Hello. I have just read the introduction to this site and was interested in the "paradox" you mention -- that everyone confronts philosophical issues but not everyone has the opportunity to learn philosophy. In my ears, this statement has a twinge of arrogance about it, and my question is whether you think philosophy must, almost necessarily, make its practitioners arrogant. In the first place, regarding the claim itself: it seems that far from everyone confronts philosophical issues in their lives. Many people are confronted with practical issues, like how to get themselves out of poverty, or save their daughter from leukemia. Philosophy has nothing to offer here, it seems. Secondly, still regarding the claim that everyone confronts philosophical issues: while it may be true that many people (though probably mostly wealthy people, no?) confront SOME philosophical issues, there seem to be a great many philosophical issues that would never occur to people to be interested in. Issues in the philosophy of history, aesthetics; the mind-body problem, paradoxes about motion and space (like zeno's); issues in the philosophy of language, etc., don't occur to most people, and I suspect if confronted with them most people would find them irrelevant to their lives and consequently uninteresting. Shouldn't philosophy face up to this irrelevance, or at least admit that many of its issues are for aficionados only? Do philosophers think they live their lives better than others, or know more about how to live better lives? Are they like Socrates, thinking others live mistakenly by not examining their lives, but simply hide this opinion, fearing to voice it? If philosophers do think this way, I think many would find this objectionable. They would say that improving their lives and thinking critically about it is something they can do and has nothing to do with how much philosophy they've learned. Does philosophy claim to have a monopoly on exploring the "important" questions, or questions about value? And if a philosopher thinks he knows more, mustn't he necessarily become arrogant and aloof? He thinks he has knowledge about the important questions. Thus when asked to speak about them he speaks with care, weighs his words, etc., thus making him generally distasteful to company and socially awkward. Just as we don't need to know what a hammer is at its essence to use it properly and effectively, it seems neither do we need to know what love is at its essence, or happiness, or any of those things in a philosophical way, in order to use them and experience them in life. So, in sum: the charges against philosophy are its irrelevance and propensity to create practitioners who are likely to be arrogant and anti-social. How do you plead?