"I’m probably the only philosopher in the world who holds that (i) there is tremendous agreement amongst philosophers on the truth-values of many substantive philosophical claims, (ii) there is enormous fact-based progress in philosophy, (iii) philosophers frequently succeed in the aim to acquire communal knowledge of substantive philosophical truths, and (iv) there is plenty of genuine philosophical expertise regarding the truth-values of substantive philosophical claims (setting aside expertise regarding the discussions of those topics). Thesis (i) is the pivotal one. What makes philosophy bizarre compared to other fields is that we are unaware of all of that. And all this time we thought philosophy had something to do with acquiring self-knowledge.

In the appendix I list 200 straightforward facts directly about philosophical matters that virtually all philosophers know and non-philosophers don’t know. Our strong preference for discussing controversial matters has caused us to seriously underestimate the straightforward epistemic accomplishments of philosophy. This leads to a new conception of philosophical achievement and what the discipline of philosophy is."