What, exactly, do philosophers do?
Philosophy is not like software engineering. There&#x27;s a lot more reading that needs to be done before you can make a contribution. A lot of it progresses by just reading the works of the established masters, getting ideas, and publishing your thoughts about what they had to say. You don&#x27;t start from scratch. You build on what is already there. Addition by addition the field progresses and removes bad ideas or clarifies good ideas and long-term that mountain of work has gotten us from plato to the rich field it is today.