Most Important Philosophical Question(s)
SUPHI hasn't been that active, so I thought I'd throw this question to the blog and see if it spurs any interest.
What do you take to be the most important philosophical question (or questions)? And, of course, why do you think that?
9 comments:
In her essay, Philosophy Who Needs It?, Ayn Rand identifies three essential philosophical questions:
Where am I?
How do I know?
What should I do?
I think these are three most important questions, with the last one being the most of important of these.
The first two questions deal with metaphysical and epistemological issues. These are important, but ultimately only instrumentally toward understanding how best to live one's life. If an issue/question doesn't make a difference to how one is to live life, than it just seems to be mental masturbation.
I think the most basic philosophic question is really pretty simple: "WHAT!?"
Beyond that, I don't really know. I see the appeal of what you quote from Ayn Rand, but I am also inclined to the view that we are, by nature, creatures who desire truth. Even if you could find a question that does not have any effect on how one lives one's life, I still would want to say that there is value to finding the correct answer to it.
So, if one presupposes that humans are creatures who desire truth, then I'd see the fundamental question of philosophy as "What is true?" But, if one doesn't want to presuppose this (or if one argues that, if we are such creatures, then that means finding truth always makes a difference to how one lives), then I'd agree with Ayn Rand.
I'd have to agree with the underlying theme of what Michelle is saying. The theme can be formed in a (smart-ass) question: "What's the best color?"
You should all be taken aback by such a question and immediately reply, "The best color FOR WHAT?" While I find Ayn Rand (somewhat) interesting, really, all she's done here, according to you, Shawn, is identify the subject matter of the three traditional areas of philosophy. Are they the most important? They are if you think that the generating questions of a field are the most important. However, they are not if you have contrary views.
More than this, though, the starting-point of this, our grand philosophical endeavor is entirely arbitrary. To denote these questions as THE MOST IMPORTANT (did you hear the "Oohs and aahs"?) is to perhaps ignore prior questions and concerns held by antecedent thinkers.
It's pretty widely known that I'm a little nutty, so I'll throw out a nutty (pun...kind of intended) suggestion that I'll leave for someone else to make more concrete and meaningful (because I just don't care to): maybe the enduring question of the ante-pre-socratics (those philosopher-type cats who preceded the pre-socratics) was how best to mentally masturbate (to use a phrase Shawn has already put in the universe in the original post). Maybe they already knew how to do it well, physically, but they wanted the best means for the mental sphere.
Here we have a central and vital concern of the ante-pre-Socratics that gets ignored by the pre-Socaratics in favor of more salient concerns, thus the "importance" (whatever that means) is arbitrary or at best ad hoc.
I tend to think that the most important question is whatever Schecky, my invisible leprechaun with a balding pate, happens to be working on at the moment; which is "Tell me true, of this Rogaine, you: will't succeed e'en for me, that I might attract a lovesome pixie?"
Hey, I'm just sayin'.
Michelle: I don't disagree, I am just not sure what the value would be for a question that has zero effect on how one lives one's life. It might just be the pure joy of it, and that's great, but then it does effect one's life (as you said).
Chris: huh?
It is not, I take it, just that Rand has identified the subject matter of the three main philosophical divisions. It's that these are the three main divisions because we need to answer these questions (if we are to live and flourish).
We don't need to answer these questions to do anything except engage in otherwise useless philosophical debates that go nowhere and affect no one's lives in any ordinary sense. "Where am I?" I'm in Tempe, done. "How do I know?" How do I know what? That I'm in Tempe? I've lived here for 10 years, done. "What should I do?" Well, I'd like to finish my Ph.D., so I reckon I should go to seminars, right some decent papers and do what's necessary.
"But I mean PHILOSOPHICALLY 'what am I', etc." you say. Well, sure, philosophically these have been some important questions...but only as the generating questions of still other philosophical questions. We don't NEED to answer them in any dire sense of need. I KNOW where I am, if some dickhead tells me that I don't, I'm going to look at him as if he's either troubled or a philosopher. If the former, I walk off with my eye cocked to keep him in view lest his neurosis compel him to violence. If the latter, we engage in some sort of philosophical dialogue that will ultimately leave the two of us with more questions after we 'finish'. But it won't change the fact that I know I'm in Tempe (or anything else).
