What is a Philosophical Question?

27 Pages Posted: 4 Jun 2021

See all articles by Luciano Floridi

Luciano Floridi

Yale University - Digital Ethics Center; University of Bologna- Department of Legal Studies

Date Written: April 03, 2013

Abstract

There are many ways of understanding the nature of philosophical questions. One may consider their morphology, semantics, relevance, or scope. This article introduces a different approach, based on the kind of informational resources required to answer them. The result is a definition of philosophical questions as questions whose answers are in principle open to informed, rational, and honest disagreement, ultimate but not absolute, closed under further questioning, possibly constrained by empirical and logico-mathematical resources, but requiring noetic resources to be answered. The article concludes with a discussion of some of the consequences of this definition for a conception of philosophy as the study (or “science”) of open questions, which uses conceptual design to analyze and answer them.

Keywords: Conceptual Design, Noetic Resources, Open Questions, Philosophy of Information, Russell, Semantic Artefacts

Suggested Citation

Floridi, Luciano, What is a Philosophical Question? (April 03, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3854463 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3854463

Luciano Floridi (Contact Author)

Yale University - Digital Ethics Center ( email )

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New Haven, CT CT 06511
United States
2034326473 (Phone)

University of Bologna- Department of Legal Studies ( email )

Via Zamboni 22
Bologna, Bo 40100
Italy

HOME PAGE: http://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/luciano.floridi/en

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