forgive me for saying i couldn't make heads or tails out of anything you said before this:
I think you'd agree with me that even nowadays there are many who get irritated when you point out their fortress of truth is nothing more than a grass shack.
sure, and there's different kinds of irritation, too. there's one kind where the person who's bullshit is called becomes irritated because that bullshit gave him an upperhand, which he's now lost in being called out. this person's irritation is less to do with being wrong and more to do with failing at some kind of sophistry that gave him an advantage. that is to say, this person wasn't much concerned with knowing the truth in the first place, but only in how useful deceiving someone could be.
another kind is irritation at the fact that someone who's called your bullshit has now lost some degree, however slight, of admiration for you. unlike the first type above, this person's intention wasn't to deceive but maybe to impress and gain acceptance. they probably did have a honest interest in the truth, but screwed it up, and are now frustrated that it's become obvious to those who he wanted to impress.
then there's the type that has no interest in deceiving or being admired, and has a genuine interest in the truth. the irritation this person feels when being wrong is only with himself; he probably associates ignorance with inferiority and is now ashamed of being wrong.
as far as i can see these are the three kinds of irritation that can be experienced when one realizes their fortress of truth turned out to be a grass shack instead.
the thing with fortresses of truth that are 'philosophical' is that undermining them is a much more difficult and elusive task... because understanding the kinds of ways one can be wrong when doing philosophy is not at all easy. one of the biggest problems with it is that it is able to take advantage of a characteristic of language that allows a very wide range of 'meanings' to become possible... but more so, that certain kinds of meanings can be mistaken as being of another kind of meaning... and as such, statements are confused to import truths that they inept at expressing. for instance we might treat and understand a statement about 'mind', or an ethical proposition, in the same way we treat and understand a statement about an object or state of affairs. the point not that such statements can't be true or meaningful, but that they aren't true and meaningful
in the same way other statements are. as a result of confusing this characteristic of philosophical language, we then presume we are talking about 'facts' from which we can deduce whole series of statements and/or supporting arguments as if we were building a scientific theory.
lol when hawking said 'philosophers are failed scientists', he wasn't saying 'to hell with philosophy'. what he was saying was 'slow your roll and know your place at the table'.