The Philosophiser A compendium of philosophical questions to get you thinking about thinking. Made by Mike Gershon – mikegershon@hotmail.com
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Why is there something rather than nothing?
How should one live?
Can you prove you are not a figment of my imagination?
What is the nature of justice?
Do physical objects exist independently of minds?
What is the nature of being?
What should we accept as valid evidence?
How can we come to know the world?
Are there different types of knowledge?
How can we know if something is true?
What is the origin of the universe?
Does the universe have a first cause?
Does the universe have purpose?
Do human beings possess free will?
To what extent are our actions determined?
What are the constituents of change?
What (if any) is the relationship between the mind and the body?
Do space and time exist independently of human perceptions?
Are you the same person now as you were twenty minutes ago?
Does the nature of an object persist through time?
What is knowledge?
How is knowledge acquired?
How do we know what we know?
On what grounds can a piece of knowledge be justified as true?
How can knowledge be justified?
Can we trust knowledge derived from our senses?
Is reason a universal feature of human beings?
Can we acquire knowledge through pure reason?
Is it true to say, as Socrates did, that ‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.’?
Should we be ruled?
How should we be ruled?
What is the nature of liberty?
What is the nature of equality?
Should we seek to reconcile ideals of liberty and equality?
How might rule be made just?
To what extent is justice based on custom?
What is the best form of government?
Should a religious believer accept the rule of the state?
Are rights based on custom?
What guarantee is there of the continuance of rights?
Are individuals inherently selfish?
Do men and women require a strong central power to protect them from one another?
Are men and women social animals?
Do men and women seek happiness within a social system?
When a person is born, what is the nature of their mind?
By what right or need do people form states?
What is the best form a state could take?
Should a government interfere in the private lives of individuals?
Are there separate domains in which a government should and should not act?
What ought the ideal relationship between individual and state to be?
To what extent should economic interactions be regulated?
Is there such a thing as ‘the common good’?
What might ‘the common good’ be?
Is it ever just for the state to use violence?
Is it a necessary condition of a state that it has a monopoly on the use of force?
Can minorities be safe in a democracy?
Of what value is a constitution?
What is a ‘good society’?
Do rulers have an obligation to the ruled?
Is the ‘social contract’ simply a useful myth?
What is beauty?
What is art?
To what does an artwork refer?
Does aesthetic judgement change over time?
Is one more free when contemplating beauty and/or perfection?
Can beauty be an objective fact?
How does a sense of beauty differ from the idea of taste?
What should we judge when we judge art?
What should art be like?
Does art have value?
Are there certain things to which language cannot refer?
Could a private language exist?
Does language operate on a logical basis?
What is the relationship between language and power?
Do words have exact definitions?
What is the relationship between language and the world?
To what extent is our description of the world an interpretation of it?
Do the written and spoken word represent experience in the same way?
Does language condition our thinking?
Can the existence of God be proven or disproven?
Is revelation a form of knowledge?
If God exists, how can evil be explained?
What is the difference between ‘good and bad’ and ‘good and evil’?
Is there evidence for purpose within nature?
Was God the first cause of the universe?
What is knowable as regards religious claims?
Do we have any good reason to think that God does or does not exist?
Is belief in God a way of life rather than a proposition with some sort of truth value?
Can notions of truth and falsity be applied to religious questions?
Does scientific progress dispel belief in God?
Do religion and science share a methodology?
Is there a difference between science and scientific method?
Are we able to definitively prove the truth of scientific facts or theories?
Can inductive reasoning be relied upon?
Maths is predicated on deductive logic Maths is predicated on deductive logic. Is it thus a falsehood to apply its methods to science, where experiments follow inductive method?
Are scientific results the study of truth?
Can a single account of the difference between science and non-science be made?
What are the aims of science?
How should one interpret the results of science?
What criteria could we use in order to say a scientific theory has successfully explained a phenomenom?
Can we prove a link of cause and effect?
Can all phenomena be explained by reduction to constituent parts?
To what extent are scientific observations conditioned by the theories or paradigms to which they relate?
Is it possible to be objective?
What is the proper unit for study of the human past?
Are there any patterns we can discern through the study of the human past?
Does history have a purpose, or, make progress?
Should history have a moral purpose?
Can scientific method be applied to the study of history?
Is it possible for us to know the past?
Is a description of an event simply a construction of some series of things as an event?
Is there any knowledge which we cannot doubt?
How might the experience of time condition our understanding of the world?
Should we accept the future is uncertain as far as our knowledge is concerned?
What are the implications of uncertainty (regarding the future) for our actions?
Do ideas exist outside of physical reality?
Is the soul immortal?
Is tolerance a desirable good?
What are the limits of tolerance?
Is it necessary for humans to have freedom of speech?
What ought be the limits of freedom of speech?
Is there such a thing as nothing?
Do words such as ‘nothing’ refer to what we think they refer to?
Do humans make rational choices?
What does it mean to describe a person or a choice as rational?
Can knowledge be gained through intuition?
What are the characteristics of personhood?
What is a person?
What is determinism?
What is free will?
What are the implications of determinism?
Can free will and determinism be reconciled?
From where do our concepts derive?
Is chance an inherent feature of the world?
Can a reason be a cause?
Do human beings have autonomy?
If an animal could speak, would you be able to understand it?
Could a non-human possess the characteristics of personhood?
Do our personalities (or our selves) persist through time?
Do we possess innate ideas?
What can be known through reason alone?
What is a mind?
How do the terms for mental states that occur in ordinary natural languages get their meaning?
What can we know through introspection?
Is the concept of evidence appropriate to every context?
What is evidence?
Do natural laws exist?
What is the relationship between law and morality?
What are laws?
What is the law?
Is a person responsible for the totality of their actions?
Is the individual responsible for giving their life meaning?
What is meaning?
Do myths animate or underpin claims to knowledge made in any age?
To what extent should we be sceptical about our own capacities to know?
To what extent should we be sceptical bout our own knolwedge?
Is mind an intrinsic part of the universe?
What is consciousness?
Does duty exist?
What is the best way to live?
Are there irrenconcilable ends in life?
Do all goods coalesce?
Is there an ultimate truth?
Why have so many people been concerned to try and create a ‘science of ethics’?
Could there be a science of ethics?
What causes us to act?
What is the relationship between reason and emotion?
What might be the difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description?