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101 Philosophy Problems
Second Edition

Does Farmer Field really know his prize cow, Daisy, is in the field?

When is an unexpected exam not wholly unexpected?

Are all bachelors (really) unmarried?

In this second edition of his best-selling introduction to philosophy, Martin Cohen

combines new and topical problems with witty and engaging discussion. With an
updated glossary of helpful terms and possible new solutions to the problems at
the back of the book, this is essential reading for anyone coming to philosophy
for the first time.

Review of the first edition:

‘Martin Cohen’s 101 Philosophy Problems introduces philosophy in a novel way.

The book has 101 humorous little stories, each with a philosophical problem…
gives helpful tools for leading students into the world of philosophy.’ THES

Martin Cohen is editor of The Philosopher and Research Fellow at the Centre
for Applied Ethics, QUT, Queensland, Australia.
101 Philosophy Problems

Second Edition

MARTIN COHEN

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Second edition published 2002

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

© 1999, 2002 Martin Cohen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-415-26128-7 (Hbk)

ISBN 0-415-26129-5 (Pbk)
ISBN 0-203-20794-7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20797-1 (Glassbook Format)
To B—Too
‘This is quite a three-pipe problem and I beg you not to disturb me for at least
forty-five minutes’
Sherlock Holmes in ‘The Red Headed League’, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published 1891.
Contents

Forward! xiii
How to use this book xvii

Ten logical loops and paradoxical problems to get started with

1 The hanging judge 2

2 The cow in the field 3
3 Protagoras’ problem 4
4 The hairdresser of Hindu Kush 5
5 The raven 6
6 The tuck-shop dilemma 7
7 The unexpected exam 8
8 Sorites 10
9 The Society for Useless Information’s problem 12
10 The sentence 13

Six ethical stories

11 Diktatia 16
12 Diktatia II 17
13 A relative problem 18
14 The dog and the professor 20
15 The dog and the professor II 21
16 Problems in the Lost Kingdom of Marjon 22
17 Problems in the Lost Kingdom of Marjon II 23
18 The Lost Kingdom and the pesky-fly problem 24
19 The Lost Kingdom and the pesky-fly problem II 25
20 The Lost Kingdom and the pesky-fly problem III 26
21 New Diktatia 27
22 New Diktatia II 28
23 New Diktatia III 29
ix
 Half a half dozen of your numbers problems

24 The bent coin problem 32

25 Life on Sirius 33
26 The infinite hotel 35

Zeno’s paradoxes

27 Achilles and the tortoise 38

28 Lost in Space 39
29 Dancing in the stadium 40
30 That’s enough paradoxes (ed.) 41

Some value judgements

31 Fakes and forgeries 44

32 The value of stamps and potatoes 45
33 The value of stamps and potatoes II 46
34 The value of stamps and potatoes III 47
Contents

35 Gyges’ring 48

Paradoxical picture puzzles

36 The cube and the triangle 52

37 Figure/ground reversal 53
38 The false leg 54
39 The chair 55
40 Band with a twist in it 56
41 The blobs 57
42 The colour disk illusion 58

Problems with time

43 The time machine 60

44 The time-stopper 61
45 The microworld time forgot 63
46 The unreliable watches 64

x
Personal problems

47 The book 66
48 The book II 67
49 Sleeping problems 68
50 Indispositional problems 69
51 Still indisposed 70
52 The sleeping man 71
53 A problem arranging ship battles 72
54 Deep Thought speaks for itself 74
55 Deeper thought 75

Paradoxical pictures

56 Daytime—or night-time? 78
57 But will the waterfall? 79
58 The architect’s secret 80
59 The three hares illusion 81

Contents
Twelve traditional philosophy problems no one really
cares about anyway

60 Unicorns’ horns 84
61 The King of France’s pate 84
62 Snow’s colour 84
63 Unmarried bachelors 84
64 The author of Waverley 84
65 Martian water 84
66 The millennium problem 84
67 Green and red 85
68 [Link]’s problem 85
69 Kant’s problem 85
70 More Kant 85
71 The table 85

Some nasty medical problems

72 The three embryos problem 88

73 Kidnapped by doctors! 89
74 Kidnapped by doctors! Episode II 91
xi
 75 Potentially a problem 92
76 Whose baby? 93
77 A sinister transplant problem 95
78 More sinister transplant problems 96

Two Chinese problems

79 The turtle 98
80 The nightingale’s song 99

Ten religious problems

81–89 (Raised by an annoying parishioner on a wet Sunday afternoon,

with the Vicar) 102
90 The Evangelist 104

Elementary problems of natural philosophy

91 Problems with the speed of light 106

Contents

92 Further problems of natural philosophy 107

93 Advanced further problems of natural philosophy 109
94 Schrödinger’s cat’s problem 110
95 The space yacht’s black hole 111

Pretty final problems

96 Schopenhauer’s problem 114

97 Schopenhauer’s problem too 115
98 A fairly terminal problem for dull philosophers 116
99 Descartes’ big problem 117
100 The problem of how to get to 101 (unsolved) 118
101 The problem of existence 119

Discussions 121

Glossary 189
Reading guide 217
Acknowledgements 221
Index 223

xii
Forward!

