Topics Philosophy

Question I am curious: What are some questions of the philosophers? Alexander George, Noga Arikha, Amy Kind, Thomas Pogge, etc., we see your names, but we do not know your own inquiries. It would be novel to read and ponder the questions of those brave enough to answer our questions. And might one also learn by extrapolation, by thinking about a question new to them?--that is, the site can remain educational by shedding new light on a dim part of philosophy: the branch of asking questions. I would like to see a list of questions posed by the panelists.

Accepted:
March 1, 2007

Comments

Since the beginnings of philosophy, asking new interesting questions has been central to the enterprise. Asking such questions is often more creative, more difficult, and of greater educational value than coming up with novel answers to old questions. And of course (speaking for myself, at least) we panelists are learning from many of the questions posed. That's why it is so much fun to be part of this enterprise.

As for our own intellectual inquiries, these are easy to track these days through plentiful web resources. Most of us have websites (reachable by clicking our names on the right) as well as papers accessible electronically. So you would not find it hard to find the questions we have posed in our work and to which we devote much of our professional lives. Reproducing such question here would not add much, I fear, to what is already out there.

What might be more productive, though, and perhaps closer to what you have in mind, is to ask panelists to come up with some questions that fall outside their professional concerns and thus within the expertise of other panelists. Most philosophers pay at least some attention to what goes on in areas other than their own specialization. And sometimes (again: speaking for myself, at least) we are puzzled by what goes on in those other areas -- e.g, why certain topics are so prominent, why certain positions are so popular, why certain arguments are found compelling, or why certain objections are disregarded. It might be quite interesting to formulate such puzzlements into questions for our peers. (For all we know, some panelists may have submitted questions already!) I would certainly be willing to give this idea a try.

I'm not so confident that perusing a panelist's publications will helpthe layperson see which questions animate the philosopher. Those publicationsusually begin far into a long conversation and it might be hard to find in themthe simple questions that kicked off the discussion in the first place.

So I'll place one on the table. I'd love to have a satisfying answer to this question: "What are we saying when we claim that 5+3=8?"

Ilike Thomas' suggestion though. I'll start: I'm not sure I understandwhy many colleagues are as convinced as they are that work in empiricalpsychology is relevant (if not central) to many long-standingquintessentially philosophical questions. It seems to me that the 20th Century saw a number of subtle criticisms of this conviction that have been more ignored than answered. (I'm not assuming its irrelevance. I'm just puzzled at times by the confident, or at least untroubled, assumption of relevance, especially in the face of powerful dissents.)