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Why still bother with philosophy?
Physics, neuroscience, self-help: everything seems to have replaced philosophy; it remains to find out what you ask of it, what it alone can deliver, and whether 'being useful' is even the right measure to judge it by.
The dinner party
A dinner among friends. The conversation drifts to jobs, studies, what everyone is reading, and you mention that you have taken up philosophy. Across the table, a guest you are fond of, an engineer by trade, smiles without malice: 'Philosophy? That was useful before science. Today, physics explains matter, neuroscience explains the mind, anthropology explains our morals. And for learning how to live, there are psychologists and meditation apps. Anything we can really know, some science will eventually tell us. Honestly, what is left for it, besides its own history?' It is not a jab, it is a genuine question, and the table has turned to you. What do you answer?