Re: Most of the topics discussed in this forum are not philosophical ones. What is philosophy?

Most of the topics discussed in this forum are not philosophical topics! What is philosophy? What makes a question a philosophical question rather than, say, a scientific one?

Philosophy attempts to answer a certain peculiar type of question: a question that is peculiar not because we do not know the answer but because no answer seems possible. This is what makes 'What is time?','What is being?', 'Do mathematical truths exist in the mind or in the external world?' philosophical questions and 'Is there life elsewherein the universe?', 'Is there such a thing as cold fusion? etc scientific ones. At the heart of every philosophical problem is a paradox, even if it is not immediately obvious. That is why philosophical problems perplex and baffle us. Paradoxes arise when there is something wrong with our thinking, not usually some superficial semantic or logical error but something deep-rooted and fundamental.

Consider a question that may have occured to you even as a young child (if you are philosophically inclined): Where does space end. The question seems impossible to answer. Space must end somewhere - but if it ends such a place, a trillion, trillion trillion light years from earth, say, we can always ask what lies beyond, for something must lie beyond and therefore it couldn't be the end of space. The only other answer has to be that space is infinite. But infinity is only a word which means an inconceivably vast distance, or it is a mathematical symbol which enables calculations to be done - infinity in the sense of going on and on forever is unthinkable, inconceivable. A paradox, and therefore a philosophical question. Kant addressed this interesting question.

So is this a philosophy forum or a forum for general discussion?

Polonius