Intuitions about the value of philosophy vary wildly. For many it is just bullshit, "bullshitting about any topic" as a particularly benighted student of mine once wrote on a teaching evaluation. (What a joy to be quit of the classroom for good!) But anyone who says this sort of thing understands the nature of bullshit as little as he understands the nature of philosophy. He also does not understand that philosophy is needed to comprehend the nature of that under which philosophy is being subsumed, namely, bullshit. For instruction as to the essence of bullshit we of course turn to a philosopher, Professor Frankfurt. A statement is bullshit if it is
. . . grounded neither in a belief that it is true nor, as a lie must be, in a belief that it is not true. It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth — this indifference to how things really are — that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." (emphasis added)
Exactly right. The bullshitter is one who 'doesn't give a shit' about the truth value of what he is saying. He doesn't care how things stand with reality. The liar, by contrast, must care: he must know (or at least attempt to know) how things are if he is to have any chance of deceiving his audience. Think of it this way: the bullshitter doesn't care whether he gets things right or gets them wrong; the liar cares to get them right so he can deceive you about them.
Now philosophers, the genuine ones anyway, not those who merely fill their bellies from it, care deeply about "how things really are." Only a bullshitter could call philosophy bullshit.
Of course, philosophy's not being bullshit does not render it 'epistemically in the clear,' to cop a phrase Roderick Chisholm uses in another connection. There are other objections one can make to philosophy. We shall review some of them in due course.