Abstract. A lot of people think that philosophy does not make progress in the way that other fields do. Famous scientists often express a pessimistic position about this, as indeed do some well-known philosophers. In *Philosophical Progress* (OUP, 2017) I argued against this position, and in favour of a reasonable or qualified optimism. In this talk I ask a follow up question: what explains the widespread belief that there is little or no progress in philosophy? I explore various answers to this question, focusing in particular on the hypothesis that the institutional setting of philosophy encourages a pessimistic attitude about its progress.