How can & do we lose purpose while doing philosophy?

You should define philosophy in your own terms. So should everyone. Otherwise it remains a fuzzy subconscious something which we think is identical all round but maybe we have different notions.

And it might not be that one thing is philosophy. But there are departments of philosophy. And we are just naming them. 

Maybe you want to specialise in a type of philosophy. A type of philosophy which searches for something called “objectivity”. That is your philosophy. 

But you should not assume we all know what objectivity means. And it is wise not to assume you know it either. Because thinking you know limits improvement. There might be a better notion of objectivity. And which do you want: an aging notion or an evolving one?

We all have notions which we improve with time. 

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In my view, our purpose is to evolve and develop our own philosophical outlook. Give it definition and resolution that it can be seen by others. At least as a starting point. 

It is bad for us to get hooked on words assuming everyone knows the notions we attach to them. It is better to define our own notions explicitly. Rather than them sitting in our subconscious fuzzy and obscure. 

That there is one mistake I illustrated. That we should know what we are talking about more than a fuzzy obscure thing in the background of our mind; bring it into the foreground. 

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Purpose in Philosophy 

It is up to the individual to stand up and define that purpose in philosophy. If you do not like what you see in philosophy then stand up and define it for yourself. That is how we move the world. By letting it know that we exist.

Once there was no philosophy in written or oral tradition, then someone stood up and proceeded to give it definition what had been sitting in their subconscious. And then many people in time or place stood up. And now we have a chance to stand up, and say what we will say.

You study analytic philosophy but you have a voice of your own. Not just a follower but a leader, all of us that stand. It is sad that not everyone does, but maybe they are too busy living to think.

We should study that is a certitude. The more we study the better our judgment in piecing together our null-philosophy-hypothesis. 

During "purposeful collaboration" we will have learned in philosophy too

little to use our eyes for our work.

This is to expected, for all sorts of reasons not least because of the amount

to be learned (past-philosophy-knowledge) and the "dark lighting" situations

of when that knowledge was learned.

But we must not be disheartened.

Most of what we presently learn objectively and generally now will not always

be-so-difficult. Like the manufacture of SYNTHETIC drugs that work just-as

effectively as our true drugs now....

so too will A PART of our knowledge IN PHILOSOPHY become synthetic..

And for us in philosophy such within the LEGITIMATE MEANING of what

we can know. And if you do not think this is enough (and also if the quality

of this further "legitimate meaning" is also not enough for you) then one

would only have to open their eyes further and look at the increasing and

useful synthetic knowledge used-by-and-in science itself.

Here we are not so much interested in science as in objective philosophy ;

the purpose of which is intertwined with science and its subsidiary

categories including the humanities.

None Of Us need the "collaborative meaning" of looking at the forest-for-the

trees or of the-trees-for-the-forest if individually we can learn to be more

purposefully authoritative, more purposefully knowledgeable and more

purposefully objective.

This is why collaboration is important.  You can see the forest for the trees and the trees for the forest when the right people are involved.  Interesting that Stanford is online!  Thanks for sharing that,P.