&gt; Before its migration to the university, philosophy had never had a central home. Philosophers could be found anywhere — serving as diplomats, living off pensions, grinding lenses, as well as within a university.<p>I think we&#x27;ve come back to this. While philosophy in the academy might be navel-gazing and disconnected, blogs and regular people talk about philosophy all the time. Philosophy is something we engage in before we&#x27;ve fully wrapped our heads around a problem, or know how to test it or formalize it. It&#x27;s all the gaps between formal logical reasoning and science, and there are a lot of those gaps.<p>Read something like [1], written by someone who&#x27;s a doctor by trade, and you can see the hands-dirty philosopher is still out there.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;30&#x2F;meditations-on-moloch&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;slatestarcodex.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;30&#x2F;meditations-on-moloch&#x2F;</a>