Thanks for the all-important, all-relevant, all-significant, all-meaningful question necessarily--but VERY RARELY--admitted as such by those professing to be "philosophers". That sounds almost obscenely obtuse, but there is a rationale...

As one who has practiced philosophy more than teaching what others have practiced, I am able to comment from a slightly different perspective. I recall consistently reading the 'majors' and noting their unflagging concern for "methodology". They are correct, so correct as to have touched a true chord of essential wisdom as pertains to what we all take to be our bailiwick. I note it because I have found it essential to my own work. I developed most of the methodologies that I in turn have employed to advantage, and accordingly like to suppose I know whereof I speak. I know there will be some who take exception to this remark, as suggesting that not everyone with a Ph.D. in philosophy just might not be a "philosopher". It just happens to be my belief and I am only being honest and truthful as far as I can comprehend the value and meaniong of those words--honesty and truth, that is.

Here is how I have defined philosophy in an article posted at SSRN, "Fundamentals of Methodology, Pt I, Definitions and First Principles"--

Philosophy consists in learning the background realities that account for what we can know, or think we can know, chiefly by developing and applying methodologies by which to better ask the right questions and seek the simpler threads within and among complexities that are not otherwise readily accessible to the unaided mind (at p. 2).

I leave this as a seed for further discussion and look forward to the many interesting opinions to be expected.