It's not clear to me that philosophy doesn't progress, despite its critics' claims to the contrary. Yet the progress that philosophy makes IS, admittedly, different from that made by, for example, the natural sciences. Whereas natural sciences--normally--answer questions, philosophical progress does not consist in the resolution of questions (which is, of course, the basis for complaints about the discipline itself), but in sharpening or even transforming questions, or proposing answers to questions that may not yet have been thought of (or even of renovating OLD answers to questions). While philosophy does not, admittedly-at least usually--add to our stock of knowledge (Moritz Schlick once said that writing down propositions proved in philosophy is a pastime highly to be recommended, knowing full well that the list might well be empty)--they do, however, illuminate our concepts and can yield new ways of thinking about older problems that may put them in a new light. This, to me, does count as...

Practical philosophy is so called--by Kant--in contrast to theoretical philosophy. According to Kant, theoretical philosophy, roughly, treats the question: 'What ought one to believe?', whereas practical philosophy, again, roughly, treats the question: 'What ought one to do?' In present-day, philosophy, the distinction continues to be observed: philosophy is divided into 'M&E' (metaphysics and epistemology)--which Kant would have called theoretical philosophy--and 'M&P' (moral and political philosophy)--what Kant would have called practical philosophy.

I don't think that it is a dumb question either to ask a natural scientist who her favorite scientist is or to ask a philosopher who her favorite philosopher is, although I am inclined to think that there are very different bases for the answers that might be given that reflect differences between philosophy and natural science. To be sure, the question might be taken in different ways: it might be taken to mean, for example, which philosopher or natural scientist one most admires, or with whose work one feels the most affinity, or whom one takes as one's model in doing one's own work. All these forms of the question admit of answers both by the philosopher or the natural scientist. However, it seems to me that there is a sense in which the question could be taken by a philosopher that is not open to a natural scientist (unless the natural scientist is interested in work in the history of the natural science in which she works): the question could be taken to mean which philosopher's work one most...

Just an addition to Nicholas Smith's suggestion that in order to avoid adhering to a specific philosophical viewpoint, one adopt a standpoint of 'epistemic humility', which I don't think is that easily achieved. (I, for what it's worth, don't think that one can up and decide to epistemically humble.) Historical, contextual, study of the history of philosophy can help to lead one to take such a position. As one sees the extent to which philosophical questions and answers are deeply bound up with contingent historical circumstances, circumstances which vary greatly from our own, we can come to see not only that philosophical positions developed by 'the mighty dead' were deeply contingent, but also that our own cherished positions themselves are deeply contingent, and may well be bound up with contingent historical circumstances. Reflection on the extent to which philosophy is contextual in this way may well lead one to begin to question the assumptions that we take for granted and that underwrite the...

Although philosophy, like most of the 'liberal arts', does not directly prepare one for any career, majoring in philosophy does equip one with 'portable' skills--the ability to read carefully and to think and write clearly--that are useful in many careers. Surveys have shown that philosophy majors are among the top scorers on LSAT exams; I have heard that Wall Street firms like philosophy majors, because they have good analytic skills. I myself think that a Philosophy major is good preparation for almost any career that does not require specialized knowledge, so you should not worry about your future!! (Information on this topic is also available from the American Philosophical Association website, which I urge you to check out.)

I myself am inclined to think that both philosophy and (certain) empirical sciences--including psychology--investigate human nature, although they investigate it in different ways. For example--and oversimplifying--the genetic differences between human beings and other animals can be investigated by biology; philosophy, however, can investigate whether there is some ultimate, natural end that all human beings seek, a question that does not seem to me to admit of resolution by natural science but squarely to fall within the province of philosophy. (Aristotle, for example, claims that 'all men by nature desire to know': I do not think that this claim admits of empirical confirmation or disconfirmation.)

I'll be very interested to see how other panelists respond to this question!! My first inclination is to respond that very few areas of philosophy--especially as it is practiced in the English-speaking world--impact areas outside of philosophy; if pressed, I would venture that although the influence of 'Continental' philosophy on literary interpretation and art history isn't anywhere near as great today as it was, say, even a decade, but especially two decades ago, it nevertheless continues to influence those fields to an extent unmatched by the influence of philosophy on any other fields of inquiry.

On the basis of your remarks, it seems that you aren't especially interested in 'theoretical' philosophy (roughly, metaphysics and epistemology), but that you are interested in 'practical' philosophy (ethics) and aesthetics. You might want further to investigate just what kinds of work are being done by professional philosophers who focus on ethics--including 'applied ethics', such as bioethics and business ethics--and aesthetics, in order to get a better sense of what sorts of issues are currently 'live' in professional philosophy. Depending on the nature of your interest in "public perceptions of philosophy and debates about science, and in general about different attitudes and values in society," you may be able to explore the questions that interest you in a philosophy department; the more empirical your interests, however--that is, the more you are interested in determining just what those interests are, as opposed to assessing the basis for those interests--the less likely that a philosophy...

Thought experiments have a long and distinguished history both in philosophy and in other disciplines (Einstein, for example, used thought experiments in certain of his papers). Thought experiments have featured especially prominently in treatments of personal identity since John Locke's discussion of the topic in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding , published in the seventeenth-century, to more recent treatments of the topic by Bernard Williams and Derek Parfit. The question of the status and significance of such thought experiments has also received considerable discussion, reflecting the fact that the very nature of philosophy is itself a topic of philosophical interest. The philosopher Kathleen Wilkes has even written a book that attempts to treat personal identity without resorting to thought experiments of the sort found in many discussions of the topic, Personal Identity Without Thought Experiments . One worry about the appeal to thought experiments in discussions of personal...

Although I agree with most, if not all, of Professor Taliaferro's response to your fascinating question, I want to add a few remarks that may take the discussion in a slightly different direction. You asked whether Shakespeare was a philosophical genius, and whether philosophers have "deduced a coherent Shakespearean belief system from his works." I think that the two questions should be distinguished. It's not at all clear to me that an author may be a philosophical genius only if a philosophical system can be deduced from his works. Indeed, Wittgenstein, for example, who to my mind at least was certainly a philosophical genius, resisted--at least in his 'later' writings--systematization altogether, so it would be somewhat misguided even to try to deduce a philosophical system from his writings. One might of course respond that Wittgenstein was systematically anti-systematic, and that that in itself constitutes a kind of systematicity. But that seems to me to be a Pickwickian sense of ...