I sometimes wonder if Socrates was the last great philosopher. Enlightened thinking should lead to enlightened doing. Mostly what I see out of philosophers is thinking that just leads to more thinking and talking and not a lot of doing. If a philosopher discovers what wisdom is, but does not apply it in any way then has he really discovered wisdom?
I'm not sure that wisdom stopped with Socrates. Let's hope not anyway as despite a wonderful technique he then continued to apply it long after it was really relevant to the question. How on earth a wise man goes from the wonderful Socratic method to claiming proof of the afterlife is quite beyond me.
I think that exercise of the mind is just as important as anything tangible. It can help you think about things in a new way, and encourages creativity/intelligence.
I usually try to find philosophies and ideas that bring me closer to understanding things, but it is interesting and meaningful for me to just examine philosophies.
Whilst I concede that the exercise in itself has merit it would appear as though philosophy has moved quite dramatically away from the study of thought itself (that is a crude approximation but I'm sure you follow) to a new arena in which to drop names and claim superiority.
Since when does it constitute wisdom to just name a load of theories as if that answers any question other than you knowing the names of theories?
(Note I accuse no one of this, it's merely an observation of how the field is going based on the undertones of how people are discussing philosophy)
The main use of philosophy, as I see it, is to deconstruct existing false beliefs that cloud our understanding of things. However, I don't expect it to give us any suitable answers.
This I agree with 100% and this is what is depressing to me about the name dropping. How does knowing all the different theories names without ever looking at how they interact help you understand anything. It's the ever present difference between knowledge and wisdom and philosophy seems to be heading far too quickly toward the former for my liking.
I think it provides a basis from which we can learn to better adapt our thinking so as to discourage bias.
To this end, I think philosophy should be a pervasive undergarment for most academic curriculums, beginning in youth.
Again I agree 100%. Without understanding how perspective can shift what you can draw from an experience then you'll not learn as quickly and what's more the disciplines you lean will, to some extent, forever will be separated and disconnected from the other things you learn. I tend to think that this is why there are more and more people coming out with diplomas and whatever but with no real useful ability as it's all theoretical and disconnected. There's no understanding of the subject only regurgitation of knowledge.
Philosophy is one of the forces that guides the laws and technology of the land.
Could you expend on this please? I'd be very interested to hear your reasoning.
Academic philosophy has abandoned the quest for truth.
The point of studying it has nothing to do with external achievements, but only with emendation of your mind. You ought only to share your ideas with others if this is conducive to the aforementioned task.
The thing that concerns me is not that philosophy has no practical application beyond the correction of the minds pathways but more that academic philosophy is purely that. Academic.
The study of knowedge and truth itself is called
epistemology. The study of how to properly interpret the truth being conveyed in text is
hermeneutics.
It matters not how long a title it has no how many great names are stacked behind it. Such things are mere frippery and signal the irrelevance of a subject as it descends into intellectual fashion. The only factor of any importance is relevance and application. Now you can argue the validity of anything if you try hard enough but that's failing to apply enough critical thinking to it. Personally I couldn't care less about the ins and outs of the philosophy of interpreting texts, that would be what I would refer to as a very specialised subject and hence mostly irrelevant to broader topics.
As for epistemology, that too seems like subdividing wisdom into compartments which you specialise in. This is fine for the purposes of training and whatever but surely it is obvious that the more you subdivide wisdom and it's pathways, the more you increase the likelyhood of travelling in circles and never reaching the goals of actually getting any wiser.
It would seem that academics are slowly killing the field. Sure we may end up with wonderful theories on how the world works which can then be taught like multiplication tables to younger generations but will be actually have any wisdom left to tackle the next challenge?
Meeeoww 
