WHY PHILOSOPHY?
Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of time? Does the universe have an ultimate purpose or meaning?
Naturally, we will continue to grapple with these, and other, very big questions; but their final resolution may be forever beyond the grasp of mere human intellect and ingenuity.
Uncertainty is at the heart of philosophical questions. Some very powerful, set-piece, critical thinking tools have emerged from Western philosophical quest. We can utilize Plato's cave allegory, Aristotle's golden mean, Occam, razor, Descartes' pernicious demon and method of radical doubt, Kant's categorical imperative, Darwin's natural selection, Wittgenstein's family resemblances, Gadamer's prejudices, Ricouer's mimesis, Kuhn's paradigm shift, Popper's falsifiability, Berlin's pluralism and Rawls' veil of ignorance, without necessarily agreeing with any of the original conclusions.
The value of philosophy lies not in finding answers to ultimate questions but in the critical exploration of the questions themselves.
Strictly speaking, philosophy is not useful. As soon as reliable knowledge is gained in a subject area it can no longer be called philosophy. Historically, cosmology and psychology were aspects of philosophy.
Frontiers of scientific knowledge—for example: the nature of the very early universe, the emergence of membrane-bound, fully-metabolizing prokaryotic cells from macromolecules, and the neuronal basis for language and consciousness—remain partially in the realm of philosophical speculation.