Your post made me smile. Philosophy is so impossible to wrap your head around at times, not only because it deals with abstract and varying concepts, but yes, because of all these seemingly inconclusive conclusions. People I know have jokingly described philosophy as "hitting your head against a rock over and over and coming up with different reasons why its bleedings", it is, as Camus explicitly elucidated, a Sisyphusian struggle.

Also reminded me of a quote; "Philosophy is for those who have moved beyond any simple certainty"
-George Grant

There are three reasons I know of.
1. We start with an answer and come up with the proof
2. We started with a different set of postules (assumptions)
3. We actually not worried about being right, we're trying to challenge thought even if we don't believe what we're saying.

But dose it matter, philosophy is about how to think not what to think.
Philosophy is held together by questions not answers.
It is not always logical or is it a exact science.

Philosophy is at it root about making sure you have a reason to what you say what you say and believe what you believe.

I can't wrap my head around how so many intelligent people can come to so many different conclusions within the world of philosophy. Is philosophy not rigorous, logical and thorough? Are "thinkers" not looking for the same thing? How does it differ from the physical sciences, where, generally, something is proven and everyone will fall into line? — Edward

I think it's helpful to remind oneself that the scientific method is fairly new on a historical scale. The idea that knowledge always progresses is something peculiar to our modern world. For the vast majority of human history, no certain knowledge of physical nature existed either.

So it might be that we haven't found the equivalent of the scientific method for other questions yet. Given it took thousands of years to come up with it, that wouldn't be terribly unlikely.

But perhaps, unlike questions about the physical world, we don't have a way to ask the question in a way that allows a clear answer.

But, would you say anything is learnt, or is it more of an art form, to be appreciated?

Btw, you're likely moving to my hometown. What are the chances.

It is not always logical or is it a exact science.

How can a subject be so obsessed with logic yet not have to be logical?

Is there not a "comity for the sorting out of what we do and do not know", or SOOWWDADNK Comity, for short? Why can't the information be compiled into a thesis of everything?

The illusion is that there is agreement in science but not in philosophy, and therefore the hard sciences are more precise and rigorous. The reality is that the best thinking in philosophy is in the most fundamental sense more precise than that in the hard sciences and therefore shows up more effectively the differences in viewpoint of those who participate in its debates. The reason that science is by its nature less precise is that it is by definition conventional. That is, it takes as its framing presuppositions certain philosophical ideas but does not make those presuppositions explicit in its thinking. It forgets they are there. The pragmatic operational language of science, based on a logico-mathematical grounding, is designed to be abstract and general enough as to mask the differences in interpretations of it among its participants. Such differences in interpretation only come to the surface as debates about meta-theory(The Copenhagen interpretation in physics, etc).

In a room of 20 physicist working on a particular physic problem , each one will bring their own interpretation of the meaning of that physics, but the linguistic-conceptual scaffolding of the sciences is broad and inexplicit enough as to mask such differences , whereas the the richly, sweepingly self-examining nature of language in continental philosophical inquiry is designed to allow such differences to emerge. Thus, the illusion prevails that physics is a more precise and 'true' mode of inquiry than philosophy.

I can't wrap my head around how so many intelligent people can come to so many different conclusions within the world of philosophy. Is philosophy not rigorous, logical and thorough? Are "thinkers" not looking for the same thing? — Edward

The truly basic questions in philosophy are not matters of fact. They are matters of opinion. Not truth, but usefulness. "Metaphysics" is a dangerous word, with different meanings for different people. I think the primary questions of philosophy are metaphysical in the sense that R.G. Collingwood uses the term:

"Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or group of persons, on this or that occasion or group of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking."

A presupposition is an assumption that establishes the context for a philosophical discussion. Here's what Collingwood says about absolute presuppositions:

"An absolute presupposition is one which stands, relatively to all questions to which it is related, as a presupposition, never as an answer."

"Absolute presuppositions are not verifiable. This does not mean that we should like to verify them but are not able to; it means that the idea of verification is an idea which does not apply to them...."

Thanks, that's a great explanation.

So, am I right in thinking that the hard sciences have an easier time building upon theories and can perform experiments with functional conclusions, despite not having watertight presuppositions?

