Yes. I’d just add that phil is not the only discipline that can help us to think clearly.
As this OP touches on questions on the nature and use of philosophy, I’d like to share a very short essay I wrote in a class on Media philosophy which also touches upon these questions. To be transparent: I originally wrote it in German, translated it into English through Claude and corrected/improved said translation to the best of my abilities.
Philosophy differs from the sciences in that it lacks a well-defined method (one that goes beyond the mere exercise of reason). Ludwig Fleck would probably put it something like this: philosophy is characterized by the coexistence of many thought collectives and thought styles, which, insofar as they fall under the guise of philosophy, share the trait of lacking a schematic method (often bound to instruments) for solving problems. This absence of a method of philosophy simultaneously also explains the lack of intersubjective consensus in answering philosophical problems. From this negative (and admittedly vague) definition also follows that, once a method is established, such as the empirical method within the natural sciences, problems can leave the space of philosophy. Examples of this are provided, among others, by the natural sciences, psychology, or linguistics. Philosophical problems can ultimately, then, also be reduced, following Wittgenstein, to the utterance “I don’t know my way about,” where the confusion here concerns not only the object of investigation but also its procedure.
Problems in media philosophy can, in this sense, be defined negatively in terms of their (not-(yet-))scientific status (here: not-media-historical, not-media-sociological, not-media-technological, not-media-psychological, etc.). More positively, however, the philosophy of media can be tied to a broad concept of media that extends beyond the scope of these specialized disciplines. This broad concept would refer to the mediating function as such, and would seek to locate and grasp this function in the world and in the (always mediated) relation between human beings and the world.
One example, both of the application of this broad concept of media and of the use of such an analysis of mediation, can be provided by the notion of distance. A widely studied phenomenon in the historiography of modernity is namely the “shrinking of distances,” which went hand in hand with the invention of new means of transport throughout the 19th and 20th century such as the railway, the automobile, or the airplane. These enabled people to cross more space faster, thus leading to an aforementioned “shrinking of distances” one the one hand and an ‘expansion of reach’ on the other. Through the invention of the railway for example, a day’s journey to the closest city became a matter of a few hours. This further indicates that the medium to be examined here is not the means of transport, but time. Distances are mediated to people temporally (“How long will it take us to get to Bratislava?”), and an awareness of this situation of mediation opens one up both to an understanding of the uniqueness of the modern phenomenology of distance and to its historical investigation. In this sense, philosophy — even though defined here negatively as a (not-(yet-))science — can nonetheless be of use to scientific investigation, by pointing towards possible questions.
Interesting point. And yes, probably everything still ultimately ends up as forms of wisdom.
I wonder if it is better to think of philosophy as an umbrella term that describes a range of approaches. Not all of them going in the same direction. At school, the first definition we were given was that philosophy is “thought about thought.” It is delightfully vague, but also not wrong. The problem with definitions like these is that they do not really illuminate the subject.
Do you have any thoughts on my followup to @jkop ?
We can learn to think clearly in another discipline, I agree. Perhaps, then, clear thinking is not what makes philosophy philosophy?
There are examples of not-so-clear-thinking in what is philosophy, after all. Perhaps it has more to do with the ability to think clearly when things are not so certain as they are when one is thinking clearly about a particular trade.
It’s at least easier to think of philosophy like that. “Family resemblance” comes to mind as a philosophically respected term that gets the gist across, but I couldn’t just say “it’s a family resemblance” and call it a day. I’d have to specify just what that relationship consists of in order to make the claim – by analogue to the umbrella, what are the spokes, and how do they relate to one another even though they go in different directions? What is the overall function such that the umbrella, philosophy, keeps rain off of our noggins?
1 Like
Yes, of course. 
I habitually use umbrella term because that is how we describe homelessness in our cities. In work with government and philanthropy, we sometimes develop projects that define homelessness, and it has no single cause or presentation, it’s a collection of factors nestling under one word. Hence umbrella.
Perhaps the philosophical umbrella keeps showers of bullshit from raining down on us. Well, some of us…
Do you have a ready account of the differences and similarities between critical thinking and philosophy?
Yes, that makes sense, and reflects what I had in mind. Legal training, for another instance, can be a very good instructor in clear thinking (or not!), while the techniques being taught are only philosophical in the broadest sense.
What makes phil phil? – that’s the question, all right. Perhaps it’s the type of inquiry that encourages clear thinking about limits, premises, foundations, rules. And we’d probably have to add that it’s by nature self-reflective, since you can’t engage in the above type of inquiry without calling into question your own methods, along with the idea of “clear thinking.”
Thanks to @Leontiskos yes – “what makes phil phil?”
Though my original inspiration comes from the thought that there is some measurable difference that could be reported after the fact that isn’t exactly what anyone really thinks philosophy does.
To invoke the phenomenological tradition: I can see differences between thems who have studied philosophy and thems who have not studied philosophy.
It may not amount to much of importance, but I think it’s distinct.
But…
I do not have a ready account. I want help because I know we have a lot of philosophy-heads here who wonder about such things, and I think we all realize that we don’t have an answer yet know there’s something else to say.
I take up the positivist end because it seems the most radical, but it’s a teleological goal more than something I have to say yet.
Unless others have some thoughts on this.