The focus of all this focusing.

On several occasions I have been asked something along the lines of, "What is the point of philosophy?  Isn't it all completely impractical.?"  My traditional answer to these sort of questions was to bring forth examples as to when philosophy was practical- and I would usually do it field by field (normally ethics followed by theology and epistemology- but I digress).  Unfortunately my responses were always long and not to elegant as they lacked straight-forward-ness.

However, I think I have come up with a much more eloquent and satisfying answer approximately forty-five minutes ago, between my thoughts of food and my speculations about how much wood a wood chuck would chuck if only a wood chuck would.

My new answer is as follows;  The whole point of philosophy is to strengthen or weaken arguments in favour of or against facts using as little empirical evidence as possible, and when possible prove or disprove these facts entirely.

Why?  Well as philosophy proves or strengthen the proofs in its diverse fields, the world as a whole begins to move closer and closer to a common body of knowledge/beliefs.  Even those who do not have a keen interest in philosophy are exposed at some time or another to one of its arguments (most people have heard of the problem of evil or the problem of omnipotence, even if though a vast majority don't know what their technical names are).  And as the world moves towards this body of knowledge society as a whole may begin to adopt more beneficial dynamics which in itself is a good thing, but may also lead to economical developments, which are another good thing and in turn may lead to yet another good thing- scientific advances.  (Not too mention, of course, that philosophical advances might also contribute directly to scientific advances, particularly in the field of epistemology.)

This is not quite as far-fetched as one may seem to think - remember the wars fought over differences in beliefs, the oppression of scientific development in Medieval times and so on and so forth, and one will instantly see how a lack of unified beliefs led to extreme cases of horrible social dynamics.  Another example can be seen in the Cold War, where two ideologies clashed and almost plunged the world into what could have been another World War.

These are all extreme cases, but they are situations which echo other lesser situations within society itself (like the foundation of law, which may lead to a high rate of criminality if they are not foundations which mirror the beliefs of the people).

Obviously, subjectivity is a prime enemy of all philosophy.  If we were all to accept subjectivity, we should all go ahead and toss out all literature which has anything to do with thought as it is completely futile to anyone save its author.  The only use it could be of for other people is mere entertainment- reducing its value from a work of rigorous thought to a children's fairytale.

Well, that there is my answer.