Yet  without philosophy, people tend to pick up the attitudes of the age. They unknowingly absorb the spirit of the times from their environment, and think it is obviously what the Torah means.



Like Steven Weinberg said: The  major advantage learning philosophy--  is to protect oneself from other  philosophies.

And I think that my point of view is born out by experience. In the world where this anti-learning-philosophy attitude is prevalent, we do find large kaleidoscope of attitudes and worldviews --none of which have any correspondence with the actual world views presented in the Torah and Talmud. It seems to me that without learning philosophy, one is simply not equipped with any intellectual tools that one needs to even be able to discern incoherent world views.

On the other hand,  academic philosophy is a real problem, nowadays especially in the English speaking world where the accepted world view is that of Linguistic/Analytic philosophy.

Yet the irony of this situation is that the philosophical foundations of materialism, in a proper metaphysics, are in worse shape now than they have ever been.



The truth is that the evils detailed by atheists in religion are by no means unique to religion but are simply characteristics of human nature.
It is noteworthy, however, that the heaviest blows against materialism in the 20th century have been delivered, not by philosophy or religion, but by science itself. The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, proposed by Niels Bohr (1885-1960), although metaphysically poorly motivated in some respects, represents a stark anti-realism that merely bewilders the physicists and philosophers who literally appear not to have the philosophical background to address it properly. It has proved easierjust not to worry about it and to lapse back into a naive materialism.




Much as Thomas Sowell has said, this incoherence is found in people who don't understand the virtues and advantages of their own land, but idealize some foreign hell hole as Utopia.

Most versions of relativism involve a reinterpretation or redefinition of moral judgements. What is common to all of the redefinitions of moral concepts is that they leave out everything moral. 


Second, it has been argued from time to time that moral relativism presents a simpler picture of the universe than objectivism. Objectivism postulates these entities, objective moral values, that we could explain the world just as easily if not more easily without. Therefore, the burden is on the objectivist to prove the existence of these things.

I think this argument is insincere; that is, nobody ever became a relativist because of this. It was invented after the fact to confuse objectivists.

The argument is exactly analogous to the following argument for mathematical relativism: Objectivism postulates these entities, objective numbers and numerical relationships, that we could explain the world just as easily if not more easily without. Therefore, the burden is on the objectivist to prove the existence of these things. Since he cannot do so, I conclude that all mathematical statements are arbitrary and subjective.

I have tried to show that, like most false philosophical theories, moral relativism dissolves under clarification. 

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Postmod.htm

"Calling twentieth-century philosophy superficial gives it too much dignity; vacuous is the closest term."