You are quite right that Gödel's (first) incompleteness theorem attracts all kinds of bizarre "interpretations". Various examples are discussed and dissected in Torkel Franzen's very nice short book, Gödel's Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to its Use and Abuse, which I warmly recommend.

My guess is that a main source for the whacky interpretations is the claim that has repeatedly been made that the theorem shows that we can't be "machines", and so -- supposedly -- we must be something more than complex biological mechanisms. You can see why that conclusion might in some quarters be found welcome (and other technical results in logic generally don't seem to have such an implication). But as Franzen explains very clearly, it doesn't follow from the theorem.

Apart from the fact that we have pairs each time, I'm not sure I see any other pattern here (even a "family resemblance").

But one thing is clear, the pairs are certainly not all "dichotomies" -- for a dichotomy divides things into two non-overlapping kinds. And while, if we believe Frege, objects ("referents") and concepts are different quite kinds of things, sets and their members can of course be the same kind of thing (since a set can have other sets as its members). Again, while we might suppose physical objects and their appearances are different kinds of things, wholes and their parts needn't be.

If I remember correctly, the first department of psychology in the United States came from the basement of Harvard's philosophy building (or so one story goes). Today it is not uncommon in Britain to find physics departments of universities still identified as departments of 'natural philosophy.' A jaundiced view of these trends is that once a philosophical enterprise begins to gain acclaim it gets a new name and more funding.

The Greek word 'philosopher' means 'lover of wisdom.' I think this means anyone interested in contemplating the human condition has a good claim on the title.

As far as the psychoanalyst vs. philosopher debate goes, I think the authors you mentioned surely count as both. I think what marks psychoanalysts as separate sub-group is that they belong to a school of thought (i.e., they have shared ideas about method, ontology, and epistemology). Those who would identify themselves as 'cognitive scientists' or 'philosophers of mind' are investigating very similar questions as the psychoanalysts - just from another school of thought.

The other prominent difference today between philosophers and psychoanalysts is that the latter frequently have patients. (Socrates would interject here that the city of Athens was his patient!)

You should ask the Stanford Encyclopedia, but it is certainly up there as a significant topic in the thought of Aristotle and Confucius, for example, and continues to be one of the areas of ethical discussion much debated by everyone. I suppose there is a tendency for etiquette to be seen as trivial and class-based, but at its best it represents the rules for treating people which do not fail to respect them and deals with them appropriately, morally speaking. Philosophers tend to prefer to discuss moral issues when they are rather dramatically presented, as in choices between killing people, or who is going to be saved and who not when not everyone can be saved. These issues do not fortunately arise for most of us most of the time, but etiquette does, and gives us a real opportunity to embody our beliefs in behavior.

If you do decide to take the chronological approach, then I think you should definitely focus on key works--in fact, in many cases just chapters of key works. I think it would make sense to choose a history of philosophy as your guide, staying away from anything overly voluminous or idiosyncratic. Blackwell has a one-volume history by Anthony Kenny that looks good. The table of contents references specific philosophical works, which may help you create a manageable, focused itinerary for yourself. Bon voyage!

I agree with Allen Stairs that reading topically is important, but I think it is equally important to remember that philosophy is a conversation that has been ongoing for something like 4500 years. To join in on the conversation, it can be very useful to see it historically, to see how it began and how it evolved, and thereby to gain an understanding of why it is where it is today.

One can combine these approaches: Read chronologically within a topic. Or read contemporary philosophy alongside its history. To compare philosophy with physics, as Stairs does, misleadingly suggests that the history is irrelevant.

(That's not to say that philosophy doesn't "make progress"; on that topic, see my essay: Rapaport, William J. (1982), "Unsolvable Problems and Philosophical Progress", American Philosophical Quarterly 19: 289-298.)

I think you have a real point here. Standard dictionary definitions don't simply "report" usage. Both philosophical and standard dictionary definitions "explain" (as you put it) or "interpret" (as I might put it) the meanings of words. And both the authors of standard dictionaries and philosophers may be reasonably described as advancing "arguments" for their interpretations. There are, of course, different methods of argument at play in the production of philosophical and standard dictionary definitions; and philosophers and the authors of standard dictionaries interpret words in different ways, in the light of different audiences and different histories. In short, the contexts of usage with which philosophical definitions and standard dictionary definitions are concerned is generally different (though sometimes overlapping). The word, "valid," for example, is used differently and means something different in the contexts of ordinary conversation and the formal language of deductive logic. Commonly people speak of someone making a "valid point," while that usage would be incoherent in the philosophical context of deductive logic. Words like "essence," "nature," "intuition," "form," and "substance" also mean something quite different in philosophical contexts from the contexts of ordinary language. Often the difference in meaning/usage has to do with the history of theory that has built up in the philosophical community that has elaborated the meaning of certain words. The weight of that history pushes usage in directions that diverge from common usage. Note, in this regard, that even the meaning and use of the word "definition" is likely to be different in philosophical and ordinary contexts. But since philosophy has affected and continues to affect common usage (and common usage has affected and continues to affect philosophy) the usages are in many cases not entirely unrelated, and we should not expect that they will be entirely unrelated.

