One doesn't diminish a philosopher's achievement, and doesn't undermine its soundness, by showing how the particular set of questions on which he focused, the orientation he brought to bear on his focus, has some causal connection to the circumstances of his life.

Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better."

I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household and I wouldn't say so much it's informed my views, but it's informed my interest, so I think as a child I was often very baffled by knowledge claims.

And now having a child has been taken out of the sphere of biological determinism and placed instead in the domain of intentional action. Another option to consider and decide upon. And ... not to choose is to choose.

Plato dramatically puts the detachment of the philosopher from his time this way: to philosophize is to prepare to die.

So dogma, doctrine, unexamined assumptions, that's what it is to be sharing that, the hippies shadow, no way of grounding it to reality. It's where we're just cut off from reality unless we can argue, we can substantiate, we can justify, we can convince each other.

Philosophy addresses, in a systematic and progress-making way, questions of deep concern to everyone.