I really feel compelled to post this.
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http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
Noam Chomsky writing about the state of modern philosophy, in particular post-modernism. Reading this was a delight for me--I had all the same ideas in some nebulous mis-mash in my head, and this expressed pretty much what I was thinking, solidly and concisely. I took a few philosophy electives, really just for "fun," and I wasn't terribly impressed by profs or students. Philosophers used to be scientists who commented about the nature of things based on their own actual research and work. It seems to me as though most philo students and academicians are content to sit in a room and write convoluted papers that don't express anything new, based on things other people did, and without any knowledge or expertise in the area they're commenting on. Just my view
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Oh, and I guess I mentioned Tim Schafer because he seems to be at least somewhat of an exception to that.
I have been meaning to post of this for some time but have not had the time.
First, I would be quite skeptical of any views Chomsky espouses since he himself is guilty of the very charges you/ he bring against philosophers. You wrote: "It seems to me as though most philo students and academicians are content to sit in a room and write convoluted papers that don't express anything new, based on things other people did, and without any knowledge or expertise in the area they're commenting on." Basically, Chomsky has spent his entire life engaged in this very activity. He became famous for language theories on which he never actually did any original experiemnts himself and moved on to write leftist political theory. He has no "expertise" on any of the political topics he has written on through the years. In fact, lately, he has become the poster boy for terrorist websites. A couple of years ago there was a report that he had died. As he himself wrote to the NYTimes, it was wrong, he is still kicking, but it was too bad it was wrong! Well, enough ad hominem attacks.
Since philosophers by the very nature question, it stands to reason that they have already given many answers to the criticisms and questions you (and Chomsky - although I think Chomksy is mainly complaining about certain very contemporary movements) raise but, unfortunately, to which you were never given appropriate answers. Especially, not from the Philosophy professors and students you worte that you met. And so, I post for you, part of Bertrand Russell's wonderfully written answer to your criticism/ questioning of philosophy (from "The Value of Philosophy" in his book The Problems of Philosophy) in the hope that you and others might delve more into Philosophy before categorically dismissing it. Russell (sorry Sir Russell) wrote:
"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very
uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through
life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the
habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which
have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his
deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite,
finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar
possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to
philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening
chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which
only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable
to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which
it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our
thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while
diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly
increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the
somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the
region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by
showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect."
"Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy
is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its
questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be
true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because
these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our
intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which
closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through
the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind
also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the
universe which constitutes its highest good."
