Who Qualifies as Philosopher

In the antiquity two components entered the concept of philosophy: intellectual investigation of the ultimate reality and application of the ensuing findings in the life of a philosopher who had determined in his mind what the ultimate nature of the world is like. Unlike most students of history of philosophy the present author focuses on the second problem. When commenting on the unusual life style of Greek thinkers he uses the term that was originally applied by the Athenians to the peculiar and erratic behaviour of Socrates. A strangeness of this kind could be manifested in a philosopher's contacts with other philosophers or between any one of them and the ruler. In each case bizarre behaviour inspired popular suspicion, invited disfavour from the ruler and occasioned numerous squabbles among the philosophers themselves. Such clashes did not necessarily prove that the oddly behaving philosopher was in the wrong, while his society was in the right. But the conflict of standards could occasionally lead to the establishing of a reputation of a divine inspiration that presumably had affected the mind of a man of unorthodox ways.