‘One hundred and one?!’ (the reader may exclaim) ‘I didn’t think there were that
many philosophical problems!’

After all, Bertrand Russell, in his definitive account The Problems of Philosophy
(1912, 1980), only seemed aware of about a dozen, and most of these were just
to do with varieties of knowledge. There was the problem of appearance and
reality, the problem of mind and matter, the issue of idealism, and the various
problems of knowledge: knowledge by acquaintance, or by description,
knowledge of general principles, a priori knowledge and knowledge of
universals, intuitive knowledge, knowledge as opposed to error (truth and
falsehood), even probable knowledge. And, over-arching all, the question of the
‘value’ of philosophy.

But let us be generous. In the edition I was looking at, next to an underlined
passage saying ‘All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but
this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought’ (and can that be
a thought for this book too?) someone has written, in block capitals:

IS THIS SELF-ASSERTION?

That, surely, must count as a new paradoxical problem to be credited to Russell’s book.

[Link] in his Fundamental Questions of Philosophy (Routledge, London,

1952, 1985) found even fewer, just six big problems for philosophy, viz.: truth, the
relation of matter and mind, the relation of space and time, causality and free will,
something termed ‘monism’ as opposed to ‘pluralism’ and last but not least, God.

This is quite a useful list, albeit not long enough. We need to go to [Link]’s
monolithic* Central Questions of Philosophy to find anything approaching 101
problems. But on closer inspection, these prove to be rather unsatisfying,

* Although his earlier works were rather better…

xiii
 concerned only with xs and ys and Professors. Instead of real problems we have
propositional functions and syntactical disjunctions. Ayer even has the temerity
to claim that Zeno’s paradoxes are not real ones. He solves them all with advice
like that for Achilles, claiming that there is a flaw in the problem that states that
before he can move one yard, he must first of all have moved half a yard. This is,
quite simply, that it is ‘false’. (‘False’ being a word used by a certain kind of
philosopher to refer to any claim that is not a tautology. Or that they don’t like.)
And anyway, as Ayer freely admits, for him the purpose of philosophy is not,
whatever Marx may have supposed, to ‘change’ the world, but only to change our
‘conception’ of it. Philosophy must be restricted to ‘the practice of analysis’.
Although this, we learn, ‘is not the source of its charm for those who practise it’.
For practitioners, its value consists in ‘the interest of the questions which it
raises and the success which it achieves in answering them’.

So what sort of a book is it that contains 101 Philosophy Problems? Is it a gold-

mine of previously undiscovered paradoxes and tantalising riddles? Or is it a
repository of dirty, unresolved and unwashed questions raised by the social and
physical sciences? Either way, how many of the 101 are going to be solved by
the end of the book? Is it VALUE FOR MONEY?
Forward!

Of that, have no doubt. Within these pages are all the philosophical issues that
matter. Even a few that don’t. The discussion is brief but to the point, clarified—
not just enlivened—by the (increasingly respectable) vehicle of ‘narrative fiction’.
The technical jargon so beloved of academics is banished, but none of the ideas
or issues is.

Although some philosophers today may react to clarity like vampires to sunlight,
shuddering, covering their eyes in fear and loathing at the plain little words and
readable sentences that threaten to destroy their private world, we need have no
such qualms. Instead, we return to a tradition far older, a tradition of philosophy
as an activity, a skill to be developed.

There are facts here too, of course, and as for techniques, this whole book is
perhaps training in that, originally subversive, form of philosophy known as
‘critical thinking’. Originally, that is, because later the philosophers got hold of it
and locked the whole notion up in a gilded and jargon-encrusted cage of
linguistic obscurity.

It was not always so. In classical Greece, where the word, but certainly not the
activity, of philosophy originated, clarity was the measure and the aim, and
sophistry the lower form. If this book is indeed a return to that tradition, then that
xiv
is its justification and its role. And if this still seems too simple for the self-
consciously serious-minded thinkers— let them actually solve some of the
problems!

But, before we ourselves attempt that, here is what Russell has to say on
philosophical problems in general:

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its
questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true,
but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these
questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual
imagination, diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind
against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the
universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great
and becomes capable of that union with the universe which contributes its
highest good.
Problems of Philosophy, pp. 93–94

Forward!

xv
How to use this book

Philosophy is an activity. It might even be thought of as a kind of thought

experiment. (And that’s an example of one itself—there, another logical loop or
paradox straight away!) So the problems should not be accepted passively, far
less the discussions. It would be possible by simply rote learning these to obtain
a sound grounding in philosophical techniques, and a good base in terms of
philosophical facts—but not to philosophise. For that, you will need to read the
book critically, questioning the assumptions, disputing the arguments. That is the
mark of the philosopher. But it is also that of the sophist and the pedant (those
who like to baffle people with fancy language, or nitpick over trivia). So, a word of
caution is perhaps advisable here.

