What constitutes a good philosophical question?
I have myself complained, and heard others complain that there aren't that many truly philosophical questions asked. So my question is what a good philosophical question. How do we define it, how do we know it, and how do we know if it is indeed intelligently philosophical or just trite poser questions that clearly have no definable goal or point save subjective ramblings to reach such as "What is the meaning of life?"
Asking people to get together and talk about the "meaning of life" is like getting on a merry go round for the duration of the conversation.Because there is nothing logically provable as to the meaning of life, everyone's subjective opinion must be accepted, and no one's subject opinion can be rejected. Therefore, you spin around on the conversational merry go round, never getting anywhere, never learning anything new, and getting pissed off because other people's fundamental meanings are different then your own.I think philosophy needs to intelligently discuss how we think about things, why we think about things, how language affects how and why we think about things etc...Maybe a better philosophical question to ask would be "Why do humans think that the meaning of life is such an important question, when it is so obviously completely unanswerable?"
Answer
What constitutes a good philosophical question is whether the question leads to an understanding of the nature of knowledge, wisdom, morals and ethics, rational inquiry, language, or logic. There are questions as to schools of philosophy and history of philosophy that are good. Also there are questions of comparison and interpretation, particularly in regard to values and opinions that have valid philosophical answers. Questions as to the categories of time and space and their interrelationships provide fruitful discussion. It is possible for the question of life to come under this heading so long as it does not degenerate to the usual cross fertilization of ignorance.