How much can any philosopher contribute to philosophy by following a well-trod program, exhausting the mother lode?

(3) Progressing through your piece, I was at least 80-90% if not 100% agreeing with everything, until you said, and/or someone was cited as saying, that philosophy shouldn’t restrict itself to the eternal questions. I would argue the eternal questions are what distinguish philosophy from everything else.

If a piece is about the eternal questions, it’s philosophy (with the question of how analytical vs speculative it is). I tend to think of works of “political philosophy” (for instance) as “political thought” i.e, as something to be published in a journal of political science.

I think of Wittgenstein embodying a lot of what I’m talking about here, in the sense that he switched from Logic (TLP) to Meaning (PI).

Personally, because they approach the eternal questions in different ways, analytical philosophy and phenomenology are two sides of the same coin to me.

Sorry for various possible goofs, I shouldn’t be responding from a phone.

Thank you very much for writing this piece!