Despite this illusion, would you say that perhaps the "mess" of philosophy is a result of reductionism and a fundamental inability to prove anything, on which we might build?

"The truly basic questions in philosophy are not matters of fact. They are matters of opinion. Not truth, but usefulness. "Metaphysics" is a dangerous word, with different meanings for different people."

A story scientists tend to tell themselves is that science is about fact and philosophy about opinion. Until you get to philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn, for whom scientific change involves revolutions in theoretical conventions that imply a hopeless entanglement of fact and interpretation from the bottom up.
You don't think that the very foundation of modern empirical science is set of (unexamined) metaphysical assumptions? And that 'progress' in science amounts to a continual transformation in those metaphysical assumptions?

It's worth pointing out, by the way, that the extent of agreement in other fields is often overestimated, and the extent of agreement in philosophy is often underestimated.

well I tried to find it but there is one class of philosophy of religion that believes the point of God is that he is illogical and thus has to take a leap of faith. As one example.

We don't need to prove in order to build. In terms of its effect on society these days, I'd say those scientific and technical fields interlaced with the cognitive sciences are the most important today, in terms of their contribution to robotics and in general technologies which simulate cognition in living organisms.
This interdisciplinary field of mind science is about as 'messy' as philosophy(there is active interchange between a.i., cog. science and philosophy of mind, and increasingly including continental phenomenologists like Husserl and Merleau-Ponty ) with multiple branches and sub fields and internal divisions and debates. And yet, out of all this chaos will come increasingly sophisticated modes of thinking and associated devices that are already dramatically changing our cultural and political landscape worldwide.

I think there are a few reasons why this occurs.

1. Different answers for different people

Self-explanatory, we're not the same. Someone who is born with a proclivity for depression is simply not going to think the same way as someone who's generally always happy. There are many very influential nature/nurture differences which lead to different perspectives, needs, values and so on.

2. Different values, interpretations, predictions and so on.

There are many examples to give for each of these things.
Values:
Many topics in philosophy come down to assessing things by assessing the methods and outcomes, to do this, we need to say what is a good method or a good outcome, that is the very simplified version of value. When we talk about these topics where value matters, there are many reasons to value different things. So your answer that something is good and my answer that same thing is bad, we can both be correct according to what we value, correct in valuing that thing by virtue of our sound and valid reasoning and this probably means neither of us has a reason to change our minds.

Interpretation:
We might both agree that society oversexualizes things, we may both agree freedom is good but degrading men and women as sex objects is bad. However, if I think that oversexualising is the byproduct of freedom and don't see it as degrading anyone but you think it is degrading men and women as sex objects, although we value the same things, our interpretations make us disagree on our attitudes towards the oversexualisation that we both agree is taking place. There are many complex reasons that make us think as we do and we may both be right based on our interpretation on what "degrading" means, which neither of us is willing to change our minds on (but with valid and sound reasoning for our positions) and so neither has any reason to change their mind.

Interpretation is a big one really, it's hard to believe you will agree with anyone on anything if you go down the interpretative chain deep enough.

Predictions:
Now here, I think people can be wrong but sometimes it's very hard or impossible to know. Slippery slope arguments are an okay example, if something is not wrong in of itself but I think it will lead to more problems and you think that's a fallacy or that I'm wrong, our conclusions could be very different. Prediction and interpretation are interlinked but predictions deserve their own mention, our reasoning is based on an understanding that isn't necessarily true but it's too complex to know for certain, people have their experiences and biases. This can create premises which lead to disagreements, this is a big one I think, many threads on this forum currently are based on disagreements of what will and will not work as a solution for problems most agree exist and can be fixed.

Well, that's enough for now, there are many reasons. I think that it's important to note that as @Terrapin Station says, most topics entail a lot of disagreement, I'd say the aforementioned reasons account for a lot of it and can be applied to many different contexts.

It's also important to note that in philosophy, a lot of the fun comes from disagreeing with each other, we like to argue. In business or science, we need to establish very early on what success looks like and try to work through disagreements to get the core results we're looking for. In philosophy, if someone is just agreeing with me, I'll keep extrapolating my position until we find something to argue about and if we ever agree, that's just the end of conversation and I'll move onto a new topic to disagree with people on.

