I once took a graduate course in education in which I was the only non-teacher. One day, I disagreed with something said by another student, and her response has always baffled me. She said: "Who are you? You can't question me until you've walked in my shoes." In other words, she felt that I was unqualified to question her, to cast doubt on anything she said. Who was I to say? Well of course her response was nonsense but how so? As a matter of logic or illogic, was her remark an example of an appeal to authority? She certainly felt that she was an authority.

What is stupidity? IS it thinking the wrong way or is it having the ability to know and not using the potential? Also, is asking a stupid question necessarily stupid or does it make the person intelligent to make an unobvious connection when the answer should be obvious?

I'm currently studying the indirect approach to philosophical scepticism, and I'm struggling as to how you can say anything useful in this particular area of philosophy without dragging yourself into solipsism? For example, the philosophical sceptic may argue 'How can we know there are other people that have minds?'. It seems impossible to go anywhere with this point - what conclusion could you possibly arrive from it? I find it very difficult to understand because of two conflicting notions - whilst it seems impossible to prove that there are people that have minds, it would seem an absurd and ridiculous life to lead assuming that there are no other minds except my own. So what is one to do?

Logically, the view entailed by solipsism (i.e., that I cannot prove that there exists anything beyond my own consciousness) seems impossible to refute. How do philosophers persuade themselves not to stop at this position and abandon all further enquiry as futile?

Has there every been anything which refutes Descartes' theory that all we can be sure of is that we are thinking things? Is there any proof that we can be sure that other people exist?

Is it possible that the Universe and how we perceive it are just fractions of what is really out there? How would we know that the universe is not some completely different place that we could not even begin to undestand or perceive? For example ants live their lives without ever knowing of our existence so how would we know that there is not a lot going on in this world that we can not sense?

Is the exploration of space worthwhile? What possible application does it have? The money spent on space exploration could have spent elsewhere on more 'worthwhile' causes like cancer research or the third world. When you think about this, the exploration of space seems like a waste of time and money.

How do you know that you know something? Isn't everything a perception? Even science assumes that the world is real and the senses convey truth about the world--and perhaps even more. If everything is perception, then how does one leap to the level of finally "knowing" something.

Why is it important to know the truth and falsity of a proposition?

Even though it has been strongly argued that divine foreknowledge doesn't negate free will, allow me to ask the question another way. How could God know our decisions if they are truly free? To know the outcome of something is to imply contingency (and determinism). To put it another way, if a third party can know the nature of an individual then that individual cannot be the author of his nature.