Philosophy

Why do people (especially philosophers) engage in arguments which cannot be resolved?

Comments

Some philosophical issues are resolved, but many aren't--often the deepest ones. Philosophers nevertheless pursue abstract and difficult issues in the hope of solving them. And this isn't clearly misguided: a low success rate might result from the difficulty of the problems instead of from their in-principle unsolvability. Still, even if some enduring problems--the mind-body problem, the nature of free will, our knowledge of the external world, and so on--are not, in fact, completely resolvable, a lot is to be learned about the nature of mind, freedom, knowledge and also rationality by pursuing them anyway. And the pursuit is independently enjoyable and edifying. Or so I have found.

I would add that studying philosophical issues--reading about them, discussing them with others, and writing about them inside or outside a class--can not only be intellectually edifying, but pratically useful as well: this is an an excellent way to hone one's critical reading, writing, thinking, and oral communication skills that are useful in many professional and personal contexts.

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