who seems to be wise so can lind out what the

oracle means."(Plato, 2008).

Socrates'reputation during his time was that of an annoying philosopher

who would emba】Tass others in the process of asking them questions about

what they professed as their expertise. Because of this humiliation hc caused,

M.