Gerald Bivens

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.¹

The question, What is a philosopher? cannot be answered at all in more recent times. Here he appears as an accidental, solitary wanderer, as a daring "genius." What is he in the midst of a powerful culture that is not based on solitary "geniuses"? ...How does a people consider the philosopher? What relation does he have to the culture? Now he shows himself as genius, like artists, solitary. The Republic of Geniuses.²