Philosophy with a deadline

It has been observed by many, including such prestigious figures as Stephen Hawking , that philosophy does not seem to be advancing: they note that contemporary philosophers discuss very much the same things as the pre-Socratics, or that whatever advances have been made in philosophy cannot be credited to the philosophers themselves, but "actual scientists doing the real work" (my words, not anyone else's). I don't think that's an entirely fair assessment especially when it comes to usefulness of philosophy, but it is undeniably true that whereas physics (ever since it started its journey as a distinct field from natural philosophy) has undergone multiple revolutions each of which has only replaced already accurate and practically useful theories with an even deeper and more predictive ones, we still debate the merits and demerits of ideas by ancients who by now have been dead for two millenia. The prime reason for that, I think, is that science, and mathematics e...