What happened is that the science industry locked down academia in total and philosophical academia specifically, leaving no room for any ideas that contradicted scientific dogma. However, with some luck it is possible to view some interesting philosophical thinking on YouTube and I don't mean TED. It just takes lots of work. Almost impossible to find interesting papers but once in a while something pops up. Other than that, philosophy is stuck in a rut with no where to go. No one is going to challenge the mainstream science industry and live to tell about it.

and I don't mean TED — Rich

Sure you do ;)

Amen

TED — Rich

One can definitely watch too many TED Talks.

all post 1950 philosophers are extremely narrow specialists and world and humanity interpreting theories have, as far as I know, gone extinct. — PiggyBoi228

What you are observing is not limited to philosophy. There are many particular fields of study that have been worked over so thoroughly that there are no nice, broad general topics left. Shakespearean studies, for example, have become terribly tedious and detailed.

The great increase in the size of universities and the number of people engaged in advanced study has had an effect, too. What field in philosophy has not already been plowed up, harrowed, planted, and harvested several times over? Most post-1950 philosophers are going to be a product of 'the system' and won't be publishing broad, general ideas.

But all this is a problem for advanced scholars. Compare Philosophy to Shakespearean Studies. There is nothing left about Shakespeare where a scholar can write a broad, general dissertation. There's nothing left except minutiae. BUT... Most people have not read many (or any) of Shakespeare's plays, let alone seen them performed; for these billions of people, Shakespeare is totally new. Same with philosophy. Most people have not read much of the field of philosophy, and for them the field is new.

I don't read philosophy, for the most part. As a field of study, it just doesn't interest me. 30, 40, 50 years ago I read Sartre and Camus with much more interest than I can summon now.

I think the pure genius of Wittgenstein and Heidegger in the early 20th century resulted in metaphysics and epistomology no longer being able to be taken seriously within culture as a whole. This in turn resulted in postmodernism. This is just my interpretation however. Don't take my word on it. But Heidegger simply and ontologically destroyed the modern cartesian approach to philosophy. E.g. without Heidegger's ontological destruction of modern philosophy many postmodern thinkers would not have been possible: Foucault. Derrida. Deleuze. Their ideas are merely a take on heidegger's.

Hi...again. That's my take on intellectual history, too, or what I've read. I've spent more time with Wittgenstein than Heidegger, probably because I prefer the prose. I had a realization that I won't blather on about concerning the fuzziness of language that absolutely demolished my ability to take most of the old issues seriously. In short, the questions themselves are often fog and fuzz.

What I wanted to ask is what you make of Nietzsche? In my view, he demolished metaphysics and epistemology before W or H. Is it just the case that he didn't catch on? That only with Wittgenstein and Heidegger did the mainstream give up on the Cartesian and linguistic/transcendental approaches? I've read some of Foucault and Derrida, other more contemporary names, but really IMO has that much of a kick after Nietzsche. (I do like Zizek, though.) And when I think of Nietzsche I have the critical Nietzsche in mind, not the moralist. I think of all the approaches he put into question or demystified.

all post 1950 philosophers are extremely narrow specialists and world and humanity interpreting theories have, as far as I know, gone extinct. — PiggyBoi228

Have you read Zizek? There are also many great videos available. He's a charismatic guy. I'd say he's definitely a "world and humanity" theorist. I adore the man for being the real thing. I don't always agree with him, but that's beside the point. He is present as a person, warts and all. He's no generic expert emitting state-of-the-art technicalities.