Here are five questions, two basic ones and then three follow-ups, which people with an aptitude for philosophy tend to give the same (correct!) answer to. It is not an intelligence test or any kind of general or specific knowledge test. In fact, it is not really a test but a vague indicator.

Here are the questions. First the two core questions, and answers to them after a peek-frustrating gap.

(A)  If the word "ostrich" (in a possible language) meant what "zebra" actually means in English, and "zebra" meant what "ostrich" means, how many legs would an ostrich have? [I gather this is a medieval puzzle.]

(B) Bertrand Russell is said to have told a (sexist?) joke. He met someone who was a convinced solipsist. That is, she thought that she was the only mind in the universe, because the evidence that other bodies hosted minds was inadequate. But she had one puzzle, why didn't everyone else think the same? The question is: why is this a joke?

Write down your answers to these questions. (If you do not, then when you see my answers you may – probably will – persuade yourself that that is what you meant. This takes away the point.)

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Answers to (A) and (B)



(A1) Ostriches would have two legs. The question and this answer are in English rather than some possible language, and what something is called does not change how many legs it has.

(B2) It is a joke because the solipsist shows by her reflection/question that she does after all really think that there are other minds. (Because otherwise why would she wonder about what they thought?)

Now the follow-ups to these two answers.


(F2) What can be said in defence of the opposite answer to the ostrich question?

(F2) Suggest some ways that it is a bad joke, that is, ways that the question why others do not think the same is not really so silly.

(F3) what do the two questions (A1 and B1) have in common?

A small gap now, and then comments on these follow-ups.



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(F1)  Ostrich follow-up: as normally understood (rather than as taken in a dogmatically hyper-literal way) the question might be understood differently. It might not be really "how many legs would an ostrich have?" but "what claims expressed as 'an ostrich has n legs' would be true?". (Do you see why these are different?) And if "it would be true" means true in that possible language, then since "an ostrich has four legs" would be true, the answer is four. (n=4, in the ponderous expression above.)  Or or one might appeal to the fact that millions of people worldwide speak several languages regularly and often switch between them in the middle of a conversation. So taking the question and the answer in the possible language is not that perverse.

(F2) Solipsism follow-up: several possible ways in which the question might be not a silly one, even for the solipsist Russell described in the joke. (i) people do in fact question whether solipsism is true. (The majority of philosophers think it is false.) So the question could be how this can be true, assuming that in fact it is true. (ii) the person asking the question might be admitting that they sometimes doubt solipsism, and wondering how this can be. (iii) different parts of a single mind might not have access to other parts, so that any given part might either believe or doubt that the others exist. [Follow-up to the follow-up: what is the difference between separate parts of the same mind and separate minds? See how questions multiply.]

(F3) What the two questions have in common: (i) in both of them an answer that in a way is obvious can seem difficult. (And the obvious way of understanding and answering it might seem shallow, if one is looking for philosophical depth, though sticking to what is clearly true and avoiding illusory depth is much more difficult than it seems at first.) (ii) the ostrich question understood in the follow-up way requires one to think so as to acknowledge the possibility of another mind speaking a different language where the same facts are expressed in different words. (iii) the possibility of different languages with the same words referring to different things presupposes a possible plurality of minds.  (iv) both of them involve running together two points of view, in the ostrich question and actual and possible language and in the solipsism question a locked-in-subjectivity standpoint and a normally social standpoint (All the same, the first set of answers are the best ones, those that have fewest problems, and they are the natural replies to the questions as posed.)

(The first answers and the many potentially complicated further answers remind me of a saying that I associate with Paul Benacerraf "in philosophy you never really solve a problem; you just establish its price". If you insist on believing something there are other things you must also believe and other things that you must abandon. Those are its price.)
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