Settled questions in philosophy

You use the words "solved" and settled" here, but I think they have very different meanings. In particular I can think of two relevant definitions of "settled": first, that someone, somewhere, has the correct answer; but second, that the correct answer is widely accepted, uncontroversial, and someone ignorant of the field can easily discover it just by reading a textbook..

I think your examples fall into the first category but not the second. According to the PhilPapers survey, only 32% of philosophers "accept" physicalism (a further 20% were "leaning towards" it). Another presentation of the poll said that 73% of philosophers either "lean toward or accept atheism".

When you can't get even three quarters of a field to even "lean toward" a position, I don't think you can call that a "settled question" under the second definition, especially compared to science where hopefully 100% of astronomers would either "lean toward or accept" heliocentrism. And when I complain that philosophers cannot settle questions, I am mostly referring to that second definition.

A pattern in philosophy is that once a problem is solved, it often seems obvious and trivial in retrospect. Never the less, here are some much-less-controversial solved problems (from http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/02/examples-of-solved-philosophy.html)

1. Knowledge does not require certainty. But nor does justified true belief suffice.

2. Psychological egoism is false: it is possible to act from non-selfish desires, i.e. for some good other than your own welfare.

3. Rational egoism is false: we are not rationally required to always and only act in our own self-interest.

4. (E.g. Moral) Principles may take situational variables into account without thereby sacrificing their claim to objectivity.

5. The question whether God actually exists is independent of the question whether there is genuine normativity ("ought"-ness).

6. Valuing tolerance needn't lead one to moral relativism. (Quite the opposite.)

7. Red herrings may (and black ravens may not) constitute evidence that all ravens are black.

8. It's not analytic (true by definition) that cats are animals. But it is metaphysically necessary: there is no possible world containing a cat that is not an animal.

Slightly more controversial:

1. "Common-sense" morality, with its agent-relative ends, is self-defeating.

2. Capitalism is not intrinsically just. (Libertarianism must be defended on consequentialist grounds, if any. Those who think otherwise are confused about the nature of property and coercion.)

3. It is possible for desires (or ultimate ends) to be irrational. So there is more to rationality than just instrumental rationality.

4. One may be harmed by events that took place prior to their coming into existence.

Mathematics is full of precise and illuminating solutions to previously-confusing philosophical problems; so much so that you might call mathematics itself "precise philosophy". For example:

• What is the nature of space, extension, and continuity? Answer.

In general, whenever you see a "cryptic" definition of a concept in mathematics that generalizes but doesn't superficially resemble some previous concept, you're dealing with the answer to a question of the form "what is the 'philosophical essence' of concept X?"

Mathematicians have thus achieved the ultimate philosopher's dream: answers of the form "the meaning of life is 42" which are true and meaningful!

Zeno's paradoxes have been mentioned in another comment. For "theological" questions, see here.

Number four is overreaching. If we had solved the "what is knowledge" problem, AI would already be a reality. The "answer" you give is at best a clearing away of one source of confusion.

I'd consider "the origin of life" a solved philosophical problem.

Sorites / Ship of Theseus? Words, particularly those born of everyday usage rather than research papers, have boundaries that are fuzzy, until enough pioneers explore them and sharpen the map. You cannot say whether the ship is new because you never had to deal with this type of repairs before - Theseus' ship lies in the fuzzy boundary of "new". This is the time for you to re-draw the boundary with a sharper pen, either ahead of or behind Theseus' ship, and so establish an improved, more powerful definition of "new". i.e. Pretty much the same way you dismissed "what is art?".

I'm assuming you wouldn't consider problems that got solved by non-(directly)-philosophical means, such as Achilles and the tortoise (otherwise you could write a book just listing all the stuff that weirded out medieval philosophers). Would you consider problems that have not been solved so much as, shall we say, transcended, e.g. the liar's paradox?

One small aside I just realised: "philosophical problems" is a much less common turn of phrase than "philosophical questions". Could that be a (small) contributor to Western philosophy's notorious inertia? Having a "problem" would suggest that you are somehow worse off as long as it remains unsolved, whereas a "question" can also be an idle curiosity that you are free to tackle or ignore.

Taking "solved" to mean "there's only one right-thinking answer, given the arguments that have been raised", I would definitely agree with the questions you think are settled.

