Unsolved problems in philosophy
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Philosophical problems are unlike scientific or mathematical problems. Often, problems in philosophy are refined rather than solved, and there is widespread belief that no philosophical problem is truly "solvable" in the conventional sense.
The purpose of philosophy, problems in philosophy, and the very definition of philosophy are highly contentious topics, and it is difficult to adequately define or answer these fundamental issues. For instance, the highly influential philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, denied that any legitimate philosophical problems exist at all. Nonetheless, philosophy is motivated by the exploration and investigation of questions, which may be loosely termed "philosophical problems."
Clearly, unsolved philosophical problems exist in the lay sense (e.g. "What is the meaning of life?", "Where did we come from?", "What is reality?", etc). However, philosophers generally accord serious philosophical problems specific names or questions, which indicate a particular method of attack or line of reasoning. As a result, broad and untenable topics become manageable. It would therefore be beyond the scope of this article to categorize "life" (and similar vaguaries) as an unsolved philosophical problem. Similarly expansive "questions" shall also be omitted, as will fashionable fields (e.g. bioethics, feminist ethics), which pose philosophical problems without being philosophical problems themselves.
Contents
Aesthetics · Epistemology · Ethics · Philosophy of language · Philosophy of mathematics · Metaphysics · Philosophy of mind · Philosophy of science
[edit] Aesthetics
[edit] Essentialism
In art, essentialism is the idea that certain concepts may be expressed organically in certain media. Each medium has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, contingent on its mode of communication. A chase scene, for example, may be appropriate for motion pictures, but poorly realized in poetry, because the essential components of the poetic medium are ill suited to convey the information of a chase scene. This idea may be further refined, and it may be said that the haiku is a poor vehicle for describing a lover's affection, as opposed to the more organically correct sonnet. Essentialism is attractive to artists, because it not only delineates the role of art and media, but also prescribes a method for evaluating art (quality correlates to the degree of organic form). However, considerable criticism has been leveled at essentialism, which has been unable to formally define organic form or for that matter, medium. What, after all, is the medium of poetry? If it is language, how is this distinct from the medium of prose fiction? Is the distinction really a distinction in medium or genre? Questions about organic form, its definition, and its role in art remain controversial. Generally, working artists accept some form of the concept of organic form (although philosophers like Rudolf Arnheim have added support), whereas philosophers have tended to regard it as vague and irrelevant.
[edit] "The medium is the message"
Marshall McLuhan's famous phrase, "the medium is the message," was first introduced in his book with the playfully different name, The Medium is the Massage [1]. The thesis of the book, that electric-technology modularizes our minds, whereas the river-of-story we evolved-in formed our minds differently, has been so often quoted and misunderstood that, "You understand nothing of my work," has become a catchphrase for the Canadian philosopher (viz. his cameo in Woody Allen's film, Annie Hall). While summarizing McLuhan's argument is fraught with danger, it is safe to claim that the general understanding (perhaps not McLuhan's intended meaning) of the phrase is that the study of media rather than media content will provide more substantive research results. An extreme version of this idea proposes that the effect of media is unrelated to its content. Therefore, any two radio shows will have an identical effect on their audiences, regardless of what the radio shows may be. If one were to seek contrast, it would not be between radio shows, but between radio and television, for example. There is substantial research demonstrating that media has considerably more effect on audiences than message-oriented artists generally concede. Nonetheless, the extreme perspective is widely disregarded. The effect media has on audiences continues to be explored, and the precise nature of the relationship between media and message continues to elude philosophers.
[edit] Art objects
This problem originally arose from the practice rather than theory of art. Marcel Duchamp, in the 20th century, challenged conventional notions of what "art" is, placing ordinary objects in galleries to prove that the context rather than content of an art piece determines what art is. In music, John Cage followed up on Duchamp's ideas, asserting that the term "music" applied simply to the sounds heard within a fixed interval of time. While it is easy to dismiss these assertions, further investigation shows that Duchamp and Cage are not so easily disproved. For example, if a pianist plays a Chopin etude, but his finger slips missing one note, is it still the Chopin etude or a new piece of music entirely? Most people would agree that it is still a Chopin etude (albeit with a wrong note), which brings into play the Sorites Paradox, mentioned below. If one accepts that this is not a fundamentally changed work of music, however, one is implicitly agreeing with Cage that it is merely the duration and context of musical performance, rather than the precise content, which determines what music is. The question, then, is what the criteria for art objects are and whether these criteria are entirely context-dependent.
[edit] Epistemology
[edit] Gettier problem
Plato suggests in his Thaetetus, Meno, and other dialogues that 'knowledge' may be defined as justified true belief. For over two millennia this definition of knowledge has been reinforced and accepted by subsequent philosophers, who accepted justifiability, truth, and belief as the necessary criteria for information to earn the special designation of being, "knowledge". In 1963, however, Edmund Gettier published an article in the periodical, Analysis, entitled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", offering instances of justified true belief, which do not conform to the generally understood meaning of "knowledge." Gettier's examples hinged on instances of epistemic luck, and numerous subsequent philosophers have offered modified criteria for "knowledge," in response to Gettier's article. There is no general consensus to adopt any of the modified definitions yet proposed.