1 Unputdownable though, of course, this book is, resist any temptation to read
it cover to cover in a kind of strange, philosophical frenzy. Be especially
aware of the dangers of too many problems at once. Take the problems,
instead, at a more leisurely pace, one by one, or, at most, group by group.
They have been arranged specifically to emphasise and facilitate this, and to
enable a process of reflection that would make the book much more than the
sum of its parts. The discussions should be seen as an aid to this process of
philosophising, rather than rapidly read by those in search of ‘answers’. In
any case, the pause for thought will tend to make the eventual discussion
more interesting, and, indeed, to make the problem so. For the answers, as
Bertrand Russell has already observed, are less important than the
questions.
2 Never try to break the problems into their logical, ‘symbolic’ form (see ‘Formal
logic’ in the Glossary—there as a resource for the convenience of the reader)
as a friend of mine tried to do. He went quite mad, of course, and is now
reduced to teaching philosophy in a northern university, poor fellow.
3 Finally, don’t over-use the problems with students, children or your dog, far
less throw the entire book to them as tiresome exercises.

For philosophy is far better approached with an eager mind than with a tired and
unwilling one.

xvii
 101 Philosophy Problems can be taken in quite different ways: either more
conventional, scholarly ones, as problems to be solved and points to be
absorbed; or on an intuitive level, in which case it is a more philosophical work,
attempting to paint a picture of a reality hidden behind words and logic.

But the best way to use this book, and I should think all philosophy books, is to
read it as a philosophical journey, with lots of new things to see, note, but not yet
fully investigate, far less to be detained by. In this spirit, it is like the best of its
kind, a voyage where once you have finished, you find that you know little more
than when you started. Indeed, you may know rather less—but you will, by the
end, know some new things that you don’t know.
How to use this book

xviii
Ten logical loops
and paradoxical
problems to get
started with
Problem 1
The hanging judge

Now Judge Dread had had many disagreeable people before him, but this one,
who styled himself ‘the Philosopher’, despite never having studied the subject,
had really annoyed him. Dread says:

‘I intend to teach you the value of honesty, prisoner. You have been found guilty
of being a crook and a swindler and of repeatedly and systematically lying to the
court to try to save your wretched skin. Well, justice has caught up with you now,
my friend. The sentence of this court is…’ (here the Judge pauses for effect and
dons a pair of black gloves and a little black hat) ‘…that you be taken from here
to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead.

… BUT, as I am a magnanimous Judge, I shall give you one more opportunity to

learn the value of truth. If, on the day of your execution, you sign a statement
making one true declaration, the sentence will be commuted to ten years
imprisonment. If, on the other hand, your statement is, in the view of the Chief
Executioner, false, the sentence will be carried out immediately. And I warn you,’
Dread adds, seeing his words having no effect on the crook, ‘the Chief is a
member of the Logical Positivist Executioners’ Club and will dismiss any
metaphysical nonsense as false, so don’t try any of your tricks on her! There,
now you have one day in which to make your choice!’

At this the jury applaud at the severity of the sentence and everyone in the
courtroom looks at the defendant, pleased to see such a villain get a heavy
sentence, coupled with the humiliating public true declaration. But, strangely, the
Philosopher just smirks back as he is led away to Death Row.

The day of the execution arrives and the crook, beaming, signs a declaration
which is handed to the Chief Executioner who reads it with growing
bewilderment. Then, snarling, she crumples it up and orders the Philosopher be
released, with no penalty whatsoever to be imposed.

What could the prisoner have said in the statement to have saved himself?

2
Problem 2
The cow in the field

Farmer Field is concerned about his prize cow, Daisy. In fact, he is so concerned
that when his dairyman tells him that Daisy is in the field happily grazing, he
says he needs to know for certain. He doesn’t want just to have a 99 per cent
idea that Daisy is safe, he wants to be able to say that he knows Daisy is okay.

Farmer Field goes out to the field and standing by the gate sees in the
distance, behind some trees, a white and black shape that he recognises as
his favourite cow. He goes back to the dairy and tells his friend that he knows
Daisy is in the field.

At this point, does Farmer Field really know it?

The dairyman says he will check too, and goes to the field. There he finds Daisy,
having a nap in a hollow, behind a bush, well out of sight of the gate. He also
spots a large piece of black and white paper that has got caught in a tree.

Daisy is in the field, as Farmer Field thought. But was he right to say that
he knew she was?

3
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