A philosopher must have a reasonably sufficient grasp of most extant practical working knowledge of the world. If a philosopher makes claims which are inconsistent with the working knowledge of some people, those people will quickly demonstrate the philosopher's claims to be false. Some particular contemporary examples include Noam Chomsky's[1] misapprehension of the Khmer Rouge, Eliezer Yudkowsky's[1] squabbles with quantum physicists, or the widespread abuses of mathematical concepts by "postmodern" continental philosophers as described by Sokal and Bricmont:
And these are the better examples of would-be contemporary polymaths who make stabs at using philosophy to achieve broader social aims (as opposed to continuing long-running arguments about the ontological status of possible worlds and what Wittgenstein really said about Godel's theorem). There's so much to know it's hard not to be wrong about some of it. That situation is unique to the modern era.
So I don't think it's just about an anti-philosophy mindset being popular. Philosophy has, for practical purposes, become harder to do.
1: please don't reply to tell me that Chomsky and Yudkowsky aren't real philosophers, I know that, but I wanted examples people would recognize, and anyway their beliefs are roughly consistent with the popular positions in philosophy, and they failed in the general way I am describing, so the shoe fits
A philosopher must have a reasonably sufficient grasp of most extant practical working knowledge of the world. If a philosopher makes claims which are inconsistent with the working knowledge of some people, those people will quickly demonstrate the philosopher's claims to be false. Some particular contemporary examples include Noam Chomsky's[1] misapprehension of the Khmer Rouge, Eliezer Yudkowsky's[1] squabbles with quantum physicists, or the widespread abuses of mathematical concepts by "postmodern" continental philosophers as described by Sokal and Bricmont:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense
And these are the better examples of would-be contemporary polymaths who make stabs at using philosophy to achieve broader social aims (as opposed to continuing long-running arguments about the ontological status of possible worlds and what Wittgenstein really said about Godel's theorem). There's so much to know it's hard not to be wrong about some of it. That situation is unique to the modern era.
So I don't think it's just about an anti-philosophy mindset being popular. Philosophy has, for practical purposes, become harder to do.
1: please don't reply to tell me that Chomsky and Yudkowsky aren't real philosophers, I know that, but I wanted examples people would recognize, and anyway their beliefs are roughly consistent with the popular positions in philosophy, and they failed in the general way I am describing, so the shoe fits