Is "Philosophy" Obsolete?

My letter to the NYT, today:

Mr. McGinn,

First, what a pleasure it was for me to read such an eloquent and appealing description of the philosopher's mission. Thank you!

Twenty eight years ago, I graduated with a degree in Computer Science and six semesters of philosophy. When I "went out into the world" to "do" software, I found staggering numbers of people (including colleagues), who could not think effectively beyond their specialty. I found people who were quite happy starting a heated discussion using words they could not begin to define. They had a very difficult time arguing without contradicting themselves, and -- worse -- they became very angry when I pointed this out.

I like "philosophy" (love of wisdom) as a term; to me it is the essence of wisdom to love the truth more than anything else, to submit to the discipline of defining terms and using them consistently, to concede the argument when it does not hold up, and to discuss (respectfully) the meaning and limits of each field of human knowledge.

If more people accepted this idea of "wisdom", the world would be a better, happier place.

And you would not have to campaign for "Ontics".