I can’t name offhand any important problem that philosophers posed and other philosophers later solved. From Zeno’s paradox to Newcomb’s problem, solutions always seem to come from other fields.
Agreed, and a lot of modern fields, including many of the natural sciences and social sciences, derive from philosophers’ framework-establishing questions. The trick is that we then consider the fields therein derived as solving the original questions, rather than philosophy.
Philosophy doesn’t really solve questions in itself; instead, it allows others to solve them.
I can’t name offhand any important problem that philosophers posed and other philosophers later solved. From Zeno’s paradox to Newcomb’s problem, solutions always seem to come from other fields.
Noticing a problem seems an important contribution to solving it.
Agreed, and a lot of modern fields, including many of the natural sciences and social sciences, derive from philosophers’ framework-establishing questions. The trick is that we then consider the fields therein derived as solving the original questions, rather than philosophy.
Philosophy doesn’t really solve questions in itself; instead, it allows others to solve them.
--Wittgenstein
Take David Hume’s correct refutation of the design argument, for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume#The_design_argument
This argument is still used today—though we know a bit more about the subject now.