[edit] Molyneux problem
The origin of what is known as the Molyneux problem lies in the following question posed by William Molyneux to John Locke: if a man born blind, and able to distinguish by touch between a cube and a globe, were made to see, could he now tell by sight which was the cube and which the globe, before he touched them? The problem raises fundamental issues in epistemology and the philosophy of mind, and was widely discussed after Locke included it in the second edition of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
[edit] Pyrrhonian regress
Overlooking for a moment the complications posed by Gettier Problems, philosophy has essentially continued to operate on the principle that knowledge is justified true belief. The obvious question that this definition entails is how one can know whether one's justification is sound. One must therefore provide a justification for the justification. That justification itself requires justification, and the questioning continues interminably. The conclusion is that no one can truly have knowledge of anything, since it is (due to this Pyrrhonian regress) impossible to satisfy the justification element. In practice, this has caused little concern to philosophers, as it is usually clear when a reasonably exhaustive investigation becomes irrelevant.[citation needed] Nonetheless, the question is theoretically interesting for its own sake.
[edit] Perception of color
- See also: Grue (color)
The question hinges on whether color is a product of the mind or an inherent property of objects. While most philosophers will agree that color assignment corresponds to light frequency, it is not at all clear whether the particular psychological phenomena of color are imposed on these visual signals by the mind, or whether such qualia are somehow naturally associated with their noumena. Another way to look at this question is to assume two people ("Fred" and "George" for the sake of convenience) see colors differently. That is, when Fred sees the sky, his mind interprets this light signal as blue. He calls the sky, "blue." However, when George sees the sky, his mind assigns green to that light frequency. If Fred were able to step into George's mind, he would be amazed that George saw green skies. However, George has learned to associate the word, "blue" with what his mind sees as green, and so he calls the sky, "blue," because for him the color green has the name, "blue." The question is whether blue must be blue for all people, or whether the perception of that particular color is assigned by the mind.
A good example of this would be the way color blind people visualize and identify the colors. They are able to distinguish and identify colors based on the hues and shades as true colors (light of a particular wavelength) are not that easily found in nature. However they call "Green" to some color/shade assigned to Green in their mind and people not having color blindness call "Green" to some color assigned to "Green" in their mind.
[edit] Ethics
[edit] Moral luck
The problem of moral luck is that some people are born into, live within, and experience circumstances that seem to change their moral culpability when all other factors remain the same. For example, a poor person is born into a poor family, and has no other way to feed himself so he steals his food. Another person, born into a very wealthy family, does very little but has ample food and does not need to steal to get it. Should the poor person be more morally blameworthy than the rich person? After all, it is not his fault that he was born into such circumstances, but a matter of "luck". The fundamental question is how our moral responsibility is changed by factors over which we have no control.
[edit] Problem of evil
The problem of evil has been a major topic in philosophy since ethical and religious systems first developed. The question, in contemporary Western philosophy, has been considerably refined. There are two principal questions relating to this problem: 1) Is the concept of evil logically consistent with a benevolent, omnipotent creator? That is to say, is it logically consistent that evil and God may simultaneously exist? 2) If the existence of God and evil are indeed consistent logically, does the existence of evil nonetheless prove the absence of God?
[edit] Philosophy of language
[edit] Moore's disbelief
Although this problem has not received much attention, it intrigued Ludwig Wittgenstein when G.E. Moore presented it to the Moral Science Club at Cambridge. The statement "Albany is the capital of New York, but I don't believe it" is false. However, there is nothing in the structure of the statement that renders it false. Merely that the speaker cannot simultaneously assert that Albany is the capital of New York and his disbelief in that statement. By stating that it is true, the speaker is implicitly stating that he believes the statement is true. This is the entry point for investigating non-logical criteria for the truthhood of logically constructed statements.
[edit] Problem of induction
Intuitively, it seems to be the case that we know certain things with absolute, complete, utter, unshakable certainty. For example, if you travel to the arctic and touch an ice cube, you know that it would feel cold. These things that we know from experience are known through induction (compare with deduction, where we can know something without having experience: e.g. that all bachelors are male, that 2+2=4, etc.). The problem of induction states that we cannot know anything about the future and that we can never generalise from experience, at all, no matter what it is or how simple, or what the event, if it is based on knowledge gained through experience. There is nothing to lead us to logically conclude that the future will resemble the past.
