What importance do Philosophers have in our society and who are philosophers?

[Olivia]

[citypeek]

Philosophy doesn't have any importance in my country (i.e. the Netherlands). What I do know is that philosophers are held in more esteem in France. I don't know about the USA or Canada.
But I can tell you what it means to me. Philosophy offers you a eagle perspective on the particular field you are working in. That gives you a platform from which you can offer criticism. It also enables you to compare your kind of study with other kind of studies in society.
To give a more concrete example: a lecture in which the teacher discusses ADHD. The teacher is not a doctor yet he criticizes the so-called "disease". See link: it starts at 0:12:50.

[IA]

Probably not nearly enough. Most of us connect to the work of today's philosophers only very indirectly, through the policy initiatives which have been inspired by their work, and we almost never learn what inspired them. In the UK the most famous practical philosopher in modern times is probably Baroness Warnock who headed the ethics panel on Human Fertility and Embryology which guided British legislation.
Anyone who studies the fundamentals of a branch of knowledge, whether it be pure science, applied science, history, social policy or politics, will soon come up against philosophical questions. The very nature of knowledge is still a matter for debate. Historians have differing approaches to historical explanation, even disputing what constitutes a historical "fact". Medical staff are daily faced with ethical decisions and some guidelines are needed which at their basis are philosophical judgements. Even economists, although they often forget this, are working within a philosophical model of the world. Adam Smith was very conscious that trading was only one part of human life and not the most important, he saw trade as a means to an end, not an end it itself. Increasingly pure science is working at such extreme limits of what we can know, even indirectly, that the nature of that knowledge needs to be questioned. Are we really objectively examining the Universe, or do our very perceptual models feed back to us our own ideas of how the Universe is? Practical scientists or technologists often seem to work in a moral vacuum, but they need to consider the implications of their activities on the real world. The medium we are using at present has all sorts of moral implications. At its simplest is the latest operating system fit for purpose, and would you buy any other product that needed patching weekly, and should Trading Standards departments be prosecuting software manufacturers?
Some philosophers are asking fundamental questions about humans and their relationship to other sentient beings and with the world on which we must all live. If we protect the rights of the weakest and most damaged of humans, how can we deny other animals the same rights? What makes the chimpanzee less worthy of rights than the brain-damaged human with less intelligence and functionality? Is specism an intellectually sustainable philosophical position?