You've put your conclusion by saying that morality is entirely a matter of what promotes human survival, but that, I'd suggest, isn't really the issue. I'm assuming you might be open to the idea that rampant cruelty to animals is wrong, whether or not it harms the chances for human survival. But even if you agreed, that wouldn't get you out of the dilemma you feel you're faced with.

The real issue, I think, is that you've become convinced that morality doesn't need religion, and most of the people around you think otherwise. But here's a little secret: even people who think that there's an intimate connection between religion and morality ignore the connection in most of their moral thinking. There are very few people who think that murder would be perfectly acceptable except that God has commanded otherwise. There are very few people who think it would be okay to steal someone's wallet but for the fact that God disapproves. The fact is that aside from a few hot-button issues (abortion and homosexuality being obvious cases) most people don't call on religious premises when they come to moral conclusions. And most of our moral life has more or less nothing to do with those sorts of cases. That means that on a great many issues, the difference between your agnosticism and your neighbor's or relative's belief won't really matter.

But I hear another worry in what you write. You seem to be suggesting that unless you advertise your agnosticism to the kindly old lady down the road, you're being a hypocrite. But why think that? If the subject doesn't come up, steering clear of hypocrisy doesn't call for you to raise it.

And after all, avoiding hypocrisy isn't the only issue here. There's something to be said for respecting people's right to come to their own decisions on these sorts of matters without proselytizing on behalf of your own point of view. If the kindly old lady down the street insisted on trying to convert you at every opportunity, you'd no doubt find it tiresome and annoying. And if she suspects that you're an agnostic but has decided that you're adult enough to come to your own conclusions, that doesn't make her a hypocrite.

All that said, I'm sure it's lonely feeling that you don't have any like-minded folk to hang out with. Since I don't know where you live or what your circumstances are, I don't have much concrete advice about how to find kindred souls. But they do exist, and in larger numbers than you may suspect. So hang in there. Be on the lookout for reading groups, clubs, organizations and such that have an intellectual bent. Make some connections, if possible, at the nearest college or university. Or for that matter, look for lectures and talks at more progressive religious organizations. Are there any Unitarian churches where you live? If so, there's an excellent chance that you'll find some folk who think a lot more like you do than you might have suspected. But in any case, stay away from the hemlock!

Since you have checked out the Leiter page you must have seen the Continental rankings there. My understanding is that his report has been expanded in the past few years to include Continental philosophy, feminist theory, applied ethics and other approaches that are not 'analytic,' so that is a step in the right direction. I do disagree with the assessment that there are few good departments doing Continental philosophy, however.
I would recommend SUNY Stony Brook - I think it is the best, no matter what the rankings say, because most of the graduate students I have met from there have jobs and seemed to enjoy their grad school experiences. I believe that program has an active exchange with a German university. DePaul University also has a very good program, though I happen to know less about it.
You might want to check out this list on the web, it's a couple of years old but should still be helpful: http://www.earlham.edu/~phil/gradsch.htm Good luck!

There's limited and local skepticism, based on serious reasons for doubt. That can be a very good thing. (One ought to be skeptical of what politicians or advertisers say, for example; we've got plenty of evidence that they're often less than reliable sources of information.) But then there's more global skepticism that calls into doubt in a wholesale way large swaths of what we normally believe -- typically not on the basis of specific reasons for doubt, but rather on the basis of top-down arguments.

Many of us (not all) find the second sort of skepticism less than helpful intellectually. One reason: starting out with that sort of skepticism cuts of interesting lines of philoosphical inquiry before they get anywhere at all. Unless we set that sort of skepticism to one side, most philosophical projects don't even get off the ground. For example: if we start from the point of view of ethical skpeticism, then serious moral inquiry gets stopped before it even starts.

There's another reason: at least some philosophical skepticism seems just too philosophical to some of us: seems to give too much credence to high-level arguments of a certain sort, and not enough to intuitions that are closer to the ground. But this is disputed territory.