Talk:List of philosophical problems

Categories

The articile is ridiclously categorized, there should be more sub categories, philosophy of mind is certainly not a branch of epistemology, ( well maybe if you were a positivist...) I would also appreciate it if Daniel would recognise philosophy of religion questions as well, it's really not his call on whether or not gods existence is too vague and leads to too many flights of fancy for philosophers to disscus it, if he believes the assertion of gods existence is only an opinion thats fine but he shouldn't expect us to pretend that this makes the problem solved, since there's plenty of philosophers who'd disagree with him one way or another ( Quentin smith for the atheists who thinks it can be established as false, Swindburne for the theists who thinks it can be established as true).

To the previous unsigned poster, I would argue that the philosophy of religion questions that you added are not really valid philosophical problems. First of all, the coherence of the trinity, while occasionally found in philosophical forums, is generally in the domain of theology rather than philosophy. As for the relationship of God to morality, that question IS a philosophical one, but extends far beyond the mere purview of atheists and Christians. The initial question of moral priority was posed (if I'm not mistaken) by Plato in Euthyphro, and it has been therefore termed the "Euthyphro Dilemma" not "What is the relationship of God to morality?" which is a rather vague way to pose the question. At any rate, this has pretty clearly been categorized as an ethics question (not philosophy of religion). As to the question of whether God exists, there are three intractable positions: 1) God is logically impossible, therefore He cannot exist. 2) Logically, God MUST exist. And 3) It is impossible to logically determine whether God exists. I personally believe this issue is resolvable, however it carries so much baggage that philosophers have tended to avoid the question (although minor firefights still break out on this issue). Generally, philosophy of religion questions presuppose that God exists and then attempts to solve the philosophical ramifications and apparant paradoxes that result. The "Is there a God" question is not really a philosophical problem in the same sense as the "Gettier Problem" or "Sorites Paradox" in that it is neither well-defined nor sufficiently specific nor "solvable". I have no particular objection to including problems with the same degree of philosophical specificity as the "Gettier Problem" in philosophy of religion, although at the present time none are listed in the article. I will therefore rephrase the Euthyphro problem and move it to ethics and delete the Philosophy of Religion category, with the understanding that if someone wants to list legitimate problems in the philosophy of religion, they may feel free to do so without any objection on my part. As to my personal opinion vis-a-vis religious questions, I agree that it is not "my call" as to whether they are substantial philosophy (I am obviously of the opinion that they are generally not), and by no means do I intend on imposing my opinion in an ostensibly objective forum. However, I think, when compared to my other listings (again, e.g. sorites paradox and gettier problem) there is clearly a difference in scope, analyzability, solvability, and perspicuity. I don't consider the problem solved (in the sense that consensus has been reached), and I recognize that a significant minority of philosophers would disagree with the atheistic norm. I would, on the other hand, assert that the problem ought to be solvable (i.e. the philosophical debate could potentially end with consensus) to be considered "unsolved". If you would like to create a new article entitled, "Unsolvable Problems in Philosophy," I think the "whither God" question would fit in very nicely there. More realistically, an "Unsolved problems in theology" question might be in order. Danny Pi 07:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I am that unsigned poster. Here are some pages on the Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy which largely concern the issue of God's existence:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/

Any philosophical problem that has at least these four articles devoted to it along with many other articles which reference and discuss the problem ( i.e the article's on miracles and the afterlife) is surely worthy of inclusion. Compare the number of articles addressing the question of the existence of God with the number of articles addressing the Molenyux problem (1 article).

In response to your "Unsolvable problems" quip I would like to point out that it is likely that the majority of philosophical questions on the page are unsoluble.

I'd also like to point out ( though I am an analytic philosopher) that there are no continental philosophy problems on the page, we probably should have some.

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The previous listing for this was hideous. I have deleted it in its entirety and attempted to set up a better page, although I admit much work is still needed. I hope contributors keep the listings here specific, and avoid such ridiculous "unsolved questions" like those previously submitted: "What is reality?" "What is the meaning of life?", etc. While these may be legitimate problems- and legitimate philosophical problems, I don't think that this is what is generally intended for this article, if you compare it with other listings of unsolved problems (e.g. mathematics).

Would questions about ethics belong under the umbrella of "philosophy?" I'll add a few posers and see if they survive. --Mozai 00:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Questons Posed

The questions posed in this article appear to be opinions of the contributor. Ceratinly the first 2 questions have answers Yes there is a God and He is the meaning of life. The other two questions posed are purile

Delete?

