On one way of understanding your question, the answer seems not just to be "No," but "Hell no!" What I mean is this: the discipline of philosophy isn't a mystical practice. Among its most important techniques are careful analysis and well-reasoned argument. The kind of thinking philosophers pursue needs to be embodied in a rich and subtle language. And on one meaning of "conventional" -- i.e., based on shared conventions and meanings -- we would be unable to communicate successfully without the conventions of language. Now for a couple of caveats. Good philosophical ideas might come by any number of routes, including sudden bursts of insight. But the discipline of philosophy calls for shaping and articulating those insights. And if by "complex language," you mean bad, bloated writing, then indeed that can get in the way of understanding. But this goes for any discipline; not just for philosophy. So yes: philosophers sometimes smother their ideas in a blur of verbiage. But good philosophy...

Briefly, it depends on what sorts of philosophical issues you want to pursue. Most philosophers, including most good ones, don't have extensive scientific knowledge, and the questions they're interested in don't call for knowing lots of science. But philosophers who work on issues in physics, or biology, or psychology or other sciences need to be knowledgeable about the sciences they work on. In philosophy of physics, it's not unusual for a philosopher to have an advanced degree (Masters or even PhD) in physics. Even if s/he doesn't have a science degree, s/he will have to have acquired a lot of knowledge of the field - or relevant parts of it. By way of general recommendation, however, the single most useful thing you can do if you're interested in philosophical issues about science is to learn as much math as you can. That can give you a serious leg up on learning the more specific scientific ideas that may be relevant to your interests. So if you have the aptitude, at the very least take some...

Usually, when philosophers write, they try to persuade. They do it in various ways, some of which fit patterns that we've given names to. But for the most part, philosophers don't ask themselves questions about which form of argument they should use, and they don't worry much about how to classify the kinds of persuasion they engage in. There are certain things we can expect of sensible persuasion, of course. For example, if I want to persuade you of a generalization, I'd better give you reason to believe that the generalization really does cover the range of relevant cases. If I want smart people who aren't already persuaded to take my views seriously, I'd better try to anticipate their objections. If my claim depends partly on empirical facts, I'd better give the reader reason to believe them. Deductive argument, however, isn't quite as special as it seems. The fact that an argument is deductively valid doesn't tell us anything about the plausibility of its premises. And sometimes trying to...

I'd also add this to my co-panelist's good advice. But don't tell anyone I said so. (Sh!) A lot of what we philosophers spend our time thinking about isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. And... (Sh!) Being a wise person and being a good philosopher aren't the same thing. If somehow I were forced to choose between being a good philosopher and being a wise person, I'd pick wisdom. (May well be that in this universe I don't quite manage to be either, but we're talking "in principle" here.) Whether you've got the temperament to be a Hume- or Kant-like social butterfly is partly a matter of constitutional luck. But there's a lot to be said for finding ways to get out of your own head. Go to an art museum. Listen to some music (make sure you put some good rock and roll on the playlist.) Walk in the woods. Treat yourself to a meal with a friend or two at an interesting restaurant. Take up a hobby that makes you work on some sort of physical skill. (Could be a sport, but could be...

One thing is clear: people actually do practice philosophy. (Some of my best friends...) And so whatever the reasoning you've offered shows, it can't show that no one can do philosophy because people clearly do do it. But then, most of us can't say what most of our activities amount to in any depth or detail. We just do them. It's a logical oddity that asking what counts as philosophy counts as asking a philosophical question. That's a bit unusual, but it's not inconsistent. Of course, read in another way, asking what counts as philosophy doesn't even have this peculiar character. If someone asked me what philosophy is, I might give them a collection of examples, hoping that they got the idea. I might say "trying to figure out if there is such a thing as free will counts. So does asking what knowledge is. So does thinking about the nature of right and wrong." That doesn't exhaust the field, but it's accurate as far as it goes and (experience tells me) often helpful to the person asking the question...

It's quite possible to spend too much time in your own head, too caught up in thought. It's also possible to be too quick to resort to analysis and "reason" in cases where a different sort of response will serve better. I'd guess that most philosophers (among other sorts of intellectuals) have seen this tendency in themselves from time to time and could tell stories on their colleagues. That said, most of the philosophers I know are pretty sane and balanced. They can take their shoes off, so to speak, and don't feel the need to spend all their time analyzing. People who go into philosophy are probably inclined by temperament to be more analytical than most, but philosophy isn't necessarily the culprit. After all, it would be hard to make a good philosophical case for spending all one's time doing philosophy!

On Thoreau: Meh! Thoreau apparently thought of "philosopher" as an honorific, meaning something like "wise person." If that's right, then I'm reasonably sure he was wrong in his day, and I'm reasonably sure that he'd be wrong today. There were, there are and with luck there will continue to be wise people. But (psst!...) being wise and being a philosopher aren't the same thing. Many people who are wise wouldn't be good at philosophy. Many people who are good at philosophy aren't all that wise. Even though the word "philosophy" literally translates as "love of wisdom," philosophy has never, from its very inception, been solely concerned with what most of us think of as wisdom. That's because what we think of as wisdom is importantly a matter of having the discernment needed to live what, for shorthand, we might call "a good life, " and philosophy has always been concerned with more than that. By the way: I'm not offering a definition of wisdom, but I think my little comment gets us into...

You didn't disturb my dreams at all. But what you've offered up is a fair bit of bald assertion and rhetorical questioning that doesn't exactly move me to offer detailed comments. There is no one object of philosophy, and there is no one method. I don't believe that philosophy is a science (nor do I know any philosophers who do), but I also don't believe that it's an entirely different kind of beast. The idea that philosophy is a feel-good activity would seem pretty funny to most philosophers. We're an argumentative lot who spend a good deal of time beating our heads against hard arguments. As for "giving sense to life," whether philosophy or art is up to that task, there's a difference between "shaping" our lives and giving sense to them. (I'll set aside the rhetoric about science and oblivion.) Some philosophy is indeed excessively hair splitting, though some unruly and overgrown hairs really do need a trim. What the vague accusation of "prostitution to successful science" is...

Not to be flippant (well, yes: to be flippant) but I'm tempted to point to Peter Smith's earlier reply and say "What he said!" Let's grant that in one sense of the word "irrational," some of life's surd facts are irrational -- aren't how things would be if a rational Maker had her way. Prof. Smith acknowledges that some facts are difficult to cope with emotionally. And he might add (I'll add it for him) that being rational doesn't mean ignoring your emotions or trying to stuff them into a sack. But how, exactly, would it help to leave reason aside in dealing with tragic, intractable facts? Prof. Smith's closing comment seems to me to be a sober, thoughtful way of summing it up: "For irrationally formed beliefs are not likely to lead to actions whichget any of us what we want -- including a decent life, lived well inthe knowledge of our all-too-explicable mortality." The language of philosophy is seldom poetic; in that sense it may not mirror the gravity of some of its subject matter. That said, the...

Consider an analogy. Suppose I wanted to learn physics, and I decided to read great works of physics in chronological order. Whatever value that project might have, it would be a poor way to become a physicist. So no: I wouldn't recommend reading historical works in chronological order. I wouldn't even recommend putting a lot of emphasis on reading historical works, period. One reason: philosophy is essentially something you do . Working philosophers aren't intellectual historians. They're trying to sort their way through problems. Work by older philosophers can be suggestive and relevant, but most working philosophers spend very little of their time reading the classics. I'm guessing that by "secondary sources" you mean commentaries on historical works or introductory material on various problems. My suggestion: move next to edited collections of contemporary papers on problems that you're interested in. For example: if you're interested in the free will problem, you might consider getting...