Philosophy used to be the queen of the sciences. It has fallen to irrelevance. [As Steven Weinberg (NoblePrize Physics--for combining electromagnetism with the weak force that causes neutron decay) wrote about the unreasonable ineffectiveness of philosophy.] [This as compared to the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics]] This is similar to large corporations that at one time hold first place and then sink into bankruptcy. [Same with England. Once the prime world power. Now an afterthought.] The situation is not so different when it comes to religion which once was thought to contain all truth. Now is simply a matter of personal preference on where to hang out.
What does this mean in a practical sense?
I mean this question also in terms of the discredited ideologies that swept through Europe and Russia in the later 1800's.
Faith and Reason was the formula that worked for the Middle Ages. And still is a working combination. Not just one or the other. But the very meaning of faith and reason can not be the same as in the Middle Ages.
[Like the Renaissance that looked towards ancient Attica [Greece] for inspiration, but went beyond that.]
Not that philosophy itself is irrelevant. It is still necessary to get an accurate idea of what is everything all about. Just philosophy as a study has undergone a systematic decay.
[Perhaps if we could all go back to basics would be best. Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Fries, Leonard Nelson. If we could just get through that material maybe we would be doing a lot better.]- See robert hanna about the vacuous twentieth century analytic philosophy.
I want to add here that there was no improvement in political systems that came from reason or philosophy. even john Locke’s two treaties of government came after the glorious revolution where England rejected a king because he was suspected of being a catholic and gave rulership to William and Mary two strong protestants. so now let me mention the first democracy Athens. they had a king that was ok but then his son came to power and was a tyrant. the people revolted and brought back one of the elites who had been exiled. this elite figured out that keeping the elites in power was the whole problem. it was their constant infighting that brought about tyranny. so, he created a system of extremely strong democracy. Go look up the elaborate system to make sure there would be no voter fraud. Later Rome had a similar problem, the elite’s got out of line and abused their power. So ,the plebians ran way to a nearby mountain. The elites sent a messenger to bring them back and gave them the office of tribune and other powers to make the balance of powers that was the major characteristic of the roman republic as signified in SPQR- the senate and people of Rome. Later England do the same. They limited the power of the king but do not get rid of the office of king nor some of its powers by the magna carta and provisions of oxford and in a way that must have brought out the point--they killed a king who abused his powers, Charles I
