system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What makes someone a philosopher?

**Context:**

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I have been off and on the streets for the last few years, I am trying to get my life back together and I've taken some philosophy course before, I like reading about it but it wasn't until this semester when I started taking my education seriously that I want to make it my primary academic focus. I typically go and participate in activities (really just free food) with other homeless people and I mention that I'm studying philosophy and they go on about how they have all these deep thoughts about the nature of man and whatnot. I know better than to outright question them because that's just rude, but I get called a bad person and told that my thoughts aren't valuable if I don't outright 100% agree with them. Today there was a dinner and I was talking about a podcast I was listening to and how they were poking fun at George Berkeley's logic about how things aren't real but they are real but it's weird, this guy responded with "But things are real, I can see them" and as pressing me to explain further and I said I couldn't because I didn't really understand myself. and he went off on a tangent about how we experience things and how there are unfalsifiable (idk if that's a word but he used it) truths and how if I couldn't explain it then why even bring it up and how I'll never be a real philosopher. 

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**Question:**

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What makes someone a philosopher? At what point can you make a good argument for or against something? How are you supposed to engage with someone in meaningful discourse outside of the classroom? 

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Yes my feelings are a little hurt but I'm curious about what it means to be a philosopher, to explain things, and how I what methods there are to converse with people without either side escalating. If there are books you can recommend that'd be helpful too.
gpt
Typically, it's someone who has at least a master's or a Ph.D. in the field, since they've demonstrated high-level understanding of the discipline and have contributed something meaningful to the field's body of knowledge(At least in the case of Ph.D's). Others who don't have these degrees in philosophy can still be considered philosophers in contemporary times if they are recognized as a philosopher by other philosophers(whose qualifications are more obvious). The latter typically happens after they've contributed something meaningful to the field. 

Saul Kripke, for instance, is a widely and deeply esteemed philosopher because of *Naming and Necessity*(And other works, too), even though he has no Ph.D. or master's in philosophy. In fact, his only formal postsecondary credential is a bachelor's in math from Harvard. Of course, you gotta be a serious genius to have that background and still be able to make substantive contributions to the discipline, especially like his.