You need to read, and then write.
Philosophy is about intuition, and about words. They may begin as your intuitions and your insistence on what is right and what is wrong. But your intuitions are personal, and this insistence is you enforcing your subjectivity. No one cares about your opinion, and philosophies are not opinions.
You need to understand what makes sense, not just to you, but to other people. You need to be able to understand the intuitions of others, and see how they make sense to themselves and to others. This can only be done through their words. Hence you must read.
As we learn various intuitions, we begin to see where they came from and where they are going. At this point, we can objectively map all of these people and what they brought to the table. Philosophy is what is on this table. And your reputation as a philosopher will rest on what you can bring to this table.
Philosophy isn’t about agreement or disagreement. It’s about all the positions that exist, and which you choose to pursue. And it’s about new positions and new intuitions that emerge from new sciences, new cultures, and new people.
Philosophy is the harvesting of what only now makes so much sense.
We can only contribute in writing. Hence, philosophers must write. They must read and write. That is how you become a philosopher.
Connor Galletly is right on here. There is no sitting down with a school counselor and saying I will take Class A, Class B, and Class C in order to become a philosopher. Sure there are things you can take in to move in that direction but there is not one mold which fits all philosophers.
Are you fascinated by the soul or answering the question, “Do I have a mind or am I merely a brain?” Consider Philosophy of the Mind. If you’re into politics or law there are philosophies that follow those topics. It really comes down to what you’re passionate about and start moving in that direction.
There are some out there who would consider themselves “street philosophers”, meaning they are out in their neighborhoods asking people the big questions of life. There are also organizations starting groups on college campuses and engaging in worldview questions there, in a sense doing philosophy on campus, without having the label of philosopher.
If you have a passion for doing philosophy and wrestling with various worldviews about the big questions of life I would encourage you to read widely, listen to lectures, span various worldviews instead of merely sticking with one way of looking at things, and start having those conversations with those around you and those here on Quora. Happy investigating!
I suppose I will answer this as a student I was mentoring asked me the same question a week ago.
(1) There is a vast, vast difference between learning the history of philosophy and becoming a philosopher. You can learn the history of philosophy and general philosophical thought from books/school, but being a philosopher happens from recognition from those inside the field.
(2) So, how to be an actual philosopher? An analogy: the history of philosophical thought is a circle where anyone of any background can enter, but you have to be willing to put up your best ideas to be criticized by the best minds that have ever lived. If your ideas can pass the tests of the history of thought and can be recognized as such by philosophers in the field, you then can become a philosopher.
(3) Often today (1) and (2) are not followed, so everyone everywhere can just call themselves whatever they please, so if you wish, just call yourself a philosopher. When people say things like, “well, everyone is a philosopher,” I would retort that doing geometry doesn’t make you a mathematician.
This answer is long, and intentionally so. It isn’t to show off, but to offer some representation of the avenues of Philosophical study and discourse available. As far as how to acquire the label of being a philosopher, encourage people to think and to question their own ideas about the world. Then people will often label you as a philosopher.
You do not have to write a single word to become a practicing philosopher, that has never been needed. For instance, we don’t have a single written work that we can attribute to either Pythagoras or Socrates, but these two figures are icons of western Philosophy. Lao Tzu may not have even been a real person, but a collection of Chinese orations and writings was gathered and published under that name and became the foundation of an entire school of philosophy.
What these ancient examples of philosophy did was engage in the exchange of ideas. Look into the history of science and mathematics. It all began with what is called ‘natural philosophy’ or the intuitive study of how the world we observe works. Much of early number theory came out of studying geometry while geometry was a study of the natural philosophy of form and patterns.
Engage in ideas, talk to people about those ideas, and then share them in a public forum of any kind. Social media and video sharing sites are full of people attempting to practice philosophy. Much of it may be seen as uninformed, or based on broken logic, or just fallacious from every avenue of inspection, but for them it is still philosophy.
