On that matter, could you give some more evidence to demonstrate your points? I'm curious but a bit skeptical without examples to back it up- modern philosophy is in a metaphorical sense designed by retreating further and further from empirical questions, and thus would not have in its domain questions which scientific advances can help with.
As for morality- let's assume moral realism is incorrect (a highly credible hypothesis). This puts moral realism on the same sort of level as free will. Therefore, if asking "Is doing X in situation Y morally right or not?" the correct answer in any case is "No- there is no such thing as 'morally right'." This is just asking the question "Does person X in situation Y have free will or not?" (common in law and ethics) is one where in all cases the answer is "No- there is no such thing as 'free will'."
Origins of philosophical progress: Take as an example the "mind-body problem", which one could state as follows: Our bodies appear to be machines made of meat, but somehow thinking doesn't tend to feel like an activity done by meat machines; how does that work out? Once upon a time, the great bulk of answers given by good philosophers would have fitted into the framework of "substance dualism"; there's mind-stuff and matter-stuff, and then various ways of explaining how they are connected (e.g., Descartes thought they interacted somehow...
Since LessWrong is a major congregation point for certain philosophical ideas, and because people here tend to be more objective (in the sense of not being self-deluded) than elsewhere, I thought I'd ask people's views.
To be clear, by "Greatest Philosopher" I am referring not to the most correct philosopher in human history but the one who deserves the most credit for advancing human philosophy towards being more true.
Off the top of my head I would say that a prime candidate would be Hume- amongst other things he rejected the idea of a soul, realised to a much greater extent than his predecessors the limits of human knowledge, and opposed the idea that reason is somehow an objective force that can make priorities independent of emotions.
Aristotle deserves considerable credit relative for his time but doesn't make the list because although it wasn't his fault his ideas were dogmatically accepted and held back both science and philosophy later on.
Your thoughts?