I happen to believe that the best philosophy has always been created primarily by amateurs...

 

Setting aside the fact that the professionalisation of academia created 'professional' philosophers relatively recently, figures such as Descartes, Leibniz or Spinoza would hardly be considered professionals: two mathematicians, one of whom was also a librarian, historian and God knows what else, and a lens grinder whose work greatly influenced his aspectual metaphysics I would argue! 

Now consider Frege, James, Nietzsche, Peirce, Husserl, Tarski, Carnap and, of course, Wittgenstein. Each of them came to philosophy from a different background. Yet, they shaped the course of contemporary philosophy. Consider Francisco Varela. Consider also Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Mann and Lem — all of whom were great thinkers. 

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At some point, I became worried that, as my work in philosophy moved more towards embodied cognition and institutional economics, I was losing contact with strictly philosophical literature and becoming less 'professional' in my own field. The contents of new volumes of the best philosophical journals began to bore me to death...

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Suddenly, however, I discovered that there is something to cherish in that. There are giants to stand on the shoulders of. So, as boxers 'go pro' at some point in their careers, I decided to do the opposite — I GO AMO... We'll see.