this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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The word "philosopher" didn't mean exactly the same thing in Ancient Greece as it does today. Scientists, mathematicians, and those who study politics would have been included in the label back then.
If I said that I thought our government should be led by an ethical person who was an expert in political science, you might think that sounds relatively good. In Plato's time, that guy might have been called a "philosopher".
To add on, the term "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek terms "philo" and "sophia."
Ancient Greek had several terms for "love," which denoted different types of affection. Philo specifically referred to the kind of love between friends. Meanwhile sophia referred to knowledge or wisdom. That is, a philosopher was someone who loved knowledge.
There were numerous terms for types of love. One example is eros, which referred to sexual love (and from which we get the term "erotic.") There's also agape, which referred to a greater, more unconditional or self-sacrificing type of love, associated with charity or the love provided by a deity.