Critical Thinking About Questions

Nonsense Questions:

Today we see a distinct separation between the questions of Modern Science and Modern Philosophy. Both inquiries use similar rational methods, but they are different in terms of the sorts of questions each seeks to answer.

· Scientific questions ≠ Philosophical questions

What is the nature of this difference? Science seeks to answer questions that are empirical (observational) in nature. If one can answer a question by doing an empirical investigation, then it is not a philosophical question; it is a scientific question. (I am conceiving of Science very broadly so as to include history and the social sciences.)

Empirical: Observational. Refers to what can be known through sensory experience.

But what about questions which cannot be answered by empirical investigation, questions that no amount of science could hope to answer? Are all non-empirical questions necessarily “Philosophical?”

No.

Some non-empirical questions are simply nonsense questions.

Examples:

· "How high is 'up'?"

· "What is the color if love?"

· "What is east of the moon?

Note, that these are indeed properly formed questions in the English language. They commit no grammatical mistakes in term of being interrogative sentences. And note further that they are non-empirical questions; no amount of empirical investigation could hope to answer them.

However…

The only person who would seriously ask such a question and hope for an answer is someone who literally doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. (My four-year-old nephew.) However, in these cases, at least, it is easy to see that they are nonsense questions because any and all answers are equally silly.

EX:

· Q: “What is the color of love?”

· A: “Mauve.”

All answers would be equally ridiculous.

Nonsense Questions and Category Mistakes

These non-empirical questions can be labeled “category mistakes.” One is asking to know the height of something that does not belong to the category of “Things with a Height” or to know the color of something which does not belong to the category of “Colored Things.” The questions themselves presume category membership that does not in fact obtain.

Some philosophers would claim that many/most/all questions which cannot be answered by science are literally non-sense.

Example:

· What is the meaning of life?

Some have argued that far from being a deep and important philosophical question, this is in fact a nonsense question. It too is a “category mistake.” “Life,” they argue, does not belong to the category of “things with a meaning.” Words do; signs do, symbols do. But not life.

The view that most philosophy questions (or non-empirical questions in general) are simply nonsense questions and involve category mistakes gained wide acceptance, even among philosophers, in the first part of the 20^th century and some philosophers hold this view today. The proper response to such questions is not try to answer them, but rather to explain why the questions is simply nonsense.

(I am not one of these philosopher, for the record.)

However this is NOT the traditional view within the discipline of philosophy. Traditionally, philosophy seeks to answer non-empirical questions which are taken to be both meaningful and important and which can and do admit of answers, some of which are better, more reasonable, than others.

Example: “Is there a God?”

Note that, unlike obviously non-sense questions for which all answers are equally ridiculous, the problem here seems to be there are TWO possible, perfectly meaningful answers: “Yes” and “No.” What remains to be seen is which, if either, of the perfectly sensible possible answers is true (or can garner greater rational support).

Rhetorical Questions

A rhetorical question is a device used to persuade or subtly influence the audience. It's a question asked not for the answer, but for the effect. Oftentimes, a rhetorical question is used to emphasize a point or just to get the audience thinking.

“Are you stupid?”

“It’s too hot today, isn’t it?“

Notice, while these are technically question, according to the grammar, but they are not genuine questions in the sense that an answer is not expected.

These rhetorical questions are often asked to emphasize a point:

· Is the pope Catholic?

· Is rain wet?

· You didn't think I would say yes to that, did you?

· Do you want to be a failure for the rest of your life?

· Does a bear poop in the woods?

· Can fish swim?

· Can birds fly?

· Do dogs bark?

Writers employ rhetorical questions for rhetorical effects, and we cannot easily quantify the impact rendered by a rhetorical question. These are often employed in poetry and poetic prose for literary affects.

JULIET:

” ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.”

“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Good rhetorical questions can make hearers/ readers realize something that they weren't previously aware of. They can make them think and perhaps gain some insight. This alone will intrigue them enough to keep reading. But this only works if the rhetorical question is sharp and well crafted.

Rhetorical Questions as Disguised Claims

However what interests us the most here it when they are used to disguise assertions. Recall the old debater’s motto: “He who asserts much prove.” The idea is that, generally, the burden of proof remains with the affirmative team. If they are asserting “P” they are expected to prove “P.” And this is true in normal conversations/ exchanges as well where one individual is trying to persuade another. The person asserting is expected to support the assertion. But one can sometimes use a rhetorical question as a way of disguising a claim in such a way that it does not immediately seem to need support or evidence. In fact, rhetorical questions can be crafted in such a way to make the hearers believe they came to a conclusion themselves. Therefore they can be a powerful rhetorical device used to persuade someone without providing reason to be persuaded.

