There is a paradox surrounding philosophy that AskPhilosophers seeks to address. On the one hand, everyone confronts philosophical issues throughout his or her life. But on the other, very few have the opportunity to learn about philosophy, a subject that is usually taught only at the college level. (Why? There is no good reason for this and plenty of bad ones.) AskPhilosophers aims to bridge this gap by putting the skills and knowledge of trained philosophers at the service of the general public.
If you have a question that you think is in some way philosophical or relates to philosophy, feel free to ask it. If you are not sure whether your question is appropriate, send it in anyway. If it is a question about which a philosopher might have something useful to say (and which hasn't already been asked), we will post it, usually within a few days. Check back periodically to see whether a philosopher has responded to your query, or supply your e-mail address to be automatically notified when the question receives a response.
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This site owes much to the helpful suggestions of Damon Blanchette, Dave Fortunato, Qingsi Zhu, Nicholas Doty, Paul Chapin, Jill Cirasella, Zachary Sachs, Elisa Mai, and Willa Jarnagin. The site's icon was designed by Jill Cirasella: it captures the spirit of this project by finding a question mark embedded within the Greek letter phi, the first letter of the Greek word for philosophy. Thanks finally to Amherst College for its invaluable support.
Content on this site may be reproduced without the site owner's permission only if it is used for educational and not-for-profit purposes. For all other purposes, the site owner's permission is required (at the above e-mail address). In all cases, AskPhilosophers.org must be acknowledged, as well as any panelists whose responses are used.
