Philosophy IS dead because philosophers have made it irrelevant. There is no ontology or epistemology in Philosophy departments anymore. Without that as foundation, what on earth can they be talking about? It's just Theory now and that's why Philosophers have become Theorists. However, that doesn't mean that I agree with Hawkins - Philosophy has a metaphysical problem at heart - and that's why it's so dysfunctional everywhere else. I remember going to a Cal State LA Philosophy party a few months ago and all of the students were working on their Masters from some point of scientific view. It seemed that they were being subservient to science - and just kind of speculating on ideas based on scientific theories and hypotheses. I think a philosopher should first ground his ontological and epistemological reality - and flesh this out - before he can effectively move to science. Ultimately, scientists are theorizing based on their own speculative ideas about the nature of reality, and then testing whether this speculation has empirical method. However, when a scientist understands something through empirical study, it does not necessarily mean that the philosophical speculations they took to get to that empirical evidence are totally right on. A philosopher should look at the scientific evidence and add to it a final cause (as taught by Aristotle) while being transparent about their metaphysical structure.