I think one reason (some) physicists are so bad at philosophy is that philosophy concerns matters that are of interest to everyone, but that the human mind is n

I think one reason (some) physicists are so bad at philosophy is that philosophy concerns matters that are of interest to everyone, but that the human mind is not well designed to deal with. In fact, the fact that we can do it at all seems to be an accidental side-effect of mental and linguistic abilities that were produced by evolution to solve very different sorts of problems. That is why, of the thousands of cultures that have existed, only one happened to develop what Feser is refering to as philosophy. As a result of this mismatch between aspirations and mental abilities, even brilliant philosophers such as Plato have made many mistakes that took centuries to straighten out. This means if you are going to do philosophy well you have to spend years studying it, including learning about all the common mistakes and how to avoid them. The physicists in question, unfortunately, seem to have not done this.