| Maybe you should read the Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. It's so much clearer. Like you, I studied philosophy in college, and then ended up in the tech industry. I've tried really hard to repress my philosophical urges because when I express their questions, I get into trouble. I've had managers in the tech industry tell me to quit it with the philosophy, and I used to think there was something wrong with me for being philosophical. If you look at Socrates, he was killed for his philosophizing. If philosophy is really as you, and the early Wittgenstein say it is, then why do people get so upset about philosophy? I think (like Plato and Socrates) it's because the questioning in philosophy puts people face to face with their ignorance. And most people if they've had some success in life, like to believe it's because they know. You wrote: "The real lesson here is that the concepts we use in everyday life are fuzzy, and break down if pushed too hard." You've clearly identified the source of upset people have at philosophy. But what if the concept is really broken and doesn't fit the world it was born into? Ptolemaic physics is pretty fuzzy. Many have pushed it too hard. Does that mean we should kill someone? You might be disillusioned in philosophy, but I find it liberating. What makes me fear for the future, especially since now, the study of philosophy in terms of student enrollments has doubled, is that people will suppress it. |