Philosophy

How can someone know that a question has an answer before knowing what the answer is? Or more specifically how is it possible that someone can place parameters on the possible answer faster than they can produce that answer?

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This is a very nice question because what you are asking speaks to the heart of all inquiry, not just philosophical: How will I know I have the answer to a question if I truly don't know what the answer is?

The logician might say you are asking about the difference between testing for local sufficiency and then global sufficiency (and I am borrowing heavily from my favorite critical thinking textbook, which is Susan Gardner's Thinking Your Way to Freedom). Here is how the local vs. global sufficiency falsification works.

First, throw out possible answers that are obviously wrong. What counts as obviously wrong? Let's say answers that are obviously wrong are those answers which don't fit the facts, or don't match the truth of the world. This is the first (local) step in falsification.

Next, look at what remains - you may still have a few possible answers on the table. The one of these which seems the least wrong is likely your best answer. This is the global sufficiency test.

When you say, quite rightly, that someone can place parameters on answers faster that she or he can actually get the answer you are saying that it is easier to decide local sufficiency (the first step) than global sufficiency (the second step). Exactly right!

A quick example: Imagine someone is trying to answer the question, How should I dress if I want to look stylish and professional at my job interview? The best place to start is to eliminate the possible outfits that are all wrong - their colors clash, they fit poorly, they are too revealing, they are soiled, and the like. Now the challenge remaining is to find the least-bad outfit. That should be what one wears, one's 'answer.'

(Anticipatory follow up: fashion might seem an odd analogy because it is so personal. And so it goes with all normative judgments. Yet still we reach remarkable consensus on questions of values - thank goodness. Otherwise the relativists would be right that every answer is just as good as any other.)

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