It's a mistake, I think, to vaunt philosophy as somehow revealing the true nature of the universe and philosophers as heroes of rationality and not to be bothered with common concerns lest they fail to answer the deep questions and leave all other human beings in an eternal lurch. The importance of reason and rationality gets so exaggerated it's comical. Reason is a tool. A tool NO different than the claws of a tiger, or the blubber of whales, or the trunks of elephants, or the camouflage of chameleons. It helps us to survive. True, I would agree that without it, the likelihood of our imminent deaths increases drastically, but there's no reason to think it would be necessary (in ANY sense of necessary).
Thus, to say that we NEED to answer these questions (oh, gosh honey, send the kids to boarding school and lets go into a deep mediation on these questions or else we'll die!) is exaggerating philosophy's importance to a degree to which only Plato, or Aristotle (or Ayn Rand) would agree. But most of us get by just fine without ever even considering these questions. Besides, if we NEEDED to answer these questions, Jesus Christ! we should all be dead by now. We've been trying to answer these questions for 2 millennia. Now, either that's a hell of a long time for Mistress Death to come along and complete her business with us, or it shows the irrelevance of these questions to our daily life.
You could say that answering these questions is necessary if we wish to have truth and knowledge and live a good life. That, however, is begging the question. You just can't assume that these philosophical questions are necessary to living a certain way and then tell me that I need to answer them because if I don't, then I won't live a certain way. So what?
Oops. first paragraph. "I should WRITE..." Hey, I'm in philosophy not orthography.
Chris,
Several years ago I saw someone justifiably believe two true claims, that all men are mortal and that Mr. Rogers is a man. However, that person had no belief about Mr. Rogers's mortality.
One day I asked that person his opinion on the matter of Mr. Rogers's mortality. The person reflected on his two beliefs mentioned above and said, "I believe Mr. Rogers is immortal."
That person, who was Mr. Rogers himself, dropped dead. True story. Read more about it at
http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/27/rogers.obit/
The story should read that Mr. Rogers died after a brief battle with stomache cancer and from drawing false conclusions from true premises. The editor removed the reasoning part to save space.
We can draw several morals from the above parable. The first is that incorrect reasoning kills us on the spot. The second is that no philosopher has more hubris than Mr. Rogers did.
The second concluion is that of historical analysis. The first is a refutation. Philosophical questions ARE the most important questions. I doubt you can read this; however, because you falsely reasoned and now you are probably in a gutter with your kidneys removed.
Best of luck old pal. Say hello for me to your new neighbor.
Steve,
You know, when I met Mr. Rogers, he was on his deathbed and lamenting the fact that he said what he did about being immortal. "Chris," he told me with his ghostly lips barely moving, "you ought to study philosophy." "Why?" I asked him (I was a Classics major at the time). "So you don't end up like me," he said. "What, like, dead?" I asked. "Isn't philosophy just intellectual onanism? I've gotten along in my life just fine without asking where I am or how I know or what I should do in any DEEP philosophical sense. What good will philosophy do me?" He was horrified at this. He was on a heart monitor and I could hear the beeping getting louder and faster ever second. His face went from nearly translucent to egg-shell mixed with a dash of fuschia. To this day, I swear I could see a baseball-sized protuberance marching to the beat of his monitor that MUST have been his moribund heart. He grabbed my forearm in a deathgrip with his vampire-like hands whose nails were far too long and cold but hard as steel. He penetrated my eyes with his own and in a slow rasp he said, "Because it will g--" and he died.
We'll never know what he was going to say in that hospital room with its violent fluorescent lights waging war with my eyes. How do I know this? Because that old cat is dead. "Yeah, but how do you KNOW?" you ask. Umm, because he's dead, thanks for asking. What should we do? Keep pushing on in the hopes of finding some amount of happiness in our lives. Oh! Look at that, I have a glass of wine, some tasty morsels, a good woman, and a nice place to lay my head. I'm good. Screw philosophy.
Chris,
Your story is ridiculous. Everyone knows that Rogers got a manicure every Monday until the day he died. His fingernails were short, meticulously curved, and softer than the inside of a worn baseball mitt. His hands were not "vampire-like hands whose nails were far too long and cold but hard as steel."
Your story, while colorful, is patently false. I reason from the fault of your story that your character is also faulty. While you may have good wine, tasty morsels, a fine place to lay your head, and a good (brainwashed) woman, your deceitful character fends away besweatered, melodious neighbors. That loss of companionship will sour into vinegar your wine, crumble your morsels, free your woman, and soil your bed.
Sinner.
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