Adam asked:

Do philosophers think differently than political scientists or historians or writers or mathematicians or
scientists? If so why?

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Putting the question that way is not very helpful. It is better to think in terms of how different kinds of
intellectual practitioners go about their trade. It is the kinds of questions that the respective intellectual
disciplines take as their concern that holds the key to understanding what it is to be a philosopher,
mathematician, scientist, historian. Different kinds of questions demand different kinds of responses if
they are to be addressed successfully. What really sets philosophy (and hence philosophers) apart
from other areas of intellectual activity is its second order nature. When a historian is making sense of
some past event in those ways characteristic of doing history, he is being a historian. When he or she
is reflecting on the nature of historical understanding (say) philosophy of history is being done.
Likewise with mathematics, science etc. Philosophy reflects upon issues like what kind of
understanding does history give us, and how is it possible, and how does it differ from the kind of
understanding given us by the physical sciences. Is explanation in history as dependent upon causal
generalisations as is so much of the natural sciences or does history afford us a different kind of
insight into why events occurred as they did?

In the same way as there is philosophy of history, there is philosophy of maths, science, art,
literature,education etc. The concerns are always the same: conceptual clarification, laying bare the
presuppositions informing these important human concerns, vetting such presuppositions for
consistency, plausibility. In that sense philosophy is a parasitic activity but this assertion needs to be
tempered by the recognition that there is a canon of concerns — ethics, logic, epistemology,
metaphysics — which is largely driven by professional philosophers addressing issues raised by
other philosophers. But again the same distinctive clarificatory set of tasks.

Perhaps the philosophical task is not (quite) exhausted by the task of clarification, but it is a mighty
important part of it. And the difference between so called analytic philosophy and 'continental'
philosophy is the emphasis placed upon clarity, rigour of argument, the desire for consistency within
the former tradition. All intellectual disciplines demand the hardest thinking. But not all kinds of
thinking are the same. The object and ambitions of philosophical thinking set it apart from other
(equally) important kinds of thinking. Philosophy is not history, is not maths, is not science. It is what it
is even if so many of its tasks are set by these other areas of intellectual challenge.

Ian Gregory