[edit] Philosophy of mathematics
[edit] Mathematical objects
What are numbers, sets, groups, points, etc.? Are they real objects or are they simply relationships that necessarily exist in all structures? Although many disparate views exist regarding what a mathematical object is, the discussion may be roughly partitioned into two opposing schools of thought: neo-platonism, which asserts that mathematical objects are real, and formalism, which asserts that mathematical objects are merely formal constructions. This dispute may be better understood when considering specific examples, such as the aforementioned "continuum hypothesis". The continuum hypothesis has been proven independent of the ZF axioms of set theory, therefore according to that system, the proposition can neither be proven true nor false. A formalist would therefore say that the continuum hypothesis is neither true nor false, unless you further refine the context of the question. A platonist, however, would assert that there either does or does not exist a transfinite set with a cardinality less than the continuum but greater than countable infinity. So, regardless of whether it has been proven unprovable, the platonist would argue that an answer nonetheless does exist.
[edit] Metaphysics
[edit] Sorites paradox
Otherwise known as the "heap paradox," the question regards how one defines a "thing." Is a bale of hay still a bale of hay if you remove one straw? If so, is it still a bale of hay if you remove another straw? If you continue this way, you will eventually deplete the entire bale of hay, and the question is: at what point is it no longer a bale of hay? While this may initially seem like a superficial problem, it penetrates to fundamental issues regarding how we define objects.
[edit] Counterfactuals
A counterfactual is a statement of the form, "If Edison did not invent the light bulb, then someone else would have invented it anyway." People use counterfactuals every day, however its analysis is not so clear. Edison, after all, did invent the light bulb. So how can the statement be true, if it is impossible to examine its correspondence to reality? Similar statements have the form, "If you don't clean your room, then you don't get any dessert." This is another clear if-then statement, which is not verifiable (assuming the addressee did clean her room). Two proposed analyses have resulted from this question. First, some philosophers assert that background information is assumed when stating and interpreting counterfactual conditionals. In the case of the Edison statement, certain trends in the history of technology, the utility of artificial light, and the discovery of electricity may all provide evidence for a logically sound argument. However, other philosophers assert that a modal "possible world" theory offers a more accurate description of counterfactual conditionals. According to this analysis, in the Edison example one would consider the closest possible world to the real world in which Edison did not create the light bulb.
[edit] Material implication
People have a pretty clear idea what if-then means. However, in formal logic, if-then is defined by material implication, which is not consistent with the common understanding of conditionals. In formal logic, the statement "If 2+2=5 then 1+1=2" is true (note, interestingly, that this may also be considered a counterfactual statement). However, '1+1=2' is true regardless of the content of the antecedent in the conditional. The statement as a whole must be true, because the one way conditional only refers to a particular case, it says nothing of the truth value of the antecedent. Formal logic has shown itself extremely useful in formalizing argumentation, philosophical reasoning, and mathematics. However, the discrepancy between material implication and the general conception of conditionals is a topic of intense investigation. There are basically two clearly opposed viewpoints on this issue: those that think the problem is an inadequacy in formal logic, and those that think the problem lies in the vaguary of ordinary language. A third opinion (notably championed by H.P. Grice) asserts that no discrepancy exists at all.
[edit] Philosophy of mind
[edit] Mind-body problem
The mind-body problem is the problem of determining the relationship between the human body and the human mind. Philosophical positions on this question are generally predicated on either a reduction of one to the other, or a belief in the discrete coexistence of both. This problem is usually exemplified by Descartes, who championed a dualistic picture wherein the conceivability of one's self at one's own funeral seems to imply that the self and the body are separate and distinct. The problem therein is to establish how the mind and body communicate in a dualistic framework, or to disregard dualism in favour of monism, or materialism, which would solve the problem, as it states that the human mind is purely physical.
[edit] Cognition and AI
This problem actually defines a field, however its pursuits are specific and easily stated. Firstly, what are the criteria for intelligence? What are the necessary components for defining consciousness? Secondly, how can an outside observer test for these criteria? The "Turing Test" is often cited as a prototypical test of consciousness, although it is almost universally regarded as insufficient. This raises the corollary question of whether it is possible to artificially create consciousness (usually in the context computers or machines). Important thought in this area includes most notably: John Searle's Chinese Room, as well as Hilary Putnam's work on Functionalism. See also Unsolved problems in cognitive science
[edit] Philosophy of science
[edit] Demarcation problem
‘The problem of demarcation’ is an expression introduced by Karl Popper to refer to ‘the problem of finding a criterion which would enable us to distinguish between the empirical sciences on the one hand, and mathematics and logic as well as "metaphysical" systems on the other’ ([1934] 1959: 34). Although Popper mentions mathematics and logic, other writers focus on distinguishing science from metaphysics and pseudoscience.
Some, including Popper, raise the problem because of an intellectual desire to clarify this distinction. Logical positivists had in addition the aim of overthrowing non-scientific disciplines such as metaphysics and theology that purport to describe the physical world but, being unverifiable, are (they claimed) lacking in meaning. Others have more practical aims. In a country such as the USA, which officially attempts to separate church and state, religion is not to be taught in the public schools, but science is. So the practical question becomes what to count as science (for example, is ‘creation science’ appropriately named?).
