Is philosophy dead?

[Alex K]

....lol?  When the players on the field..in this case philosphers...try to play it that way, it -is- dead.  This is all that has ever been discussed behind that tagline, this is what was meant, despite your imaginative fantasies of the last few pages.  This is a fact easily checked by sourcing the quote which started the conversation.  

Much ado about nothing, again.

I think you're confusing the subject of philosophy with the redudant douchery that exists in academia today.  Look at almost ANY school, including some of the theoretical physics schools and almost all the humanities, and you'll see pompous know-nothings puffing up some bullshit position to keep a niche for themselves.  Yes, philosophy is particularly prone to this, since there's little that an academic can achieve that a reasonably smart person can't match with a few hours' free time and a couple dollars in late charges at their local library.

But it's not the death of philosophy, imo, that we're really talking about.  It's the oversaturation of academic institutions, and the struggle to find ANYTHING new to talk about, that leads to us all being buried in bullshit.

I'm not saying that there aren't any pompous assholes promotimg bs in theoretical physics, but it is very rare to have actual know-nothings achieve anything that gets attention in the community, because to say anything that is accepted by your peers even as a proposition, you have to do the math, and the math is hard. People could be rightfully accused of propagatinge bullshit positions on speculative topics, but they still have to have a formidable technical foundation to say these things in the first place. Complete charlatans are therefore usually found out or at least marginalized quickly.