professional philosophers
Biologists work on extremely specific mechanisms that most people haven’t even heard of. In an immediate sense, their work is ‘useless’, since the layperson can’t use their knowledge. Of course, most people still think biology research is important, since their work inspires other, more practical work, which inspires other work in turn, until practical items are built that affect the layperson.
Biology research turnaround is slow, but it’s still within one’s lifetime. i.e. A biology grad student may have to wait years to see their ideas in practice, but they probably will see it eventually.
Mill wrote about utilitarianism in 1861. While most haven’t heard of his theories, his ideas are integral to modern thinking about justice systems and governments. Philosophical ideas trickle down into practicality just like any other research, but the turnaround time is so much longer.
In addition, when abstract ideas do reach the mainstream, everyone sees them as exactly that, mainstream ideas that have been around for so long, that they are self evident. Most western educated individuals have grown up with modern ideas of the world for so long, that they don’t think about how these ideas were originally the armchair musings of philosophers.
I think these two effects combined explain why most dismiss professional philosophy, but once you actually see the effect professional philosophers have had on practical discourse, their role makes a lot more sense.
Plus, professional philosophers are like, a percent of a percent of most university budgets.
