Actually, I was trying to get at the fact that disciplines do operate like conversations: you can make an unsolicited contribution from outside to a philosophic

Actually, I was trying to get at the fact that disciplines do operate like conversations: you can make an unsolicited contribution from outside to a philosophical discussion, but it's unlikely to be well received. The HN crowd probably has no difficulty seeing how this would be the case with e.g. (a recent example discussed here) "trisectors". Well, philosophy has its cranky outsiders too, up to and including Hawking (arrogantly?) declaring philosophy obsolete.