[Serious] Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?

[Belacqua]

I just couldn't process it all, couldn't find any reliable way to learn it all, nor any easy way to reduce what they were saying to simple arguments... well, in all cases, some philosophers were easier to parse than others but generally, it was just hard to find a consistent/reliable way to parse them all. So yeah, utmost respect for you guys who can seem to soak all this stuff up like a sponge, extracting the arguments in an instant, regardless of source.

Philosophy is fantastically difficult. Anybody who claims he soaks it up like a sponge is lying -- probably to himself. 

It's a lifelong task. Even to get conversant in one area (say, German philosophy Kant to Hegel, or Neoplatonism Plotinus to Proclus) is more like a lifestyle than a subject one masters. I'm constantly impressed with people who have done serious work on these things. Recently I learned about a scholar in Kyoto who works on how German Idealism was introduced into Japan and given a new and original spin. This guy knows so much, reads at least three languages fluently, knows the important resources, etc. etc. Here is a guy who has put in good work. 

That said, the only way to begin is to start discussing the issues. With the constant awareness that what we're saying is almost certainly shallow compared to what's out there, and would be thrown into doubt in a minute by someone who knew his stuff. 

but ultimately I think there's no guarantee that such is always possible with philosophy... due to the limitations of language etc, or what we can actually perceive or conceptualise.

This I think is one of the most important lessons of philosophy -- what the limits of our knowledge are. Aporia is one of the most important words in Plato.

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it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

Really brilliant stuff by Russell. Thank you for finding it! 

It's funny because I would have said those things more about the arts than about philosophy. I had never really thought that, in this way, their goals coincide. 

The arts to me serve largely to make the familiar strange, the strange familiar, and to enliven what would otherwise seem dead. And this is one way of judging good from bad -- art which only reinforces our prejudices or massages our egos is not doing its job. Likewise philosophy which doesn't seem strange to us probably isn't worth much -- and Russell is right that a lot of people reject the strange pretty much straight away. People are so quick to scold or insult anything that it would take work to appreciate. Or they let it just bounce off their shells.