This article is un-writeable. Consider what an article titled Solved problems in philosophy would contain... --Jmstylr 16:30, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this article could be a placeholder for "Problems eternally debated in philosophy, and nobody yet agrees on the answer." That seems to describe the questions in the other Unsolved Problems lists. I understand that people are going to give flip answers to the questions ("Yes, and He is. Now stop asking."), but some people give flip answers to Unsolved problems in physics too: "God does not play dice with the universe." --Mozai 00:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it's not so much a question of problems "eternally debated" but questions that have been historically important. We can't speak for the future of philosophy, can we? Furthermore the idea that philosophy is always about the same questions is one that several philosophers have sought to problematize (such as Richard Rorty in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature). -- anonymous 2:17, 2 August 2006

Total rewrite

In response to "Questions Posed", which was unsigned, the *opinion* that a God exists is certainly an opinion (there is no incontrovertible evidence that there IS a God), and I cannot possibly see how the QUESTION poses an opinion (is not the very nature of a question a REQUEST rather than STATMENT of opinion?). The post itself is beyond puerile, the misspelling of which surely demonstrates this fact. I for one consider God an absolute logical impossibility, and the insistence of religious fanatics that their mythological idols are universally accepted facts is beyond incompehensible. They may be deluded enough to believe that "God" exists, but are they so deluded as to believe that everyone agrees with them? All the same, *I* think people have a right to their opinion, no matter how wrong it may be, and wiki should not be the playground for the religious right but an objective source of information (I find the correlation between IQ and atheism very informative here. Namely, studies have shown quite convincingly that IQ correlates to atheism- namely, the higher the IQ the more likely that the person is an atheist. People with IQ's below 100 almost certainly believe in God)

However, this is all mere digression. I think the page posted previously was a nice attempt, however there was a grave lack of information, and a total lack of focus. I've tried to keep the unsolved problems fairly focused (Sorites paradox, Gettier problems, etc), organized them into the four conventional "branches of philosophy", and avoided any references to vague questions that invite flights of fancy (meaning of life, existence of God, etc). I fully admit that this needs some cleaning up, and I hope people will add more unsolved problems into this format. I really think this is a big improvement, and I hope no one is too upset that I trashed the previous material. Danny Pi 21:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Not upset at all; I was surprised my material lasted a week. It's true that there was a lack of focus: it was an attempt to give the page more gravity, and attract a more dedicated effort to elicidate the subject by better philosophers than I. Mozai 04:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

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Very happy to see people cleaning this up and wikifying it. Also happy to see that this is becoming one of the more respectable "unsolved problems" articles, when, indeed, "Unsolved Problems in Philosophy" very much invites vague and unsubstantiable garbage. I'm a huge fan of the wiki community. Still hope that people don't just edit but also add to this list. Danny Pi 02:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Even though the problems listed here are all certainly interesting and important philosophical problems which should be debated (and HAVE been debated -- much more successfully than they are here, I might add) and even though some of the writing here is intelligent and informative, the category itself ("Unsolved Problems of Philosophy") is so ridiculous, misleading and ill-conceived that it really ought to be deleted. It presupposes (and worse, sends the signal to laypeople who want to begin learning about philosophy) that philosophy is about dividing problems into a "solved" category and an "unsolved" category, and as each problem is "solved" it is simply moved from one column into the other. Until, presumably, they are all in the "solved" category and our job is done. Mardiste 15:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

" Firstly, what are the criteria for intelligence? "

This claims that we do not know the criteria for intelligence, yet, it looks like that the men and women working on Artificial Intelligence have some idea, else they are going in random directions. That's not very scientific; have I missed something? -- kanzure 13:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Kanzure- researchers in AI are largely going in random directions. Some take Turing's lead an suppose that a sufficiently convincing simulation will eventually become indistinguishable and therefore identical to intelligence (I'm sure this is fallacious for too many reasons to list). Others are pursuing neural networks. Some are trying to create adaptive algorithms to describe intelligence. Linguists are trying to understand cognition from the point of view of language, while psychologists have tried any number of promising and/or crackpot theories. The truth is that intelligence, while easy to understand intuitively, is very difficult to describe formally. And it is entirely unclear today, of what components intelligence may be composed. In only the vaguest sense, we understand intelligence as that mental property which humans possess, which allows us to communicate, play chess, compute mathematics, feel emotions, etc. This definition is, however, totally inadequate for the purposes of serious philosophy, and therefore the question of "what are the components of intelligence," remains a relevant and pressing concern.Danny Pi 23:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

TOC Format

I think that the Table of Contents on this page is a little long and instrusive to be on the left; are there any objections to it being moved to the right-hand side of the page? Ziggurat 00:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Have revamped TOC during recent edit. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 23:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Moore's disbelief

The statement "Albany is the capital of New York, but I don't believe it" is false...

