Where have the true philosophers gone?

Question

Why haven't there been thinkers at the level of Socrates in the modern world (i.e. last century or so)? Have we lost the ability to think objectively? For that matter, what happened to the Mozarts? Is modern society beating the geniuses down too early in life?

Answer 1

Modern media capitalism has killed them or, more precisely, drowned them in an ocean of meaninglessness.
For all its virtues, our society is very frivolous and caters to the lowest common denominator. Let's face it: Britney Spears is more famous than any living philosopher. Consumer society is also the society of the throw-away artist. Someone like Shakespeare, Socrates or Confucius doesn't spring up out of nowhere. It takes a long time to develop that kind of depth. But our society is interested in strong sensations, not depth, and doesn't have much patience for thing that don't produce immediate, obvious results.
Go even a few decades back. Pink Floyd was not a well-known band until its sixth album. Today, there's no way a record label will give you six albums to develop as an artist. If the second one doesn't do anything extraordinary, the big names stop returning your phone calls.
We've come to expect faster to mean better. I beg to differ.

Answer 2

I do think our society IS encouraging more base activity, but in no means is our society without its philosophers. However, in a world where the number of questions decrease every day, it is getting too hard for philosophers to have a place in this world. Everything is slowly getting answered with the agents of psychology and sociology, as well as anthropology and biology.

To answer you second question: I don't think the Mozarts are prevalent these days because as our society evolves, so does music. This also means that aesthetics evolves as well. There is a lot of diversity in the world. There are so many different types of people in the world. Frankly, there has always been music for the masses, and music for the elite.

For example, Mozart was a famous musician to us because of his contribution to music. But think about how many people in the lower classes probably heard Mozart's music while he was still alive. Most likely very few. He played in grand halls, which catered to the rich and powerful.

These days, we see the evolution of music on a different scale because the gap between rich and poor is getting blurred ever so much every day. We see the rapper go from nothing to too much money to handle. Yes, I will agree that some music stresses that sex, drugs, cars, liquor, and money are all life is about, but there are still a few people who tell a story with their music.

Speaking of this, look to some of the music out there, it speaks for itself as philosophy. The above example is one ideal. A singer tells you how they feel, what they feel, and how things should be done in their music selection or song. It's all a matter of taste and understanding.

This being said, I hope you can see the philosophers all around you. Just because a man or a woman is not great like Socrates or Mozart doesn't make him/her untrue. Greatness doesn't define who we should be and how we should think. The simplest man could change the way we think. It's all in what and how he says something.

Keep that in mind!

Answer 3

In ancient Greece, philosophers were learned men who researched diverse fields such as sciences, math, theology, astronomy, spirituality, and others. Philosophy is considered the mother of all modern sciences since this is how all science began. The main reason why there are no true philosophers of the ancient Greek tradition today is because in today's world all the disciplines previously covered by philosophy are now compartmentalized into math, biology, ethics, theology, etc.
The ancient Greek had a tremendous advantage in that they were the first in the Western world to ponder these issues. In fact some people say that Plato's philosophical work (which also incorporates Socrates' teaching) has covered all important areas of philosophy up to this day.
Essentially, what are considered 'philosophical' subjects today such as ethics or metaphysics have no empirical basis and therefore there can not be expected to be any groundbreaking new evidence or discoveries in these fields.
In other words nobody can claim to be any wiser than Plato or Socrates with respect to purely speculative subjects.

As for Mozarts: IMO There are geniuses of his caliber even in this century. They may be in different kind of music,
Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, John Lennon,
George Gershwin, the list goes on and on.
In fact Mozarts childhood is not unlike Micheal Jacksons in that he was performing at a young age and reached stardom as a child prodigy.
He was a most prolific composer because he wanted to and had to. Unlike other composers of his day he chose to be a free-lancer and thus depend on the proceeds of his work rather than on regular salary by an employer. In his days a composer would earn only a fraction of what todays composers earn for the same amount of work.

Answer 4

I don't think that geniuses are nessacarly gone. I think that the world today lives to far apart. Most people don't even know the names of the people across the street. No one who is that intelligent can be found very eaisly. In addtion, many of the world's geniuses are 18 and younger, but no one has put them out there. The problem is that society thinks that if a person is young they are stupid. Many prodogies (sp?) were in their early years of life. from 14 - 20. This may be explained by the fact that back in those times not many people lived to be over 50, but it doesn't change anything. It is proven that a person learns faster the younger the person is. At age 2 a person gathers so much information that they learn to speak. How can you explain that? Truthfully, our real geniuses aren't reconized because they are too young or they just aren't found by big media compainies. There are geniuses out there, just not anyone that you would reconize.

Answer 5

There are more brilliant minds now than ever.

We live longer, know more and there's more of us who communicate with each other than the 100,000 citizens of Athens could ever hope for.

Godel, Russell, Davidson, Rorty, Putnam, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Lacan, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Habermas, Adorno...



There are hundreds in philosphy alone who are smarter than Socrates, let alone those who work in theoretical sciences. It sounds as if you've only read the beginning portion of history.

Don't give up your search without listening to Dmitri Shostakovich, or any of the brilliant musicians from this list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_21st_century_classical_composers

The genius of the world cannot be written down into a textbook of any size.

Answer 6

well the philosophers of the past had economic stability (family money/staus, etc) for the most part, and society held a sort of reverence for them(if not their all of their philosophies). Today, there is a greater push for more materialistic pursuits. There are still thinkers today, brilliant thinkers who may not label themselves necessarily as philosophers.

Answer 7

Because in modern days , the field is so vast and thinking is also quite difficult .Hence no true philosophers . More over science have answer for all questions . Hence no need to search for philosophical answers.

Answer 8

There are still philosophers of Socrates level in the world, and musicians of Mozart's level.

Answer 9

bec. such perfection takes tremendous application, natural ability and the life of a philosopher, to make decisions based upon knowledge. Americans are to focused on phyical enjoyment

Answer 10

well I myself being a genius, I can tell you exactly whats going on. I have philosophies coming out of my ***, but I just choose to keep them to my self, even if I were to decide to share my ideas with the world what good would it do? and now that you mention it I do feel alittle like modern society has beat me down abit, I think I will go to sleep.