• anonymous66
    626
    The top of my list includes:
    What is Philosophy?
    How should we live?
    How should we treat other people?
    What is the best kind of government?
    System or Existentialism or Relativism or Nihilism (or a combination?)?
  • Mitchell
    133
    According to Kant:
    1. What can we know?
    2. What ought we to do?
    3. For what can we hope?
  • bloodninja
    272
    What is the meaning of being?
  • gurugeorge
    514
    The questions all involve each other, the puzzle has to be solved as a whole. The breakdown into separate questions is just a matter of convenience, really it's all just one big question ("wtf is all this shit?")

    1. What is existence, what is the nature of reality, and what's the catalogue of existents? (Ontology, Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy/Science)

    2. Gnothi Seauton. What am I, who experiences this existence? (Psychology, and what's been called "mysticism", or what Sam Harris calls "spirituality")

    3. Am I sure about any of that? How sure? (Epistemology)

    4. Given that well-checked catalogue of existents, the nature of existence, and my nature, how should I live? (Ethics)

    5. Given that well-checked catalogue of existents, the nature of existence, including human nature, and given a code of ethics, how should we live together in society? (Morality, Politics)

    6 . How can we maintain the coherence of the good society through time? (Aesthetics, Religion, Rhetoric)

    Running through it all is the philosophical distinction par excellence: the distinction between object language and meta language, between the use of language/concepts and reflection on the use of language/concepts, between matters of fact and relations of ideas, between aposteriori and apriori, etc., etc.
  • CommanderData
    1
    To my understanding the most fundamental questions for doing the work of philosophy have to do with ontology, logic, taxonomy, and epistemology. The posts in this thread so far appear more goal oriented but I am more interested in means than ends; although, in a way my perspective on philosophy is that the means are the end, they define everything.

    What are the most general statements that can be made about reality? What is truth? Is knowledge the possession of a justified true belief or is it something else, if it exists at all? What is the nature and source of principles of logic such as identity, non-contradiction, etc.? What are definitions and categories, and what is their utility?
  • BC
    13.5k
    Why do you want to know?
  • BlueBanana
    873
    Interesting take. Do you think that whatever question is asked at any moment is the most important question at that moment, or do you at any moment think that whatever question is asked is the most important question, or is that exact question specific in some way?

    My list:
    1) What is right/acceptable/wrong.
    3) What opinions are correct, what can be known, what arguments are valid and how universally objectively, etc. (purposefully skipping #2 on this list to symbolize how much more important the #1 is compared to anything else)
    4) Metaphysical and ontological questions.
  • _db
    3.6k
    According to Kant:
    1. What can we know?
    2. What ought we to do?
    3. For what can we hope?
    Mitchell

    ^ This.
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    What Are The Most Important Questions in Philosophy?

    What do I do now?
    What do I do after that?
    It's "What do I do after that?" all the way down.
  • _db
    3.6k
    ^ Also this.
  • JustSomeGuy
    306
    How should we live?anonymous66

    There are many important questions in philosophy, but I think this is by far the most important because it has the greatest effect on our overall experience of life. Metaphysics and ontology and the like are fascinating, but they don't really have the potential to enhance our day-to-day lives. Stoicism is a great example of a school of thought that can legitimately make the experience of living a better one, because it tells us how we should interact with and react to the world we live in, regardless of what that world is actually like. It's about how to conduct ourselves to gain the most pleasant experience possible, and isn't that really what life is all about? Experiencing as much pleasure and as little pain as we can? I know I'm starting to sound like a hedonist, but I think that's pretty much the universal human goal, whether everyone is consciously aware of it or not. It's how we are designed as animals.
  • BC
    13.5k
    My "Why do you want to know" was just a silly quip.

    I like Kant's formulation:

    According to Kant:
    1. What can we know?
    2. What ought we to do?
    3. For what can we hope?
    Mitchell



    Also good.
  • Vajk
    119
    May I have a question?
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