If you want to be informed on the progress of human thought and the big questions of philosophy and be taken seriously for your ideas, then you will need to read a lot of books, take advantage of online or digital courses such such as The Teaching Company produces or the open courseware from various universities like MIT and Standford and Columbia.
There are areas of study that are specialized and not very popular, such as the work by David Talbott on his “Saturn Myth” and the recreation of ancient cataclysms in the past that shaped human society and religious thought and philosophy. He is not alone. Plasma Physicist Anthony Peratt traveled the world finding ancient rock carvings called Petroglyphs that matched the patterns of shape and morphology of his very high energy plasma discharge instabilities as recorded at Los Alamos laboratories while working for the US Department of Energy. He found them on every continent and with so much similarities with each other and with his lab plasma discharges and with evidence from space observations that he was able to produce a very strong case for an ancient super aurora event in the recent ancient past, probably the elder dryas period.
Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs is an a professional ancient linguist who focuses on comparative mythology. He worked closely with Peratt on mapping the petroglyphs and on collecting the earliest recorded world cosmological traditions and comparing them for evidence of what is called the Axis Mundi. His work is called Traditional Cosmology and he has other works linking the myths to the plasma physics of Peratt.
By studying this area of knowledge it is now possible to examine patterns of human thought and philosophical traditions as they relate to what might have been real phenomena and not pure myth and imaginative inventions. Examples of themes that will be familiar to many people that are being cataloged through this work are Jacob’s ladder, the Garden of Eden, The Tree of Life, the Turtle holding up the world, the world mountain, the various myths and artistic representations of the Thunderbolts of the Gods which match recent discoveries in Plasma Physics, the wheel of heaven, the primary particle, the first source, and the list goes on and on. There is a growing library of global themes from antiquity from far ranging groups like ancient island cultures to indigenous people on nearly every continent to the greatest civilizations in history that all correlate to this research in various ways. Not every tradition fits, but an overwhelming number do.
Similar, but far less scientifically rigorous studies of comparative ancient mythology and culture would be Graham Hancock or Joseph Farrell or Zachariah Sitchin.
Other areas of reading are in human consciousness studies. What is consciousness? How about some Douglas Hofstadter and his book “Godel. Escher. Bach” and his concept of the strange loops that govern human consciousness.
Peter Moddel and his book “Making Sense” and the various levels of human consciousness and he and other philosophers imagine them to manifest.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences has a large body of work that ban be referenced.
“Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahnemann and his research into human intuition and the mind’s ability to deal with statistical predictions of reality, among many other areas of active cognition and decision making.
Andrew Smart and “Beyond Zero and One” deal with the philosophy of human thought as it applies to creating AI.
“The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History” by Howard Bloom that looks at patterns of behavior in what he calls the ‘superorganism’ or the masses of similar creatures that make up a society.
Or will you instead take to LSD and mushrooms and other psychedelics and join the ranks of philosophers such as Terrance McKenna, Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Carlos Castaneda.
Or how about getting into Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung and playing with archetypes of the human psyche and their connection to various mystical traditions.
Maybe you want eastern traditions, or perhaps to get lost in the controversial and esoteric world of Blavatsky’s Theosophy.
Or perhaps you want to get into the concepts of energy healing and how that affects the mind with works like “Tuning the Human Biofield” by Eileen Day McKusick. Maybe “The Body Electric” by Robert Becker, or any of the other works of similar focus. You could even compare the ideas of Quantum Biology with what is emerging in electromagnetic and bioplasma biology to find overlaps and variations in ideas.
Jeremy Campbell and “Grammatical Man” explores the birth of information theory and its effect on the world of thought and science.
Compare cosmological models like the Standard model with Plasma Cosmology. Why are they so different and what methods of human reasoning led to those deviations in ideas.
This is not a comprehensive list of works and categories by any means, but it may help people to get some idea of the possibilities available in the arena of philosophy.
Pick one area of study or dive into them all and synthesize them, just be active in learning and questioning and REPORTING. It is the reporting that pushes one from being a thinker into being a philosopher.
There isn't exactly a defined path for someone to become a philosopher.
