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The typology of philosophical problems

2019

A little green Maritan arrives from Mars with the task of assessing the mathematical, physical and medical knowledge of the Earthlings. After he was done with that, he tried to decipher what “philosophy” meant, something that human beings have been studying for thousands of years, but it seems to no avail. Our little green man randomly selects books from libraries that have been labelled “philosophy”. These writings came into his hands: Aristotle: Organon Saint Augustine: Confessions Saint Thomas Aquinas : On Being and Essence Spinoza: Ethics Kant: Critique of Pure Reason Hegel: Phenomenology of Mind Engels: Anti-Dühring Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra Martin Buber: I and Thou Heidegger: Being and Time Carnap: The Logical Syntax of Language Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ryle: The Concept of Mind Michel Foucault: The Order of Things Barbara Vetter: Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality The little green man studied these writings carefully to find answers to the following questions: 1. If all these writings are philosophical works, what are the common themes and common questions they address? 2. If all these writings are philosophical works, what is the common background knowledge that an understanding of these texts presupposes? 3. If all these writings are philosophical works, what is the common language and conceptual apparatus used by these texts? 4. If all these writings are philosophical works, what are the ways of thinking, research and problem-solving tools, theories and practices that the philosophical writers of these texts use?

The typology of philosophical problems Ferenc ANDRÁS 2019 A little green Maritan arrives from Mars with the task of assessing the mathematical, physical and medical knowledge of the Earthlings. After he was done with that, he tried to decipher what “philosophy” meant, something that human beings have been studying for thousands of years, but it seems to no avail. Our little green man randomly selects books from libraries that have been labelled “philosophy”. These writings came into his hands: • Aristotle: Organon • Saint Augustine: Confessions • Saint Thomas Aquinas : On Being and Essence • Spinoza: Ethics • Kant: Critique of Pure Reason • Hegel: Phenomenology of Mind • Engels: Anti-Dühring • Nietzsche: Also sprach Zarathustra • Martin Buber: I and Thou • Heidegger: Being and Time • Carnap: The Logical Syntax of Language • Wittgenstein: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ryle: The Concept of Mind • Michel Foucault: The Order of Things • Barbara Vetter: Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality The little green man studied these writings carefully to find answers to the following questions: 1. If all these writings are philosophical works, what are the common themes and common questions they address? 1 2. If all these writings are philosophical works, what is the common background knowledge that an understanding of these texts presupposes? 3. If all these writings are philosophical works, what is the common language and conceptual apparatus used by these texts? 4. If all these writings are philosophical works, what are the ways of thinking, research and problem-solving tools, theories and practices that the philosophical writers of these texts use? Our little green man, with his bright mind, soon realised that there was only a loose network of similarities and descent between the individual texts, and that they had no common essence. (The little green man also understood Wittgenstein’s late philosophy.) But this realisation did not reassure him. He turned in his indecision to his colleague, who was trying to understand such a strange activity of human beings, as listening to music, which was completely meaningless to Martians. His colleague, who was trying to understand the nature of music, happened to be turquoise green in colour, and said: I will play for you, using a sound converter, the following air vibrations, the differential equations of which give me no pleasure in describing, but inexplicably, these earthlings are attracted to air vibrations. Plug it into your head, you will have an experience similar to what people call listening to music. They like it for some reason. • Frédéric Chopin: Etude in c Minor Op.10 • Imre Kálmán: Die Csárdásfürstin • Béla Bartók: Concerto • Dave Brubeck: Take five • Beatles: Yellow Submarine Our turquoise green man was wondering what could be the beauty in these very different vibrations, so called “music”, why think people that music are beautiful? He asked himself the simple question: is it possible for a human being who loves all these music equally, considers all these music equally beautiful and valuable? Our green Martian was faced with a very similar question to the turquoise green being: is it possible for a human being to love the previously listed philosophical writings equally, to consider all these works equally wise and valuable? Whatever the answer of the Martians, the following typology is only valid for problemoriented philosophical trends, those that seek logical, rational answers to questions. This does 2 not mean that the majority of philosophers have the same opinion as 1. table shows, does not mean that the majority sees these problems in the same way like me. This is my opinion. The position regarding the nature of philosophical problems is itself a philosophical position that can be debated and questioned. Thus, the position expressed in this text is a line of thought whose truth partly depends on itself. From which it follows that this typology itself applies to itself. This is undoubtedly a typical sign of the emergence of a semantic paradox. However, a possible way to resolve the paradox is that I consider the present typology to be definitely a philosophical answer. Just as in the case just now, it is also important to recognize that philosophy is a paradoxical undertaking by its inner nature. Why? Philosophy – by which we now mean abstract, theoretical philosophy, and not the so-called easier-to-understand, practical philosophy – looking for rational answers to basic, very general, largely worldview-related or questions indirectly related to it, which are mostly also strongly emotionally motivated. These questions often affect the foundations of our thinking, our world view, and our conceptual scheme. There are no taboos in philosophy, we investigate about everything. We even question the nature of rational thinking, the foundations of logic and correct reasoning – the question is, on what basis? (What kind of game are we playing if we don’t agree on the rules of the game?) However, even if we were to designate some solid point, a certain foundation, even then, many philosophical problems are such that the answer to the problem applies to the problem itself, or to the formulation of the problem and the answer, and this and this is a kind of self-reference, that related to the truth value – so it is necessarily be paradoxical. In this way, the basic questions of philosophy about existence and cognition are inevitably (at least partially) paradoxical and represent an unsolvable problem. That’s why I suggested that the related philosophical position, as well as the related philosophizing – as a temporal event – be “outside” in relation to causation, human freedom, or the materialist theory of mind, in order to break out of the vicious circle, avoid the circular argumentation. It does not follow from all this that final answers and eternal truths are not possible in philosophy, as in mathematics. The fact that philosophers have not reached an agreement even 3 after thousands of years is a bad argument, because a historical argument, which has at most a probabilistic value, has no evidential force. It is clear that a view that no philosophical view is certain, i.e. that every philosophical view is doubtful, since it is itself a philosophical view, is a self-refuting, paradoxical idea, and therefore should be rejected – provided that we are not dialetheists. Name or description of the problem Value: V ×C×L V : Is the problem clear, or is it just a vague feeling, or is it bullshit, needless obscurity? (0=the question is not understandable 1=the question is clear) Moving Arrow Change Ship of Theseus How many things are there in the room? Why is there something rather then nothing? What makes a human act good or bad? Do the numbers exist? Does God exist? ... Is there a typology of philosophical questions? 55 55 33 35 33 ... 55 L : Is it logical? Is it possible to provide a logically correct, at least non-contradictory answer to the problem? (7=no 11=yes) 1 1 1 1 C : Is there a common sense answer to the question? Can the question be answered in the sense of common sense? (3=no 5=it is possible to find a reasonable answer) 5 5 3 5 1 3 11 (Tarski) 1 ? 11 (Kant) 1 ? ? 1 ... 1 ? ... 5 ? ... 11 Table 1: Typology of philosophical problems 4 11 (Newton) 11 11 7