A story scientists tend to tell themselves is that science is about fact and philosophy about opinion. Until you get to philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn, for whom scientific change involves revolutions in theoretical conventions that imply a hopeless entanglement of fact and interpretation from the bottom up. — Joshs

Not sure if you are agreeing with me, disagreeing, or neither. The trouble with saying that science is about facts is that it means you are unaware that the existence of facts is an assumption that needs to be recognized.

You don't think that the very foundation of modern empirical science is set of (unexamined) metaphysical assumptions? — Joshs

Yes, I think the foundation of empirical science is a set of metaphysical assumptions. If they are unexamined, then the philosophers haven't been doing their jobs.

A story scientists tend to tell themselves is that science is about fact and philosophy about opinion. Until you get to philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn, for whom scientific change involves revolutions in theoretical conventions that imply a hopeless entanglement of fact and interpretation from the bottom up.
You don't think that the very foundation of modern empirical science is set of (unexamined) metaphysical assumptions? And that 'progress' in science amounts to a continual transformation in those metaphysical assumptions? — Joshs

As Heidegger said, "The real 'movement' of the sciences takes place when thier basic concepts undergo a more or less radical revision which is transparent to itself. The level which a science has reached is determined by how far it is capable of a crisis in its basic concepts."

Surely the vast majority of discourse is simply down to people sifting through words and the meaning attached to them? — Edward

I wonder how comparable different means and ideas are to each other.

The various encyclopedias of Philosophy are helpful in throwing different points of view into contrast against others. But that enterprise assumes a kind of universal realm where all ideas are adjacent to others in a space that can contain them all. If a challenge were to be made to this assumption, it might be difficult to distinguish from arguments being made within the assumed region.

Points of departure are difficult to separate from claims made over what remains.

Don’t view them as “conclusions”. Generally speaking they are “perspectives” and they are useful in their own way.

Often when someone is insistent about something in philosophy they are looking for critique. Like in every field of interest you’ll always find a few more dogmatic types though.

You beat me to it. I was going to use that exact Heidegger quote.

Philosophy reaches so many different conclusions because each philosopher proceeds from different questions. The questions of Plato are not the questions of Kant, and the questions of Nietzsche are not the questions of Russell. And it's the questions which determine the shape and outcome of the inquiry: this is why every great philosopher doesn't just expand on what came before, but always inaugurates whole new lines of research that were previously unengaged. Philosophy is a creative endeavour par excellence, and what is created are less 'answers' than new fields of problems - new ways of looking at the world. This is not a bug - a 'spanner' - but a feature, and one worth celebrating, not lamenting.

Some people have described philosophy as a poetic science. I'm not really sure. These kind of questions come up in discussion a lot with my friends who are in the 'hard sciences'. I've always seen philosophy as the physics of social sciences, kind of strange and super abstract, but ultimately affects all the other disciplines of social science (history, sociology, politics ect.)

And oh wow, I'm moving to Swansea so I'm not really sure where that is in relation to the rest of Wales!

I can't wrap my head around how so many intelligent people can come to so many different conclusions within the world of philosophy. — Edward

One starts philosophy in the middle, and not only in the middle but in the middle of confusion and contradiction. One is using language and asking what is language, one asks from a position thinking one knows and then discovering one was wrong, what it is to know. As if in a maze, folks head towards a hidden exit that may not exist, and make progress in different directions. If anyone ever escaped the maze, their instructions were incomprehensible or unbelievable, and so we set out again, wondering at the folly of our predecessors.

My response to your question is similar to that of @Judaka: different answers work for different people. That there are many philosophical views is one of its greatest strengths, because it increases the likelihood that any given person will be able to find or develop a philosophy that works for them.

Some members of this forum do not agree with that approach. There is an alternative approach that says there is an absolute truth in relation to the issues that philosophical theories deal with, so that on any given issue only the theories that agree with the absolute truth of that issue are correct in that respect, and the others are wrong.

I think the split between these approaches can be somewhat roughly characterised as whether one regards philosophy as the search for wisdom, or the search for truth. For me it is the former.

Philosophy is the study of unanswerable questions. Once a question gains a widely accepted answer it moves into 'science'.