The Symposium seems to be more of an artistic intellectual exercise than a philosophical treatise and philosophers generally see it that way but The Republic is taken literally as a philosophical work. Why is that?

Is it appropriate for philosophers who specialize in specific branches of philosophy to comment on philosophical branches outside their field of training? By analogy, a professional chemist would almost never publish books or articles in computer science. Why then should we even consider the political theories of Noam Chomsky (a linguist and philosopher of language) instead of those of Machiavelli or Leo Strauss? Or the moral writings of Bertrand Russell (a logician and philosopher of science)?

Why Nature selected only 2 genders through evolution, why not 3, 4 or any other number?

In reply to a recent question about whether aesthetic judgments are reliable Stephen Maitzen wrote http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/5097 "(1) We often seem to make objective aesthetic judgments, such as the judgments concerning Bach and Rihanna that you mentioned in your question; why not take those judgments at face value? Why think we have to interpret those judgments as non-objective?" Often we (or some of us) feel that the aesthetic value of a work derives from an ontological sense that the music represents, expresses or even manifests a higher reality. We don't take Rhianna very seriously as a great artist because her music doesn't seem to convey anything of profound importance. We can feel that way even if we happen to enjoy her music a lot. If we listen to Suite Number 3 in D Major by Bach we might feel that the music conveys something grand but we can't say for certain what. It's that lack of certainty about what is conveyed by the music that I think makes people question the validity of...

Am I a hypocrite if I support gun control while owning guns myself?

If there IS philosophical progress, is it worthwhile to read philosophy that was written before you were born? Isn't the most current understanding of philosophy the most valid? For example, we now know Newtonian physics is false at the quantum level; wouldn't it stand to reason that after two hundred years Kant's moral philosophy has been refined or superceded and should not be followed in its entirety? If there is NOT any philosophical progress and philosophical questions are inherently unresolvable, then is the entire field of philosophy futile? If philosophers can't even agree on what the aims of philosophy are, then does that mean Marx's philosophy is as equally valid for people to follow as that of Aristotle's?

Are answers to philosophical questions always distinct from sociological questions? How much should the two fields inform one another or at all? It seems particularly when it comes to ethics, many people give philosophical answers to sociological questions and vice versa. For example, suppose a legislature attempts to censor certain very violent forms of pornography after several studies and interviews with criminals confirm that its proliferation causes more sex crimes in society. This seems like a proposed sociological solution. But if a group of political, legal, and moral philosophers in academia object, claiming that producing and watching violent pornography is not immoral, regardless if does lead to more sex crimes (since it is done with the personal autonomy of performers and viewers), how should the public balance the two differing arguments?

Is Homosexuality unnatural? There was much debate in our Philosophy class.

Is the claim that all scientists believe in man made global warming and thus so should you an illegitimate appeal to authority?

Are mathematical truths such as 2+2 =4 arguable exceptions to the correspondence theory of truth? I mean is 2+2=4 a truth that corresponds to "the world"?