Lively Questions for Argument 

  1. Who are you? and Where does the world come from? What constitutes our identity?

  2. What is philosophy? Is the “faculty of wonder” an essential part of being a good philosopher?

  3. How was the world created?

  4. Is there any will or meaning behind what happens?

  5. Why is it so astonishing to be alive? Is there life after death?

  6. How ought we to live? Are part of something mysterious?

  7. Is there a God?

  8. Can anything come out of nothing? Has everything that exists always existed? Is there a basic substance that everything else is made of?

  9. “Wisest is he who knows he does not know”. What does Socrates mean by this?

  10. Is the idea of dinosaurs as real as dinosaurs? Would the idea of dinosaurs still exist if not only dinosaurs, but also everyone that could conceive of dinosaurs, were extinct?

  11. Why do we dialogue with dead philosophers as if they are still alive?

  12. Can one really distinguish between reality and dream?

  13. Does God sometimes deceive us about reality?

  14. When you have an idea, is it your idea, or has it come from somewhere else?

  15. Do you have a soul? If so, where is it located?

  16. Does time exist, objectively, or does it only exist in our consciousness? If there is really no such thing as time, and it exists only in our consciousness, why do we die?

  17. Has God predetermined everything, or is there free will? If there is free will, can God still be omnipotent?

  18. Do we recognize truth by means of reason, or do we have to believe in it? Can we truly assert that there is no truth?

  19. Does the soul take pleasure in the consequences of a moral act? Can you feel pleasure or sadness with the soul?

  20. How are God and the Absolute related?

  21. Is something moral because God wills it, or because it is moral?

  22. If there is only one, ultimate, reasoning power, God’s, in which we participate, then where is the soul, which is always individual and differentiates us from other people?

  23. How can infinite movement and infinite immobility coincide? How could it be said that, in God, all contraries coincide? Can we move outside God’s consciousness? Why, if we could move outside God’s consciousness, would we not experience the meaning of our life completely?

  24. Why should time not run backwards, for the sake of freedom? If “time” is an illusion, what difference does this make?

  25. Can God change the past, or do evil? Why, for God, is there only an eternal present?

  26. How is it possible to say “I hate myself”, when the hater and the person hated are one and the same?

  27. What is more important, power or good influence over people?

  28. Why should laws be “just”?

  29. Is it true that “nothing” can come from “nothing”?

  30. Without sceptics, could we know that there is truth?

  31. Does thought influence language, or does language shape thought?

  32. Is the universe infinite? Does time have an end?

  33. Why do we really see some things only when we shut our eyes?

  34. Why does one have to come to terms with the time in which one lives, without yearning for other times?

  35. Does thinking depend on visualization, or verbalization, or both, or neither?

  36. Can only those things which die be said to be alive?

  37. Can we think something that we can no longer imagine?

  38. Is “truth” whatever one is brought up to believe? Are power and society “decisive” for “truth”?

  39. Can we ever get beyond our own consciousness? Why does our perception of time differ from time itself?

  40. How do human beings combine both temporality and timelessness?

  41. What can philosophers learn from children? Is the concept of “children’s philosophy” a contradiction in terms? What do philosophy and childhood have in common?

  42. Is a question which cannot be answered “illegitimate”?

  43. Is “play” opposed to “seriousness”?

  44. Why might “imagination” be useful in philosophy? Why is a degree of “naiveté” indispensable for substantive philosophizing?

  45. Why do you think philosophers sometimes make important “discoveries” in their teens?

  46. Why can “relativism”, according to its own argument, be only one position among others?

  47. Why can “logic” not be a method for approaching “essential” questions? Why does the quality of the answers depend, among other things, on the quality of the questions?

  48. Why is it, perhaps, no surprise that Parmenides, the founder of Western logic, introduces his main work with a description of a journey to see a goddess, who reveals the truth to him?

  49. Why do you think Descartes, arguably the “founder” of modern science, attributes great significance to the three dreams he had on the eve of St Martin’s, 1619, which followed an important scientific discovery?

  50. How do you think philosophy might establish a relationship between the various areas of knowledge?

  51. Why might one look to philosophy for answers to questions about morality?

  52. How might philosophy translate religious convictions into a more rational language?

  53. How might the encountering of “problems” and “doubts”, which arise, constitute some of philosophy’s crucial functions?

  54. Are the “pinnacles of achievement” ever produced by an individual?

  55. Why could it be that, in differentiating the elements of human nature that can be explained biologically, philosophy is necessary?

  56. Why is there an “ethical”, and therefore “philosophical”, component in medical training and education, as well as the equivalents of these in business, economics, and law, as well as elsewhere?

  57. How is it that anyone who knew all that was the case would still not know how he should behave?

  58. Why is it that “ethics”, in particular, and “philosophy”, in general, will never be merely reducible to the other disciplines? Why must “ethics”, in philosophy, necessarily have a “virtue” component, as well as a “theoretical” component?

  59. Why does encouragement to engage in philosophy constantly proceed from children’s original questions?

  60. Why do you think the evolutionary and developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, recognizes that his ideal would be “to remain a child to the end. Is childhood the only real phase of creativity”? 

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