Philosophy is simply respect for obtaining knowledge. All the rest is balderdash. The sophist or jejune misnomer of philosophy as "a way of looking at things" or weltanschauung is as much at fault for making the tools of reason, logic and rhetoric hermeneutic tail-chasing instead of heuristic and the means to advance knowledge claims.

Where there is resistance to respect for obtaining knowledge, simply apply an instrumentalist ethos: tell any would-be philosopher that if after utterance you cannot be assured of knowing something that you did not know before, or, failing that, that you cannot at least be able to assess whether what has been uttered can eventually lead to something you did not know before, simply tell them they have not uttered philosophy.

Is philosophy viewed as unnecessary by the average, ordinary or common person? I don't presume that it is. Pretensions of philosophical authority and solicitations to agreement with overly sophisticated arguments with lots of technical jargon certainly are, but honest-to-john philosophy? No.

Philosophy is simply respect for obtaining knowledge. All the rest is balderdash. The sophist or jejune misnomer of philosophy as "a way of looking at things" or weltanschauung is as much at fault for making the tools of reason, logic and rhetoric waste into hermeneutic tail-chasing instead of explicit heuristic and the means to advance and articulate knowledge claims.

Where there is resistance to respect for obtaining knowledge, simply apply an instrumentalist ethos: tell any would-be philosopher that if after utterance you cannot be assured of knowing something that you did not know before, or, failing that, that you cannot at least be able to assess whether what has been uttered can eventually lead to something you did not know before, simply tell them they have not uttered philosophy.