My first question on this site: What questions should we put to philosphers? One of Kalynne's suggestions: You might ask what makes an answer to a given question a good one. Thanks, Kalynne! My question now: Are there some common parameters by which the "correctness" of an answer can be judged? I mean apart from logical coherence and factual accuracy, what else? I have a feeling that there is some textbook/weblink which has the answer for this. If yes, pls direct me to it.

Dear Philosophers, I often hear philosophers say William Shakespeare, Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Einstein, etc. are not philosophers, but great thinkers. All of these people have done work, or presented ideas that have deep philosophical meaning that changed the way we view the world. Why are they not philosophers?

For ancient philosophers, like the Stoics, Metaphysics, logic, and ethics were all united, working together to form a single self-coherent world view that could provide its adherents with the good life. Is the fact that fields such as ethics and metaphysics are often taught distinctly in modern universities (at least in the analytic tradition) a good or bad aspect of the way we do philosophy today? Should our goal be a single complete world view or should we be satisfied with a successful explanation of a single phenomenon (like language) even if it screws up our understanding of another field?

If we imagine an intelligent alien race, could we also imagine philosophical questions they have come up with that have eluded us and vice versa? Or are all philosophical debates necessarily universal? My understanding of our application of philosophical analysis is that it is all-encompassing and would even have to apply to any god or advanced alien civilization (I mean the method not the conclusions). Or can something else be conceived? NB I write this as an arch-skeptic and atheist.

My question is about analytic philosophy. Is it true that analytic philosophy aims to approach philosophy ahistorically, and that when asking questions like "what's the meaning of life" it considers itself to be dealing merely with language puzzles and not with a legitimate question that actually matters in real life? If so, it would seem a strange place for philosophy to have evolved to. Then again, I'm sure strange mutations have happened in philosophy in the past, and have gained a large following. Is it possible that the people who practice analytic philosophy today, especially those who don't question it rigorously as a method and simply see it as the only lucid approach - is it possible that these people will ever come to see it differently, as containing some sort of fundamental mistake within itself?

What's the best way for someone who's really into philosophy to make their mark on the philosopical community if he or she is having trouble going to a university? I've tried sending my work to professors throughout the US, not necessarily for publication purposes, just to get it looked at, but for now, no dice.

How do you think technology will affect the teaching and practice of philosophy? During my undergraduate degree (in philosophy), I took notes in numerous classes on a laptop and could download papers from a variety of journals as PDF. I have seen numerous academic perspectives regarding technology and learning - from Bert Dreyfus' idea that the podcast of his lectures at Berkeley on philosophy and literature reduced class attendance, to law schools having "laptops off" sessions to science professors encouraging (or even requiring) graduate students to blog about their lab work. I even saw a theory that ethical theories are implicitly tied to the technology of their time - the printing press linking with Kant, utilitarianism, Mill-style liberalism, the mass media of television, radio and newspapers doing the same for Rawls and Nozick. And, of course, many philosophy professors like Brian Leiter now have blogs and some have podcasts too. At technical conferences, we use technology to provide things like ...

What should someone interested in philosophy read? Although I primarily mean philosophical texts, I also mean philosophical fiction, poetry, non-fiction, plays, et cetera. Of course, movies would also be nice. Also, are there any philosophers, modern or otherwise, that are readable. I love Kant and the rest, but it oftentimes seems as if their language is purposefully obtuse. Thank you!

The early philosophers were much involved with sport, in particular Aristotle who used the Olympic games as metaphor for society. Why does sport feature little, if at all, in modern philosophy? From John L.

I read a question on this site: What are the questions philosophers usually ask? My question is: What are the questions we (non-academic people/people not trained in philosophy) should put to philosophers? Elaboration: Are there areas in philosophy from the exploring of which laypeople would benefit? If yes, any list of priorities? With a list of questions (from various philosophers), I'll start my next innings on this site. :) But, seriously, I would really like to know what questions philosophers would "advise" people to ask, and not necessarily the ones they'd love to answer.