Problems

Canonical questions that cut across schools, eras, and traditions.

Aesthetic

  1. Beauty And Art

    Is beauty objective, subjective, formative, political, or a way of knowing?

Epistemology

  1. Knowledge And Justification

    How can belief become knowledge, and what gives inquiry authority over mere opinion?

  2. Science And Demarcation

    What distinguishes scientific knowledge from metaphysics, ideology, speculation, or ordinary belief?

Ethics

  1. Freedom And Responsibility

    Can human action be free if character, nature, causality, or social conditions shape what we do?

  2. Meaning And Absurdity

    Can life have meaning without cosmic purpose, divine order, or stable values?

Language

  1. Language And Meaning

    How do words, signs, and practices come to mean anything at all?

Metaphysics

  1. Causality And Explanation

    What does it mean for one thing to cause another, and what kinds of explanation count as philosophical understanding?

  2. Change And Being

    Is reality fundamentally stable, changing, processual, or both?

  3. Universals And Particulars

    Do general kinds, properties, or forms exist beyond the particular things that instantiate them?

Mind

  1. Mind And Body

    How are consciousness, embodiment, and the physical world related?

  2. Personal Identity And The Self

    What makes a person the same self across change, memory, embodiment, and time?

Political

  1. Justice And Social Order

    What makes a society legitimate, fair, and worthy of allegiance?