I'm a bit puzzled about where you got the impression that philosophy works this way, Looking at the work of Spinoza, perhaps, might give this impression, but who else? Certainly not Plato. Certainly not Aristotle. Not Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell, not a single philosopher active in the last 50 years that I can think of.
The description you quote from your philosophy student acquaintance is pretty reasonable. I'm not quite so happy with the last part—that philosophers determine general principles and rules from their intuitions. The role of intuition in philosophy is much more complicated and also much more controversial than this allows for.
There is no one method that philosophers use. Philosophers worry about consistency and inconsistency. They look for counterexamples and try to avoid them in their own work. They may begin with "intuitions," but they try to develop those intuitions into more precise, well-articulated theses, and they count it as a plus for their view if it covers a range of cases and helps makes sense of things that formerly seemed puzzling. They use thought experiments to explore what their views entail about hypothetical but potentially illuminating cases. They may try to challenge claims made by other philosophers, or they may build on insights that other philosophers have developed. Philosophers also try to make sure that their views don't run into conflict with things we know empirically. But philosophy is not some one thing, philosophers don't all approach their problems in the same way, and just what philosophy is and how it might best be done are philosophical questions.
This all makes perfect sense to anyone who works in the field, because philosophy's issues are by their very nature not straightforward and not capable of being settled in any one way. Questions that yield to the application of a precise "method" are by and large not the questions that philosophers think about.
This frustrates some people. It doesn't frustrate philosophers. It's what gets them out of bed in the morning.
I'm a bit puzzled about where
I'm a bit puzzled about where you got the impression that philosophy works this way, Looking at the work of Spinoza, perhaps, might give this impression, but who else? Certainly not Plato. Certainly not Aristotle. Not Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell, not a single philosopher active in the last 50 years that I can think of.
The description you quote from your philosophy student acquaintance is pretty reasonable. I'm not quite so happy with the last part—that philosophers determine general principles and rules from their intuitions. The role of intuition in philosophy is much more complicated and also much more controversial than this allows for.
There is no one method that philosophers use. Philosophers worry about consistency and inconsistency. They look for counterexamples and try to avoid them in their own work. They may begin with "intuitions," but they try to develop those intuitions into more precise, well-articulated theses, and they count it as a plus for their view if it covers a range of cases and helps makes sense of things that formerly seemed puzzling. They use thought experiments to explore what their views entail about hypothetical but potentially illuminating cases. They may try to challenge claims made by other philosophers, or they may build on insights that other philosophers have developed. Philosophers also try to make sure that their views don't run into conflict with things we know empirically. But philosophy is not some one thing, philosophers don't all approach their problems in the same way, and just what philosophy is and how it might best be done are philosophical questions.
This all makes perfect sense to anyone who works in the field, because philosophy's issues are by their very nature not straightforward and not capable of being settled in any one way. Questions that yield to the application of a precise "method" are by and large not the questions that philosophers think about.
This frustrates some people. It doesn't frustrate philosophers. It's what gets them out of bed in the morning.