For instance, people don't like to be told what to do.

Let’s say you want Randy to stop swearing in front of the children.

So you tell him to stop:

You: "Randy please stop swearing in front of the children."

Randy: "It's a free fuckin' country,"

However, say instead you ask him the rhetorical question:

You: "Randy do you think swearing in front of the children is the best thing to be doing?"

So, rather than simply asserting one’s point, one “leads” the hearer to it. It feels more like a conversation and less like a lecture. Indeed, one may even convince the hearers that they have come to this conclusion on their own.

Now had you merely boldly declared, “Swearing in front of the children is the best thing to be doing.” you may not be nearly convincing. In fact, you may invite a challenge. “How do you know?” Randy might respond. In both cases you really are making a claim. But when disguised as a rhetorical questions, you may be able to slip the claim by without being subject to critical review.

Consider:

· Why would anyone buy anything else?

· Have you ever met a more disgusting man?

· Who in their right mind could support that proposal?

· Does anyone really believe that America isn’t a racist country?

· What could be better evidence for the failure of socialist models of economic distribution than Venezuela?

Agreement to the presumed “answer” to the rhetorical question is assented to by the hearer often because it is presented as required by “Common Sense.” It is thought that a vast consensus exists as to what the “right” answer within the “Universal Audience.” (This is related to Perelman & Olbrecht-Tyteca’s “mind-adherence” concept.) But of course this may not be true. There may in fact be no such broad consensus and the claim disguised as a question may well be controversial and in need of defense. This is why the critical thinker must be on guard when confronted with a rhetorical question.

Complex Questions

A complex question is a fallacy in which the answer to a given question presupposes a prior answer to a prior question. Also known as a loaded question, a trick question, a leading question, the fallacy of the false question, and the fallacy of many questions.

The classic example of a complex question would be "Have you stopped beating your wife?". Ralph Keyes has traced this example back to a 1914 book of legal humor. Since then, he says, it "has . . . become the standard allusion to any question that can't be answered without self-incrimination" (I Love It When You Talk Retro, 2009).

Examples and Observations

"'Let's talk about Glaucon. Where did you get the poison you used on him?'
(Bruce Macbain, The Bull Slayer: A Plinius Secundus Mystery. Poisoned Pen Press, 2013) 

"He was woken two hours later and presently a doctor examined him.
"'What drugs were you on?' he asked.
"Wilt stared at him blankly. 'I've never taken any drugs in my life,' he muttered."
(Tom Sharpe, Wilt in Nowhere. Hutchinson, 2004) 

The Unjustified Presumption

"Plurium interrogationum, which translates as 'of many questions,' is otherwise known as the fallacy of the complex question. When several questions are combined into one, in such a way that a yes-or-no answer is required, the person they are asked of has no chance to give separate replies to each, and the fallacy of the complex question is committed...

· Did the pollution you caused increase or decrease your profits?

· Did your misleading claims result in you getting promoted?

· Is your stupidity inborn?

· Have you stopped beating your wife?

· Did John ever give up his bad habits?

· Are you still a heavy drinker?

All of them contain an assumption that the concealed question has already been answered affirmatively. It is this unjustified presumption which constitutes the fallacy. In each of these questions there lies an assumed answer to a previous (unasked) question. “Did John have bad habits?” is the unasked question whose answer is assumed in question “Did John ever give up his bad habits?”. We need to withhold any answer to the complex question until this prior question has been resolved. In some instances of this fallacy, considerable struggle may be necessary in order to liberate ourselves from the misleading influence of a complex question.

"The complex question has to be broken into simpler ones; and often the denial of the fact presumed invalidates the larger question altogether."

(Madsen Pirie, How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic, 2nd ed. Bloomsbury, 2015) 

"The fallacy of complex question is the interrogative form of the fallacy of begging the question. Like the latter, it begs the question by assuming the conclusion at issue:

The serious consequences of complex questions can be appreciated by considering these trick questions, which would be out of order in a court of law:

· What did you use to wipe your fingerprints from the gun?
How long had you contemplated this robbery before you carried it out?

