> People don't read philosophy like they would poetry. They want to learn something about the world, something factual, preferably. People often expect much fr

> People don't read philosophy like they would poetry. They want to learn something about the world, something factual, preferably. People often expect much from the philosophy. They hope for personal enhancement or a better understanding of the world. But no facts. I've read quite a few philosophical texts, from Platon to Castoriadis, and I think there never was anything factual in them. It's almost orthogonal to what we call philosophy. > If philosophy can't "prove or disprove facts", A philosophical proof is not a scientific proof. You can't prove that an assertion by Kant is wrong, or that Heidegger made a mistake in a particular concept. There is no progress through confirmation, refutation or reproductibility. > then what's its use ? The notion of use is ill-defined. What's the use of painting? or novels? Of course, many answers are possible and there is no single truth. So that's in the field of philosophy. > To be pleasant to read ? Even if a text is not factual, it can bring new thoughts. Just like meeting someone can be just shallow chatting, or bring strong emotions, or mind-twisting revelation. > To provide endless empty rhetorical discourse on wether we have a soul or whatever other useless question ? A relative of mine is a profesional philosopher, and I remember the first of the texts he authored: it was a "philosophical proof" that racism was wrong because it was inconsistant. I do think the text is a "rhetorical discourse", but the question is not useless. Debating such themes can be quite useful, in a certain way. If the debate is formal, that's philosophy.