Why is this question so compelling? (to someone, anyway) Charles Taliaferro posted a thoughtful answer/challenge to the same question just three weeks ago: http://askphilosophers.org/question/24944

I can't imagine that anyone sets out to solve a philosophical problem with "absolutely no psychological bias" concerning what the correct solution will look like. The degree to which I think I've already surmised "the answer" to a problem before getting down to the hard work of solving it depends on the particular problem. But I doubt I ever embark on finding a solution with no preconceived notion at all about the right answer. I don't think this method counts as intellectually dishonest in general, and especially not in philosophy, where the success of one's solution depends entirely on the quality of one's argumentation, which is open for all to judge. Unlike empirical scientists, philosophical problem-solvers can't fake data. If a philosopher's proposed solution to a problem isn't clearly supported by the argumentation that he/she provides, anyone who reads the proposal is in a position to see that. This bracingly high intellectual standard is one of the main virtues of philosophy when it's done...

I'm not sure why Tyson, Hawking, Krauss, Dawkins, Coyne, Feynman, et al. , express so much contempt for philosophy. But my best guess is that they're ignorant -- unaware -- of what philosophy is when it's done well, perhaps because they received little or no academic training in philosophy when they were undergraduate students. (By the time they reached graduate school in the sciences, it may have been too late for them to get that training even if they had been interested in getting it.) I don't think they're using different definitions, at least not systematically. Krauss does claim that physics has redefined the words "something" and "nothing," but I think he's deeply mistaken (see Question 4759 ). In general, I find that when non-philosophers, including scientists, reason about philosophical issues, they do so sloppily: making elementary mistakes in inference, conflating concepts that ought to be kept distinct, and so on. That's unfortunate but not surprising, since reasoning well about...

Yes. No. The time I spent defending my previous position -- against what I now regard as decisive objections -- helped me to see why a different position is more plausible, and it helped me to adopt the new position without having to worry that I hadn't given my previous position a fair shake.

If so, then just who is the jury that decides? ...then just who is right? As I see it, those two questions don't go hand-in-hand. Which side in a debate has the better reasons isn't something that a jury (in any sense of 'jury') can decide . It's not like legal guilt, which is something that a jury (or its equivalent) must decide and which isn't guaranteed to match what a fully informed and impartial observer would decide. No one is legally guilty unless a jury (or its equivalent) decides that he/she is. But one side in a debate can have the better reasons even if everyone in the audience judges otherwise. I think this point holds for debates in general, including philosophical debates. That's one reason why the oft-repeated "Who's to say?" is the wrong question to ask when debating an issue in ethics: no one's say-so is necessary or sufficient for truth in ethics or in philosophy more generally. The idea that the consensus, or even the unanimity, of an audience doesn't determine the quality...

Can studying philosophy make one's life worse? Certainly it can, just as working out to get fit can make one's life worse: one who works out to get fit can thereby tear a hamstring and become laid-up and miserable, or thereby suffer a heart attack, etc. Indeed, working out to get fit can make one's life worse overall , i.e., all things considered. Ditto for studying philosophy. There's no reason to think otherwise. But studying philosophy, or working out to get fit, can also make one's life better, including better overall. For many people, myself included, studying philosophy has improved their lives overall (although I began studying philosophy because of an intense curiosity about the issues it covers rather than because of a conscious desire to make my life better by studying it). I doubt I can say anything more helpful without knowing more about your own encounters with philosophy. For instance, by "more critical of everything," do you mean "more intellectually vigilant about everything"...

Speaking just for myself, I react much as I did in answering Question 4636 and Question 4759 . For reasons that I hope those answers make obvious, I don't regard the dismissive remarks of Hawking, Krauss, Dawkins, Tyson, and their ilk as worth taking seriously. As far as I can tell, their remarks stem from simple ignorance of philosophy, often coupled with ineptitude at it.

Many decades ago, something very close to your question seems to have motivated philosophy professor Paul Arthur Schilpp to launch the multi-volume Library of Living Philosophers, which now contains more than 30 volumes. You can find out more at this link . I seem to recall reading an editor's introduction by Schilpp that explains in detail his motivation for launching the series. You might search for it.

To answer your last question first: I don't regard philosophical inquiry as a game. On the contrary, it may well be the most intellectually serious form of inquiry there is. What philosophical inquiry amounts to is itself a matter of philosophical controversy, but I'm inclined to say that philosophical inquiry consists in thinking as carefully as we can about the most general and most fundamental questions we can ask. To your other questions: 1. The definition of "knowledge" -- more accurately, the analysis of the concept of knowledge -- has been an energetically disputed topic in philosophy for more than 50 years. Some philosophers defend a version of the "true, justified belief" analysis, with "justified" understood in a variety of ways. Others defend an analysis that doesn't require anything they're prepared to call "justification." Still others think that it's a mistake to try analyzing the concept of knowledge into "more basic" concepts. You'll find much useful information about all of this in...

You asked, "Have you found that philosophy leads to more skepticism and knowing nothing rather than clarification?" It may be that you didn't sacrifice any knowledge that you previously had. Your philosophical reflection may have revealed to you that you didn't in fact know what you took yourself to know before you engaged in it. Maybe you had confident beliefs about whom you ought to vote for, etc., and even the confident belief that you knew whom you ought to vote for, etc. Examining your grounds for those beliefs caused you to lose confidence in them. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates is portrayed as frequently showing people that they didn't in fact know what they confidently took themselves to know. That's an important discovery one can make about oneself. Even if your philosophical reflection has made you question some of your previously held beliefs, it doesn't follow that you ought to become a wholesale skeptic. Philosophical reflection should include scrutinizing the grounds for...