What's the point of philosophy any more?

[vulcanlogician]

I suppose I'm just slightly cynical that what pure Philosophers get up to (especially after a few )

Guilty as charged (at least sometimes). You gotta cut philo-nerds a little slack, though. Some stuff is discussed just for fun, and when people do it they don't take themselves too seriously.

I could write an essay about how lost contemporary philosophy is... your example with the vegetarian videogame lecture really exemplifies what I don't like about it. Much of it is insipid and pointless. I really like the old stuff. Plato's Republic, for example. I wish that everyone would read this book. It is simply brilliant, and just as relevant today as when it was penned. Well... that might be overstating it, but still: it's relevant.

My perception has often been of philosophers arguing amongst themselves and never coming to a conclusion because whatever anyone decides can't be verified. If the issue doesn't originally stem from what we learn from reality then how are we ever going to apply our reasoning back to it?

Metaphysics is bad for this. At a certain point even I find metaphysics discussions exhausting because of the lack of workable conclusions. One of my professors said when he was in grad school, one of the philosophy students used to carry a card in his pocket with an "M" on it. The M stood for metaphysics. And when the conversation started to drift into metaphysics he would take the card out of his pocket and hold it up. It was his way of saying "this conversation will lead nowhere, so lets stop talking metaphysics and focus on something from which a conclusion might actually be discerned." I get where he's coming from. Metaphysics can be a real headache.

But you know what helps?

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