The goal of philosophy is truth, to be a lover of wisdom, is to empty oneself of falsehoods. Therefore a true philosopher has no place for crude malformed concepts like:
-ego
-individualism
And to empty oneself to the extent that one masters onself in the area’s of ones life - no longer submittin to the will of your autonomous self (the nervous systems self-preservation systems – egoism, individulism, “I” ism, “me” isms, etc), thinks like:
-vice
-desire
-materialism
And a return to focus on the problems that are the simplest and most often neglected - how to seperate truth from illusions of truth, expose lies, misconceptions, and to attempt to build relationships with other people.
In my opinion socrates and those of that kind of school came close to embodying what philosophy really is - love of truth over falsehood, and aligning/becoming that truth, focusing on what is true and what actually solves problems then what is false/illusionary/temporary, etc.
Most people and claimed philosophers exist in plato’s cave, few ever make it out of the world of illusion. Anyone who says philosophy is a waste of time, simply doesn’t have the ability or the acument to become a philosopher in the first place… it has to be a part of who you are, you have to be willing to question everything, your entire society, and be able to abase your own knowledge upon the arrival of new information pertaining to what is true. Thats my thoughts on the matter.
I believe philosophy is really good, because much of what we think and our judgements are based on petty illusions of our automatic discrimination systems of the nervous system. Philosophy is a way of becoming more god then beast, to use a metaphor, to become a master of your animal nature rather then being a slave to it, to be a god rather then a beast. Empty of hate, a wearyness of pride in knowledge, a knowing how small and lacking in wisdom and understanding you really are (the truth is much bigger then we are, in our short lives…).
A favorite quote of mine and a bit of background on Ibn Al-haytham from wikipedia
Ibn al-Haytham further criticized Ptolemy’s model on other empirical, observational and experimental grounds,[87] such as Ptolemy’s use of conjectural undemonstrated theories in order to “save appearances” of certain phenomena, which Ibn al-Haytham did not approve of due to his insistence on scientific demonstration. Unlike some later astronomers who criticized the Ptolemaic model on the grounds of being incompatible with Aristotelian natural philosophy, Ibn al-Haytham was mainly concerned with empirical observation and the internal contradictions in Ptolemy’s works.[88]
In his Aporias against Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham commented on the difficulty of attaining scientific knowledge:
Truth is sought for itself [but] the truths, [he warns] are immersed in uncertainties [and the scientific authorities (such as Ptolemy, whom he greatly respected) are] not immune from error…[8]
He held that the criticism of existing theories—which dominated this book—holds a special place in the growth of scientific knowledge:
Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.[8]