The most common, and frankly the easiest path to officially become a philosopher is to go to university, study philosophy to a higher degree, and then write a journal.
You don't have to, though.
A philosopher is a lover of wisdom. That's what it means. Philo-love. Sophy-wise. Lover of wisdom. To become a philosopher in practice, you just have to ponder the questions that have haunted humanity without answer, and provide a view that you believe gives an answer.
Generally, thinking about any question, and giving premises behind your answer is philosophy.
Even spending time here can help. Assuming you have the right tags.
Anyone that questions the established, dogmatic belief systems imposed by the majority of their peers in a society could be considered a philosopher. However, applying the label to yourself would be similar to going around and telling everyone that you are a genius or have an 8 inch penis. People will just see you as an obnoxious braggart. The best way to go about having others give you the moniker of “philosopher” would be to either build on the work of a previously established philosopher or come up with your own philosophical findings and have them published. You will likely be long dead before anyone recognizes your brilliance though.
Being a philosopher is a thankless job that is often viewed as being a useless, wasteful application of your time in the modern era.
I warn you however… if you are not mentally strong, existentialist philosophy can bring you to some very depression realizations. I recommend you take a look at the work of Diogenes the Cynic, Wittgenstein, and Camus.
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” - Albert Camus
Camus saw life as being so thoroughly absurd that the main question that any philosopher must address is, what is the point of even existing? He eventually came to the conclusion that a person must embrace the absurdity of human existence. We need to have an honest confrontation with the grim truth and, at the same time, be defiant in refusing to let that truth destroy life.
Wittgenstein also held similar beliefs, but expressed them in a much less depressing manner.
I won’t even get into Diogenes, because I don’t feel like being depressed for the next few days…
Anyone who is capable of and does abstract thought with an independent point of view is a philosopher. A philosopher means 'a lover of wisdom'. Roughly speaking it is 'thinking about thinking'. It can cover any subject area you like. You don't have to write your thoughts down but if you want to spread your ideas that's best. It also helps to study the history of ideas, also you need a bunch of like minded mates to talk together and to set up or follow your school of thought especially if you are outside academia. It tends to be a man thing but women are welcome.
From my point of view, you cant aquire a label as a philosopher easy. Start thinking for 20 years and then come back and write of your experiences. Maybe go to Mexico, rural China, India or Serbia and work at something else where you can interact with nature and the people. Find out more about the history and culture and write a journal every day. This will give you the tools to become a philosopher. (warning MY OPINION)
Just like Sociology or Psychology, you can study Philosophy in college - at least in my country.
But it’s not enough to be graduated to be considered a philosopher. You gotta produce something that is following the “rules” of every philosophical production.
It’s often a written production. Like a book, articles, etc. It needs to talk about philosophy, and to be linked to things other philosophers wrote about.
Think of it the other way: How are you not a philosopher?
Just like historians or geographs, you need to master a subject :)
Go to college, declare a philosophy major and take some courses. Where I went to school, the likeliest beginning classes were formal logic and a two-semester history of philosophy. You’ll know by the end of your first year whether this is for you or not.
If you and philosophy hit it off and you want to make it a career, follow college with a PhD. You’ll do a lot of writing. from lower-division essay tests through term papers and a dissertation. After that, at least half your career will consist of writing and the rest of teaching.
Philosophy is the art of seeking truth and of creating rational methods to do so. So to be a philosopher, you must figure out rational ways to investigate truths and falsehoods. If you are interested in moral/ethical and political philosophy, I would highly recommend the free audiobook “Universally Preferable Behavior:A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics” available for free on Freedomain Radio - Homeunderneath ‘books’ or on YouTube. This for me was an absolute starting point through my journey into personal, political, ethical/moral, and relationship philosophy. I could truly say it changed my life.
Everyone is a philosopher. Some are just better at it.
School.
If you have to ask you're not a philosopher.
Artificial way is to get this label through degree like PhD etc. Natural way is to think and develop your thinking into a systematic and coherent structure. Then write.
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