&gt; <i>This does a lot to explain why so many highly-educated people believe in outmoded stuff based on bad metaphysics when it comes to philosophy: it&#x27;s what was taught in their classes!</i><p>How many of these highly educated people who believe in outmoded stuff based on bad metaphysics when it comes to philosophy <i>actually took &gt;1 philosophy courses that helped them arrive at these ideas</i>? I am willing to wager vanishingly few. More likely, they never engaged much philosophy at all, and certainly didn&#x27;t learn anything about metaphysics, epistemology, etc. They&#x27;re probably just basing these outmoded ideas on intuition, received beliefs from childhood, and various other sources.