Two questions. It seems that no one has figured out good standards for acceptance or rejection of philosophical arguments. In science, observation is king. If evidence contradicts a theory under careful conditions, the theory is false. In math, we justify things formally; we cannot expect more certainty. So would you agree that philosophy, as a field that aims at knowledge and not something else like evoking emotions, suffers from a lack of standards? And since at the moment I suspect it does, I want to ask also, why do philosophers act so certain? To them their arguments are true or correct (or whatever) without empirical evidence or rigorous proof. They should be the most uncertain people of all, even more so than scientists. And they are pretty darn humble. (A better way to ask this might be, aren't proof and evidence the two best ways to knowledge? If so, shouldn't philosophers be much more uncertain than they appear (to me)? I now realize it's dependent on how I see things, so I only hope you can...

Why should an average, run of the mill, person care about philosophy? The vast majority of people I know don't give a damn whether a given action is "a priori" or "a posteriori," for example. The closest they come to philosophy are stupid questions that any beginning philosophy major could solve, like "Can God make a rock so heavy He can't lift it?" And these are merely bait to get an emotional reaction out of me, not a true question about philosophy!

If philosophy does not yield empirical predictions like science or certain truths like math or logic, what does it do? I have heard of "clarification of concepts" but science and math do that, too.

I have an intellectual appreciation for the answers on this site, but at an emotional level I can't help but feel like vast heaps of it are nothing more than BS. Why do I feel this way? Why is philosophy so confounding?

I have recently started studying philosophy and found that it is increasingly isolating me from non-philosophically inclined people. I find it hard to stop thinking philosophically even in light conversation and become frustrated when people have simplistic views. It is becoming hard to enjoy mainstream entertainment, because the ideas that the entertainment is based on have a long history, much more interesting than the entertainment itself. Can someone who has been doing philosophy longer than me please tell me how to remedy this situation? I really love philosophy, but at the moment it feels as if I almost have to give up citizenship of the "normal" world. Is this isolation going to intensify through doing more philosophy, or is it at some stage going to become more tolerable? Thanks for any help.

Aside from saying that the questions that they concern themselves with are difficult, how do philosophers make sense of their difficulty discovering consensus truths about the world, in the way that scientific communities do? And what would a philosopher make of the idea that philosophers are trying to understand the world through natural language, and not through enough of an observational component, and method (e.g. scientific method). It seems to me that philosophers are only using a small part of their brain when trying to answer questions, and that primarily, their inability to discover things about the world is due to this getting stuck up with language.

Much of philosophy is concerned with providing a rigorous foundation to truths which are otherwise intuitive and uncontroversial; think of philosophy of math, for instance. Do philosophers believe that, absent an appreciation of such foundational principles, laymen don't actually "know" such truths, e.g., that 1+1=2; and if laymen do know such truths, how do they know them?

How useful do you feel an understanding of philosophy is to the study of history? I am a history graduate on my way to completing a MA and PhD in this field. More and more my studies have got me contemplating philosophical issues, particularly morality. Sometimes it is difficult to not be overwhelmed with the horrors that history holds, to wonder how people can possibly act in such fundamentaly immoral ways towards each other. I find myself struggling with the debate long-standing in history as to whether as a historian it is inherent in my role to morally condemn certain actions in history or whether I should accept that I can never understand the position these people were in, therefore have no right to judge their consequent actions. While I'm still struggling to decide on this (perhaps somebody could help me?), I have slowly begun to think that an understanding of philosophy is as crucial to being a good historian as the other traditional techniques. I was wondering how many philosophers would agree...

Dear sirs and madams, I recently met my cousin, who is a very bright biologist. When she learned that I studied political science and philosophy at university, she asked respectfully me why I would study a self-perpetuating field. I know what my reasons are, but I would be interested in reading what some of the professionals have to say: Why study philosophy? Moreover, why study it since there is an impracticality associated with it? Have you ever gotten any flack from loved ones for philosophizing? Thank you for your time, -Justin

It’s been said that philosophy can help develop useful critical thinking skills, and analysis of argument, concepts, and hypotheses, etc. seems to be much of what philosophers do. But what about the creative aspect to their work? Can studying philosophy help us to better hypothesize, speculate, generate more and better ideas or problem solve generally? Critical thinking can be studied separately from philosophy, but are there resources for exercising this creative aspect? It would seem to me that this area is just as useful and transferable to other disciplines as critical thinking, yet not much seems to be said of it. Or is it that creativity is something that a person just has (like a talent) in a certain area and it’s not easily transferred form one area to another? For example an artist can be very creative with her paintings but stumped when it comes to generating ideas for resolving her business problems. How do the really good philosophers come up with the great unifying theories, persuasive...