I'm also highly confident on:

• Meta-ethics: moral realism or moral anti-realism? Anti-realism
• Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics? Consequentialism
• Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? Survival

I wrote up how I "derive" my ethical position here, where I'd hoped you'd see it, but the thread was a bit old by the time I posted.

My thoughts on the teleporter problem are not novel --- I agree with Robin Hansen's take here, although I'd put it a bit differently. I came to the answer when I described the problem to a friend and he told me immediately that I'd arrived at the reductio ad absurdem correctly but had failed to resolve it: the answer was that my definition of "myself" was broken, and that it's better to think there will just be a future-copy of me who thinks he was me, but I will not be him. This is true in general, as it is in the teleporter problem. If you're comfortable making life easy and pleasant for future-you, you can be just as comfortable making life easy and good for teleported-you.

So I think the teleporter is a very simple problem. It's just that the answer is hidden behind a strong adaptive intuition about what constitutes identity.

The existence of God and Free Will feel like religious problems that philosophers took interest in, and good riddance to them.

Whether the experience of suffering/pain is fictional or not is a hot topic in some circles, but both sides are quite insistent about being good church-going "materialists" (whatever that means).

As for "knowledge", I agree that question falls apart into a million little subproblems. But it took the work of analytic philosophers to pull it apart, and after much labor. You're currently reaping the rewards of that work and the simplicity of hindsight.

Philosophy is notorious for not answering the questions it tackles.

I thought philosophy is about asking (right) questions, not (necessarily) answering them.

What's the meaning of life?
There is none. And that's the best thing ever, because it means there's no big crazy one true meaning that we all have to follow. We can do whatever we want.

I seems to agree with your original list. I would phrase the free will one differently - both free will and determinism are useless concepts because we have no mechanism for contra-causality other than spirit-magic and we cannot predict our decisions even if they are causally produced.

As you said: "Which philosophical problems do you think are solved, and what is the answer?"

I have proof of the existence of God, but I need a minimum of karma = 2 in order to publish in the discussion. Is there someone help me to have the opportunity to publish? Thank you.

I already had karma = 2, Thank you I already submitted on http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/51d/there_is_god/

|Which philosophical problems do you think are solved, and what is the answer?

It's "There is God" http://lesswrong.com/lw/4zt/there_is_god/

I think it is doubtful that any of the examples that you give have been solved/settled in any meaningful sense (particularly the last one).

If they were settled then those who disagree would have to be one of the following:

• Unknowledgeable about the subject matter
• Confused about the subject matter
• Lying
• irrational

However, there seem to be plenty of people who disagree with you who don't fall into the above categories.

From what you say it just sounds like you are saying that these are the issues that you are convinced about and which you cannot imagine being persuaded otherwise about. But on that kind of definition what is settled/solved will be person relative.

Are you able to give some kind of understanding to solved/settled where these issues come out as settled/solved and is also not person relative?

I strongly disagree that any of the four problems you claim are solved are actually solved.

• Is there a God? Yes, there are tons of Gods, many of which are probably convergent. That said, is there a God in the sense that religionists and spiritualists yammer on about? It depends on what you mean by God. Something could have increased the relative reality fluid of something like the relevant part of this Hubble volume, and such a thing may be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent with respect to the computations going on in the relevant part of this Hubble volume. Something like Brahma might end up being relevant somehow. We're mostly confident that the existence of the Christian God as described by Christians is probably decision theoretically trivial. People who have profound spiritual experiences may be tapping into something important and universal.
• What's the solution to the mind-body problem? Materialism or substance dualism, depending on interpretation. Materialism is akin to belief in physics, dualism is akin to belief in computer science.
• Do we have free will? We get some of our reality fluid from worlds where we have free will, and some of our reality fluid from worlds where our decisions have no actual bearing on anything except perhaps through counterfactual acausal control. However, since decision theoretically we only care about the worlds where we actually do have leverage in shaping the future, we do have free will in the relevant sense, even though taking this for granted may cause us to miss opportunities for timeless negotiation. Also, it may be that relative existence is actually defined by decision theoretic significance, in which case we nearly always have free will unless we're part of a larger system that has the actual free will or something.
• What is the One True Meaning of any such word? We don't know what the One True Meaning should be, and we won't until we're smarter. This question is unsolved.