Philosophy: the Big Questions

Posted on December 6, 2008
Filed Under Philosophy | 3 Comments

Over at Philosophy Et Cetera, Richard and I got into a discussion that basically was about the epistemological vs. metaphysics division. (It started in a discussion about foreknowledge although Richard put up a post explicitly about the distinction between metaphysics and epistemology.) Without going down too much of a tangent this got me to thinking about the big fundamental issues people see as important. Famously Heidegger thought it all came down to the question of Being.

Without just listing a slew of fundamental issues (such as Being) let me ask a slightly different question. What are the fundamental issues you are most interested in and see as very important?

Here’s mine:

1. Icon Repetition. That is how do you get the repetition of the same? It’s been either in the forefront or back of my mind for over 15 years now. Despite spending an inordinate amount of time on the question I must confess I’ve made only slight progress. An other way to put this issue is to think of the type – token relationship and what the relationship is – especially under repetition. This obviously ends up tied into questions of time as well.

2. What is most fundamental? Ethics, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, or Epistemology? Peirce famously thought it went Aesthetics -> Ethics -> Metaphysics with Epistemology being a subset of Ethics. (Since it concerns what one ought believe) Yet it seems hard to see Ethics as not having many metaphysical commitments. My rough solution to all this is the hermeneutic circle. i.e. they are all inseparable at a certain level. Yet some (say the neo-Kantians or Positivists) seem to have thought them separable. Beyond my rough appeal to the hermeneutic circle and a skepticism that one can ever avoid metaphysics I don’t know what to make of this one.

3. Infinity. This is a very broad category but I just find the question of infinity fundamental. It was certainly fundamental to Peirce and I think many of the ways both idealism and Being are thought ends up tied to the question of infinity. Can one, for instance, have actual infinities and if so what does that mean?

4. Time. There are so many ways to cast this one. The classic way is the argument between Leibniz and Newton over time. (Time as a relation or time as something real) But one could go back to the Heraclitus issue versus I suppose Plato. In modern debate you have Presentism vs. Eternalism. (Or GR vs. QM)

What’s your fundamental issue?

Related posts:

  1. Is Metaphysics a Sham?
  2. Does Philosophy Need Science
  3. Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science
  4. An Other Meta-Coherence Problem
  5. Discoveries Merely About Concepts
  6. Constraining Metaphysics

Comments

3 Responses to “Philosophy: the Big Questions”

In my mind the order is:

1. Metaphysics
2. Epistemology
3. Axiology
4. Ethics
5. Aesthetics

I would tend to think of your questions about “infinity” and “time” in the metaphysics button, so I would agree these are big questions. I also agree that at some level these questions become inseparable.

My most fundamental issue is representation. Especially, how models represent. My formal work looks at specific kinds of model:representation:world interfaces (simulation of ecological systems), but representation, as such, I think really is foundational to understanding how we structure thought about anything.

There actually was one I almost put up there. It was the question of what language is. That is when we say something is dependent or reducible to language what on earth do we mean? I include in that questions about “everydayness” or corporate languages. The sort of thing where it seems pretty clear what we mean until we start trying to pin down the nitty gritty.

However I think I actually have a pretty good idea on that. I’ll make it a separate post soon.

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