I am replying to Philip, but I will use Derek's answer as a sounding board...

Philip, I agree.

1. I'm not sure our job is to keep faith with Socrates.  I just see him as one among a number of philosophers.
Of course, even for Socrates, this was true.  However, as he lived, though others might have claimed to be Philosophers, he was the only one (in Athens, at the time) actually doing the job.  Others were practicing some brand of sophistry in the following mode:
superficiality - an unwillingness to examine fundamental assumptions.  So it is often not philosophy at all, but a kind of game with words, jazzed up occasionally with odds and ends of science. 

2. To change something, one might presumably need to begin by saying what it is (now)?
But, what one takes that to be depends on the way in which it is encountered, and that depends on a 'will' or at least method, so I think that Philip is right on the money here...
The problem seems to be when the 'what needs changing' is (mis)understood by way of the sophistical will/method.
Killing something is easy.  Keeping something alive, or better caring for something is hard.
It is no wonder that the laziest people on Earth are also the most destructive, and what stands as 'philosophy' in that culture is merely a reflection of this fact...

3. There might be some things philosophy describes that it doesn't necessarily seek to change. I would see art as one; human consciousness and language as others. Just to be able to say what these are (to answer the "What is?" question) would seem to me an enormous achievement.
Philosophy is originally an art.
I would expect that, especially an artist, would be intent on changing consciousness, or at least affecting it, and the Philosopher in this sense is an artist, should he/she work to change the way that people understand and even become aware of themselves and the world...
The language changes in the course thereof...and the body, itself, even if through selection, over the long course thereof...
Now, this is of course difficult, and personally costly, requiring a lifetime of dedication, providing a living example, in fact giving one's life to Philosophy (the Philosophic mission, or 'job'), so it is no surprise that people do otherwise.
My problem is when they do so and still pretend to be Philosophers...
Just as (scientific) advance can be seen as a map of labor-saving devices, lazy people have taken on science to do the Philosopher's job for them.
Scientism is the reigning school, in some form or other, and the end of that road is always 'truth.'
But, do they really qualify as "Philosophers?"
I say "No."
I tend to distinguish the two with big P's and little p's...

Look, I am basically a Heideggerian.
Heidegger is a Philosopher, and a descendant of Socrates.
(He got burned, badly, for his efforts - but that is subject for another discussion...)
Heidegger tells us that Philosophy is genuine authenticity and that is conscience...
He EXPLICITLY tells us that, in the form of an equation.
I feel that this is true...
Conscience is obviously about changing the world, and not simply normatively...


But, that aside, I think that we can trace the larger problem we are facing to a misunderstanding of Aristotle, a misunderstanding that did not plague Heidegger, but that he had to work against, and one that shapes the world in which we all live and work to this day.

The contemplative life is happiest spent studying ideal and unchanging things.
The problem is that philosophers (small p) start with this, take it as their day job, from day one.
But, Aristotle tells us that coming to understand what these things are takes a lot of hard work, in fact a life dedicated to the enterprise.
If one can come to an understanding of something that is eternal, then this aspect of his soul can live forever.
(Basically, he/she tells others, and this understanding remains viable, so the product of his animus continues to affect the world, and this is the end that a Philosopher should have in his/her sights...)

Now, this immortality promised through understanding is the product of the Philosophic job properly done.
But, it has been misappropriated since and finally diluted into the promise that one can live forever in Christian heaven if he/she merely "understands" that Christ is the son of God.  (Truly, a lazy man's dream come true!)
Now, gone wrong or kept right, it doesn't take much to find Socrates as the inspirational root, here.
He is surely the exemplar of this Philosophic immortality.
And, the model for the Christian mission (another Philosopher by my count) if no longer for the contemporary Xstian life.

Being a good Christian means upsetting the unjust status quo (when necessary) in a life of self-sacrifice toward a just world...
This is also the Socratic mission.
The only life worth living.
And, it cannot proceed in a perceived dead world.
I take this to be the Philosopher's job.
Anything else is philosophy with a little p...
Or it is something else, entirely.
That is why, given the current state of the industry, I, like Socrates, am sadly engaged in a sort of turf war, if for no other reason than to make a clearing in which seedling future Philosophers can bend to the Sun free from the poison-weeds and wanna-bees...

I suppose this is why I come off - as Derek has noted - not so agnostic.
Again, I am grateful for your patience.