There is no singular value to philosophy, but among some of it's values I would list:
1. Your point about helping us find questions/problems to research or think about.
2. Help us figure out HOW to find solutions.
3. Help us figure out how to interpret results.
4. Help us figure out what to do with interpretations of results.

5. Help us lead a life worth living. The whole rather being a Socrates versus pig thing.

I'd add help appreciate the beauty, magnificence and complexity of the universe.

The whole rather being a Socrates versus pig thing. — NKBJ

What does this mean?

It’s a bit like farting. Some people like to smell their own farts, everyone enjoys chuckling at the sound of it, and many are offended by the lingering stench.

It’s a helpful, and essential, release of potentially damaging noxious fumes :D

It’s a bit like farting. Some people like to smell their own farts, everyone enjoys chuckling at the sound of it, and many are offended by the lingering stench.

It’s a helpful, and essential, release of potentially damaging noxious fumes :D — I like sushi

Now you’re speaking my language. :grin:

It's an important point to notice that the value of philosophy is not just in that it is the cornerstone and also a building block for science. It has value on it's own. That it has variability and a lot of different schools may not be in itself a great thing, although it does show how varied philosophy can be.

Usefulness and how helpful it is when trying to reason issues might be a good indicator of it's value.

And let's not forget the most valuable thing: knowing Philosophy makes you appear intelligent and well learned to others. Oh that quote from Plato, Kant or Foucault can work so well. Yes, you too are a thinker.

It’s a helpful, and essential, release of potentially damaging noxious fumes :D — I like sushi

So everybody, onward with our brainfarts!

They don’t call m’ “shit f’ brains” f’ nowt!

https://www.utilitarianism.com/socrates.html

The value of philosophy? You want to know why someone would do philosophy, what they would achieve?

If you have a choice not to do philosophy, don't.

If you don't have a choice, you are a philosopher.

Philosophy is a fun parlor game for typoholic nerds. Life is short, and fun is good, so that's a value of sorts.

Taking philosophy seriously seems a mistake, probably just another symptom of taking ourselves too seriously.

Philosophy is a fun parlor game for typoholic nerds — Jake

No, that's the Philosophy Forums.

I spent months on a group blog by academic philosophers. The presentations are more polished there, but otherwise there's little difference between their insight and reasoning and what is found here.

As example, just as there is very limited interest in our relationship with knowledge here, the same is true for academics. I'm unable to conceive of how philosophy which is disinterested in our relationship with knowledge can be labeled a serious enterprise. Fun, but not serious.

Hi

The value of philosophy for me is to feel.

To try explain a feeling or some insight with mere words is like trying to explain colour to the blind but that doesnt stop us trying.

We try our best to do so by using words to make sentances as our expression.

We can gain glimpses of understanding while we are philosophising that can be felt from somewhere deep within ourselves. You just cant do that with pure "mechanical" or "scientific" thought alone.

Here lies the saying of feeling it within the heart.

If people could see philosophy is art and to treat it like that then they would understand its value.

brilliantly said!

And let's not forget the most valuable thing: knowing Philosophy makes you appear intelligent and well learned to others — ssu

Unless those others are intelligent and well learned enough to understand that philosophy at the professional level is just a business, and at the amateur level is just a parlor game.

You show up at my house for dinner with a loaded gun in your mouth. I don't even notice the gun, distracted as I am by my interest in discussing some point made by Aristotle etc. When I do notice the gun, I'm bored by it, and eager to return to my Aristotle thesis.

Am I a rational person? A real philosopher?

Wait, it gets worse. You're bored by the gun too.

Evidence? Check out this group blog by many academic philosophers, most of whom have PhDs.

https://blog.apaonline.org/

Although that blog publishes daily, and is now a number of years old, and represents a leading professional philosophy organization, last I checked there is only ONE article about nuclear weapons, the single biggest threat to modern civilization. One article. And that one article is only there because I relentlessly nagged the editor.

Philosophy is a joke. It has little to do with the application of reason to human affairs.

Philosophy might be redeemed by philosophers being clear minded and honest enough to simply call philosophy what it is, a game, like a card game for example.