I read this statement as the speaker agreeing that the assertion "Albany is the capital of New York" is true, then immediately contradicting him/herself by stating that they don't believe this truth condition. So it seems to me that the statement is either insufficient (cf "It's common belief that Albany is...") or contradictory. What am I missing...?  (Hope it's not obvious!)   Thanks, David Kernow (talk) 00:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Continuum Hypothesis

The section about the continuum hypothesis is absurd. There is no question or "problem" with the continuum hypothesis in the sense that the author seems to understand it. The hypothesis is independent of the axioms of (ZFC) set theory, and since axioms are ultimately arbitrary, that is the end of the story. If our discussions of mathematical systems make any sense at all then it can't be "true" or "false". When mathematicians talk informally about the hypothesis, what they are really discussing is in which path the mathematical community should invest their time and energies developing. This section should be removed unless/until there is a coherent alternative. Rljacobson 03:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I very much agree with you, and have removed the section. For future editors, this is not a question of philosophy, but one of mathematics, and it is not an unsolved problem. The question is whether certain types of infinity have the same cardinality ("size", but intuitive notions of size are mostly meaningless when talking about infinity). It has been shown that this question is unanswerable in the currently acccepted set of mathematical axioms, and since these infinities are mathematical constructions, rather than intuitive notions of "undefinably large," the question doesn't mean anything.

mkehrt 10:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Molyneux Problem

This isn't really much of a philosophical problem. A baby has the visual equipment to see as well as someone much older than itself, however its brain must teach itself to see. At first it might only see fuzzy fields of color. The brain doesn't know what color is, only that its there. Then the brain learns to resolve borders, and find shapes. Eventually the brain gets so good at it that the now-teenage human being can drive cars at high speed.

Therefore, if a man were suddenly given his sight after never having it, all neural-connection problems aside, he would take time to learn to cross-reference touch with sight. Granted it would be much less time than a baby which must learn both the senses of touch and sight, it would still take him some time. I would say that he could not do it immediately, even if he were touching the objects. He probably doesn't have any kind of visualization or at least any kind of visualization he can describe. --Kevin Hutson, azurerenraku@yahoo.com

Problem of unsolved problems

This problem description added by Rasqual seems more of a joke than real article, or at best case of original research. Someone more confident could perhaps remove it, or find external links? lav 16:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Question about this article

"Unsolved problems in philosphy"? Um, are there any solved problems in philosophy? If it was solved, it wouldn't be philosophical, almost by definition, right? (For example, our article on philosophy calls it a "discipline concerned with questions...", etc.) zafiroblue05 | Talk 20:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think that the answer to your question here is going to have to be one that is more social in nature ... as in, some people get together and consider a problem solved and then throw a few parties or something. So do not think of the article as anything more than summarization of what some people would like to see others do-- namely professors in university environments. Hope this helps, and I'm always willing to discuss philosophy if you're up to it, -- kanzure 18:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem of evil

I don't get this statement: "If the existence of God and evil are indeed consistent logically, does the existence of evil nonetheless prove the absence of God". If two possibilities are logically consistent, how can one also exclude the other? --217.18.21.2 18:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Kant's theory of the "antinomies of pure reason" (from which Hegel developed his entire dialectical theory) is based on the proposal of two possibilites that are logically consistent, yet exclude and/or contradict one another. Mardiste 15:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Deduction nit-pick

It seems that the induction problem sub-section has confused deductive reasoning with A Priori. Furthermore:

All batchelors (sp) are male is not deduced. That is by definition —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.253.176.28 (talk) 02:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

Socrates's problem of Evil

What about Socrates's statement that "evil is lack of knowledge"? is it not considered an open problem? Dan Gluck 11:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

See the is-ought problem. Socrates was probably working with the concept of objective values, as opposed to subjective / normative values, or lists of priorities. It is, however, a deep statement to ponder. --205.201.141.146 21:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Subjectivism of relevance

"In practice, this has caused little concern to philosophers, as it is usually clear when a reasonably exhaustive investigation becomes irrelevant. (citation needed)" The citation tag adds an ironic whimsy to this article. After all, the person who added the tag is probably referring to citations of "In practice, this has caused little concern", without following the thought through to its end. Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of philosophers struck mad, babbling, "It's true, because it's true, because it's true..."? Heh. The human brain (usually) has enough sense to detect a possible infinite regress, and move to more fruitful arenas of thought. --205.201.141.146 21:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Limited in scope

Perhaps the title should "Unsolved problems in analytic philsophy". 213.112.137.175 15:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Does continental philosophy deal with "problems"? I thought continental philosophers were more interested the Freudian and Marxist neo-postmodern psycho-social signification of metaphorisms, although I'm sure that Derrida would point out that such a summary misses the socio-linguistic element of antiredeconstructionist ethics. Seriously, what would the counterpoint to "Unsolved problems in analytic philosophy" be? "Unsolved ramblings in continental philosophy"? There are no "problems" in continental philosophy. Continental philosophy *is* the problem. Danny Pi 07:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)