Why metaphilosophy should always come before philosophy

Most philosophers just dive straight into first-order philosophical theory-construction and argumentation without paying attention to metaphilosophy. This is probably partly because thesis supervisors etc. advise young philosophers to learn how to do philosophy by just doing it instead of wasting time thinking about doing it. This may be acceptable if one's goal is to get published in a philosophy journal or find a job in a philosophy department. But if we care about getting something right or doing something actually worthwhile, however, then this approach carries at least two big risks.

First, there might be something wrong with the philosophical questions or disputes themselves. Perhaps they are mere pseudo-questions arising from linguistic confusion, in which case the aim of constructing theories to answer them would be irrational. Or perhaps a dispute, i.e. the Special Composition Question, is merely verbal and can be resolved by semantic decision. Or perhaps a question can be answered too easily to be worthy of prolonged debate. Or perhaps - and I think most likely - a dispute arises from assumptions so misguided or scientifically unwarranted (as is often the case in analytic metaphysics) that it would be better to just forget about it completely.

Second, there might be something wrong with the methods that philosophers typically use to achieve their aims. In this case it would be foolish to just blindly emulate mainstream philosophy and pick up its methods (philosophers are supposed to be good at critical thinking, right?). A priori stipulation, conceptual analysis and intuition mongering are not likely to reveal anything about the objective character of the world (every aspiring metaphysician should read this book), so perhaps philosophers should just do science instead of philosophy if they want to achieve something epistemically or practically valuable.

One of the best things about naturalistic metaphilosophy is that one doesn't have to do philosophy at all (or at least not after the necessary metaphilosophical reflection if it counts as philosophy). Imagine how much resources (more time and brain power than money since sitting and scribbling in an armchair is relatively cheap) we could save by accepting naturalism! Imagine how much more we could achieve if the most talented philosophers switched to science and started generating actual knowledge and understanding:

"at the very least, some of the most intelligent and philosophically talented young people must become serious scientists, contributing a great deal to the science in which they are involved and, what's more, contributing at least about as much to science as they contribute to philosophy. ...  short of that, there is no realistic chance, at all, for there being offered, during the next century or so, any new concretely substantial philosophical ideas that amount to anything much more than idle speculation" (Peter Unger: Empty Ideas: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy, 2014)