Natural inquiry was around before Thales invented philosophy, and will still be around after the last philosopher retires from his cushy appointment to state-run and paid-for institutions of higher learning. Such folk naturally think philosophy "underlies" things. Folks who work for a living should be more skeptical.
Got it, trust it, I'm there. It just stands alone, sort of like Kant's first imperative. It is just 'there'. Like the sky being blue....
Quite so, other than for that Kant business about the ding un zich. The sky will continue to be blue, and chairs will maintain their ineffable chairlike essence, and curious people will continue to look into natural phenomenon, even in the absence of philosophers--as incredible as that may seem at first glance.
It's a curious sort of philosophy that insists on holding reality hostage to itself. "I am unable to construct a coherent philosophy that satisfactorily accounts for X; therefore, X does not exist." As though the universe is somehow accountable to the philosopher.