What has happened to philosophy?

A lot of you seem to be under the illusion that philosophy is some form of a circular debate between people who know a lot of different terms, and their whole point is to show off their vocabulary.<br><br>A lot of you seem to think philosophy is about being stupidly contrarian on everything. "A *shorter* list? But then we will have to determine *how* short a list has to be before it is too short to be a list. But what is a list in the first place?" I swear to god this is not philosophy.<br><br>Philosophy is not about "making you question everything!"<br><br>What is philosophy? Philosophy is the rigorous, disciplined pursuit of truth with the use of careful reasoning. It is the development of a system of thought that follows some base principles, and then *rigorously* explores the consequences of that system.<br><br>The same thing that has happened to the word 'literally' has happened to the word 'philosophy'. The word has been hijacked by a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing, who don't know the first thing about philosophy.<br><br>To all of you who do that: *stop.* If you want to show off your vocabulary, go to a poetry circle jerk. If you want to be contrarian for the sake of being different, go to the comments section of *literally any* youtube video. If all you want to do is "question everything," then give up because you've already failed.<br><br>Read Kant. Read Plato. Read Locke. Eventually you will learn. Eventually you will understand what philosophy really is.<br><br>Discuss.