"Oh, you're a philosopher. What is one of your sayings?"

Occasionally the dreaded small talk arises and I am asked what it is that I do by someone I do not know.  I usually try to avoid having this question come up because it almost always leads to awkward silence, or even more awkward small talk, or friendly abuse.  So if I can't get away with saying "I'm a father" or "I'm a teacher," I will say that "I'm a teacher; I teach philosophy classes."


A teacher is someone who people can relate to.  Teachers are nice, they like kids and apples, and they work regular hours.  And it's true, I'm a teacher of philosophy and not a philosopher.  When I think of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and the like--those are philosophers (Aside: If people know you and you only have one name, you are either a philosopher, religious or political leader, or rock star).  Compared to them, I'm not a philosopher.  PERHAPS I may stumble across an original philosophical thought now and again, but it's worthless compared to the great ideas of the past.  I will concede, though, that I'm a philosopher (or at least can be) insofar as I can impart a philosophical spirit in students--a spirit to pursue truth, knowledge, and understanding for its own sake; to pursue certainty while being comfortable if nothing is certain; to follow the argument wherever it leads.

It has never happened to me, but occasionally I hear tales of philosophy professors being asked questions about being a philosopher which don't always admit to an easy answer, like the question in the title of this post.  The person, in this particular case, confuses a Sage full of aphorisms with a typical philosopher in the Western tradition who makes his living analyzing arguments, building intellectual systems and the like.

But doggonit philosophers (and philosophy professors) SHOULD have some sayings, if for no other reason than for situations like this when some salt-of-the-earth type is really interested and wants hit upside the head with a bit of wisdom or profundity!  This might be the only contact that this person you meet at the airport will ever have with philosophy and you should have SOMETHING TO SAY!!

The trouble is, it's difficult to come up with nice aphorisms; furthermore one must also commit them to memory, and who has time for that?

So I have decided that if ever such a situation arises I will say the following:

I am the philosopher with only one saying and it is this: I am the philosopher with no sayings.