Farms means using caste system and making 1 or 2 great person farms.  Almost always my capital becomes a gp farm, with national epic and hopefully parthenon.  Farm at least 6 or 7 tiles so that at any point those 6 or 7 tiles can support 13 or 14 citizens leaving the rest to become specialists.  In my opinion this is the best way to run philosophical because if you're careful and you plan ahead you can really make a predictable gp farm.  Meaning you can make a farm with 98 or 99% likeliness to create a certain kind of gp.  That way you dont get the lottary when you're about to hit a gp and end up with a spy or artist when you dont want one.  So I usually make a great scientist, great merchant or great prophet farm.  I already told you about the great prophet farm, just add every one into the city and make a super city for wall street.  The advantage is that caste system isnt necessary, and prophets are probably the best leader to add in to a city.  Either way you want the same kind of person coming out of each city that you turn into a farm.

(These are examples of what to do with farms, not with one single guy)
Great prophet - you need the shrine 1st because it lets you turn 3 citizens into prophets, then use each one to add into the city for production and gold boost.  Filthy with bureaucracy because the hammers get thrown into the boost.
Great scientist - debatable, but i use them for academies and techbulbing, although I know some guys add them into the city (it depends if your other cities are worth an academy now or if they ever will be) Only add them into the city if your running representation and its still early in the game (pre-1500AD)
Great merchant - this one is dirty, but you have to really have a good setup for it to be worthwhile.  GM adds 1 food to the city,(and 6 gold) so every 2 gmerchants you add into a city it can now support one more specialist for free (+2 food) if your running caste system.  It's not easy, but a good setup can have these boys pumping out really fast, because each 2 makes the next one faster because you have one more specialist adding more GM points. The reason this one is tough is because while your pumping out GM's your city is producing squat. Unlike the great prophet farm which keeps adding hammers into the city this one adds food.  Ive been trying to run a game that uses the GM Farm, and 3 golden ages.  GP points get a bonus during Golden Ages, so I hold off on great people until I've built Mausoleum of Mausollos, then set my capital to run merchant specialists so they start coming out pretty quickly(1st one in like 5 turns) and try to research music 1st.  Use the artist to set off my first GA (15 turns in epic with Mausollos) which then gets my capital pumping faster... anyways i havent totally gotten it down.  Same as scientist I add them into the city until about 1500AD then I send them on trade missions.
Great Engineer - can be done later in the game with factory and ironworks allowing you to turn citizens into engineers. the forge lets 1 but thats not enough for a farm.  The alternative for GE farm is through wonders, if you build every wonder that creates GE points you can have them coming out pretty quickly.  Not a good strat in my opinion.
 
The wonder system is pretty self-explanitory, grab stone or marble and just start building everything you can. Research paths are decided by opening up wonders, and you just spam them into your capital.  This will earn you many gp points, but they are unpredictable. I've had 1% great artist chances spawn a great artist, when I NEEDED a great scientist.  Its a pain in the ***, and at the end of the game your lucky if you get the leaders you wanted.  (at the time you wanted them)  One strat is to only build wonders that give certain gp (like the engineer example) but that is difficult and theres no guarantee to get the exact wonders you want.  Basically I dont really do the wonder spam anymore, it just gives guys a reason to take your ***.  When one city has 10 wonders in it even your best friends think your worth invading.  The only time i do it is in the example from the first email, great prophets adding into the city.... although thats only because my capital produces so fast theres nothing else to build except military or wonders. 
 
Anyways back to Philo trait.  If you're not pumping (pumping) out gpeople then its being wasted.  The double production uni's are nice but not worth a whole trait.  You need to consciously try to squeeze those gp's out of your national epic city, and unless you're going for wonder-spam then you need your nat.epic city to have lots of food.  Having the pyramids(representation) makes this trait super dirty because each specialist you employ gives +3 beakers BUT I find the pyramids are not necessary at all for this to work.  In fact some my best specialist economies (S.E.) were without the pyramids, because i did more with those 500 hammers in other places.  AND monarchy has no cap on happiness so i find under representation my capital holds at pop 10 or 12 but under monarchy i can slowly just keep growing to twice that.  Pacifism is also another good civic, but i sometimes stay clear of it because it is also an invitation for conquest.  AI knows that under pacifism your unit costs have to be kept down, so its unlikely you're going to have a serious defence in place.  If I am Ghandi I will use it, because the spiritual trait lets me jump into theocracy and slavery without anarchy, then whip (slavery) out some 5 exp units for defence.  I'd much prefer to run monarchy with a bunch of units in my cities so no one thinks of invading me, with no religion so no one has another reason to invade me, and bureaucracy with a FAT capital in the middle of my territory turning itself into a supercity.  The only exception is if im on an island with stone then its all about the pyramids and pacifism, and you'll see the most filthy S.E. possible.  In every game I end up with a few GArtists and GSpies, and if i grabbed Mausollos somehow I save them all up until the industrial age.  Build levees and factories then run 2 or 3 G.A's using the people you saved, and if you build Taj you can time that to be when your G.A starts, then before it finishes throw in your peeps and you can easily hit a 45 turn G.A. Also just a last note I find that many of the building quests (5 libraries, forges, colloseums) have an option to get a free scientist or merchant or prophet in one of your cities(which is really nice, because its not a specialist, its an actual scientist as if you added it in yourself(super-specialist) so I go for those building quests every time if i'm running an S.E.  Its not hard because my other 4 or 5 cities are production oriented so its easy to build 5 libraries or whatever.  Ok last note is that Pericles is filthy here (greek), only leader to get cheap libraries and universities.  Phalanx is a really nice defensive UU so its not difficult to survive the ancient age and set up a nice S.E. for middle age and beyond.  Also S.E. isnt dependent on cottages so if you get attacked, shore up in your cities and let them pillage until they give you peace, cause workers can easily refarm but you cant rebuild a mature cottage.  LAST NOTE if you wait too long with your S.E as you approach modern age to conquer the world then a Financial civ with free speech and universal sufferage will win.  Every Time.  Aim for them first.  Even if you dont wipe them out, you can at least wipe out their cottages by pillaging.  Set them back 100 years!