What exactly makes a person a good philosopher, their credentials, or the way they argue philosophical topics?
It’s more than just argument that makes a good philosopher. Salesmen and politicians can argue well, but that doesn’t make them good philosophers. And credentials clearly don’t matter to the quality of your philosophy – though they may affect who’s willing to listen to you. Ancient Greek philosophers had (and *could* have) no credentials, because they were starting from scratch. I think that a good philosopher needs at minimum: * The ability to observe * The ability to reason * Some sense of what the important questions are * Some felicity with language My justification is as follows: * If you can’t observe then you can’t validate or support your arguments * If you can’t reason then your arguments will be flawed * If you don’t know what the important questions are then your arguments may be valid, but nobody will heed them * If you don’t have some felicity with language then your meaning will be murky, and people will get bored On the other hand, if you have all these facilities then y