In my experience, this is a common position to be in. I've heard a lot of blanket statements about the problems with academic philosophy, without much evidence to back it up.

Agreed; I made the disclaimer with the intent that this comment was meant to filed under "Hmm, interesting" not "Arguments against Philosophy". I was not specifically targeting academic philosophy but old philosophy. Quick potential examples from the top of my head:

• Descartes' suggestions about the purpose of the pineal gland
• The various Greek philosophers who tried to reduce all matter into combinations of Fire/Air/Water/Earth
• Early psychology?

Anyone reading Descartes and translating "pineal gland" into something other than "pineal gland" so they can continue claiming Descartes was right is another example of the parable above. Translating "Fire/Air/Water/Earth" into "Plasma/Gas/Liquid/Solid" is doing the same thing. The Greeks were not saying "Plasma/Gas/Liquid/Solid". They were saying "Fire/Air/Water/Earth".

Actual philosophers tend to be either good philosophers who know the good old stuff from the bad old stuff, or bad philosophers who write utter nonsense. Someone who actually cares shouldn't have too much of a problem telling one from the other, even though they're both acceptable in the academy. Compare Dennett and Derrida.

Agreed. I focused on Philosophy because I have enough experience to think of potential examples. The reason I did not put them in the first comment is because I am not in a position to defend my examples and did not consider them particularly relevant to the point. Also, my experience with "bad" Philosophers is that they seem to attach Truth to specific People and then try to turn anything said by those People into Truth using method like those in the parable. Most of these bad Philosophers were encountered during the few classes I took to get a Philosophy minor. I assume that most of these people are weeded out by the time they get to upper-level classes and beyond.

So, anyway, to wrap it up, I agree with you completely. I extended my points to try bringing a little more clarification to my original comment not to argue against your comment.