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kip1981 comments on Philosophy Needs to Trust Your Rationality Even Though It Shouldn't - Less Wrong
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Although I'm a lawyer, I've developed my own pet meta-approach to philosophy. I call it the "Cognitive Biases Plus Semantic Ambiguity" approach (CB+SA). Both prongs (CB and SA) help explain the amazing lack of progress in philosophy.
First, cognitive biases - or (roughly speaking) cognitive illusions - are persistent by nature. The fact that cognitive illusions (like visual illusions) are persistent, and the fact that philosophy problems are persistent, is not a coincidence. Philosophy problems cluster around those that involve cognitive illusions (positive outcome bias, the just world phenomenon, the Lake Wobegon effect, the fundamental attribution error), etc. I see this in my favorite topic area (the free will problem), but I believe that it likely applies broadly across philosophy.
Second, semantic ambiguity creates persistent problems if not identified and fixed. The solutions to several of Hilbert's 100 problems are "no answer - problem statement is not well defined." That approach is unsexy, and emotionally dissatisfying (all of this work, yet we get no answer!). Perhaps for that reason, philosophers (but not mathematicians) seem completely incapable of doing it. On only the rarest occasions do philosophers suggest that some term ("good", "morality," "rationalism", "free will", "soul", "knowledge") might not possess a definition that is precise enough to do the work that we ask of it. In fact, as with CB, philosophy problems tend to cluster around problems that persist because of SA. (If the problems didn't persist, they might be considered trivial or boring.)
And they neve expend any effort in establishing clear meanings for such terms. Oh wait....they expend far too mcuh effort arguing about definitions...no, too little...no, too much.
OK: the problem with philosopher is that they are contradictory.
If philosophers were strongly biased toward climbing the ladder of abstraction instead of descending it, they could expend a great deal of effort, flailing uselessly about definitions.
What sort of people do you have in mind? The generalization apparently consider academic philosophers in the actual state, but not past people. Sure, someone without strong science background will miss the point, focusing on the words. But arguing "by definitions" is not something done exclusively by philosophers.
At least when it comes to the concepts "Good," "Morality" and "Free Will," I'm familiar with some fairly prominent suggestions that they are in dire need of redefinition and other attempts to narrow or eliminate discussions about such loose ideas altogether.