No one imagines that they don't have to care about the past if they want to learn how to build an engine or an airplane, cure a case of tuberculosis or create a fine whiskey. In areas where the results are clear and unambiguous, everyone understands the value of learning from people who have already been through all of this. But somehow they think it is different in philosophy. In philosophy they think that no one else has anything of value to tell them, but oddly enough, that they have something of value to tell others.