Although not an argument as such, a complex question involves an implicit argument. This argument is usually intended to trap the respondent into acknowledging something that he or she might otherwise not want to acknowledge.

Contrast Questions and Range of Answers

Two types of contrast in explananda

It is now commonly accepted that most or all explanations involve contrasts (see, for example, Van Fraassen 1980 [28]; Hitchcock 1996 [46], 1999 [47]; Woodward 2003 [142]; Lipton 2004 [72]). These contrasts appear in the form of a ‘rather than’ clause in the explanatory request, sometimes explicitly, often implicitly.

Thus, Van Fraassen 1980 ([28], p. 127) gives us the example:

· Why did Adam eat the apple?

He then notes that this explanatory request remains ambiguous until we make explicit the intended contrast class. For instance, the questioner might have meant any of the following:

· Why did Adam, rather than someone else? (e.g. Sam or many or Satan)

· Why did Adam eat the apple, rather than doing something else with it? (e.g. bake it into a pie)

· Why did Adam eat the apple, rather than any of the other fruits? (e.g. the papaya)

What counts as a satisfactory answer to the initial question depends on which of the more explicit questions is meant. “Because Adam was hungry” may be a good answer to the second but not toe the others. This feature of contrast questions is key to understanding explanation and more specifically what sort of explanation is being sought or would be found satisfactory. Technically, we can say (with Van Fraassen) that an explanandum consists of a fact embedded in a contrast class, that is, a set of alternative possibilities that did not come true. We call these alternative possibilities the “foils” of the fact. Very roughly, giving an explanation is showing what picked out the actual fact from among all the possibilities in the contrast class. It may be thought that not all explananda have a contrastive form however.

While it is often it is easier to answer an unambiguous contrast questions than to explain an ambiguous one this is not always the case. If one know that an individual has a preference for contemporary plays rather than historical ones, that fact can explain why he went to see “Jumpers” last night rather than “Candied.” But that fact alone does not suffice to explain why he went to see “Jumpers” un-contrasted with alternative, that is, why he went to see it at all. Yet, sometimes it can be the other way around. We can explain why Jones contracted the flu without explaining or being able to explain why Jones contracted the flu rather than Smith.

Here the un-contrasted questions seems easier to answer than the contrasted one.

When asking the questions “What explains the fatal car accident last night?” Or, “Why did the fatal accident occur last night? We see that these are ambiguous questions. Until I establish what the contrast is, the facts and attending foils, I do not know what is being asked.

A car crash always involves the convergence of numerous factors. For example, it may have involved faulty brakes, insufficient roadway grading, inadequate signage, and alcohol. Any and all of these factors may have contributed to the crash, and to varying degrees. The extent to which any one of these can be call “the” cause of the accident will require different sort of causal explanations and causal chain and conceptual resources. (e.g. breaks and the chain of physical factors, alcohol and biological and perceptual; factors, etc.) One way of giving content to the idea that there are different kinds of causes and causal relations is to view causal relations as explanatory ones, and to view explanations as answers to certain kinds of questions.

Aristotle defended an account of causation and explanation along these lines. A cause (aitia), he said, was an answer to the question dia ti: ‘Why?’ or ‘On account of what?’ (Physics 194b16-20). Bas van Fraassen has made a similar claim: ‘An explanation’, he says, ‘is an answer to a why-question’ (1980: 134). Others have suggested that it is not just with regard to why-questions but also how-questions since many how-questions are requests for explanation as well (Jaworski 2009). Examining the presupposed logic of why- and how-questions can expose what the range of explanatory factors and relations are being sought. Sometimes these presuppositions exclude equally good and potentially preferable explanatory accounts.

A similar point comes out with how-questions. ‘How did Judith kill Holofernes?’

Answer A: ‘With a mixture of revulsion and determination.’

Answer B: ‘With a mixture of bile and snake venom.’

Answer C: ‘With a mixture of seduction and cunning.’

The first answer supplies the manner; the second supplies the method, and the third supplies the means. Manners, methods, and means are among the things we ask about with how-questions. We also ask about mechanisms. How-questions of mechanism request what some philosophers of neuroscience call mechanistic explanations (Bechtel 2007). They explain how a system is able to perform an activity by describing how the activities of its subsystems contribute to it. So on this view causes and causal relations are explanatory. By examining the range of ways we explain things in our pedestrian dealings and in our scientific practices we can start compiling an inventory of the kinds of causes and causal relations there are.