system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is philosophy so concerned with individual philosophers when science isn't concerned with individual scientists?

Philosophers seem very preoccupied with studying the views of specific past philosophers, and this is thought of as philosophy and not history of philosophy, but there seems to be no corresponding preoccupation in science. This is an uncontroversial observation -- isn't it? -- but what's the explanation?

I couldn't find anything on this by searching, but then I didn't really know what to search for. I'll appreciate being redirected.
gpt
Because scientists contribute small parts to a very large common theory. 

Most philosophers, on the other hand, often contribute relatively large, self-standing parts to a pool of alternatives.

You'll notice that when certain philosophers contribute to a specific debate, or to a large theory, you will tend to concern yourself with the field as a whole, and with only the specific arguments of the philosopher that interest you. And it's not so rare that you're one of a very few major authors that take a specific stance on the subject. If you're the biggest-and-only name defending a contentious position, you can expect people to address *your* arguments specifically for lack of alternative.

However, since there is no commonly agreed way of establishing the philosophical value and accuracy of a certain philosophy, the cleverest of papers will not simply be accepted as a whole: there are many specifics, many of which another philosopher may criticise you on. This is rather different from science where scientific value and accuracy can be appreciated uncontroversially through mathematical validity of proofs and data treatment, and absence of systematic error in experimentation.

>This is an uncontroversial observation -- isn't it?

That's actually pretty controversial. Outside long dead 'greats', it's not clear how much philosophy is interested in philosophers as a whole rather than their separate answers to specific questions. This is especially true of contemporary academic philosophy where relatively few philosophers attempt to build a complete system which covers as much philosophical ground as possible - most limit themselves to a single-to-a-handful-of subfields.