Do philosophers ask questions to seek an answer or to make others seek their own questions?
by 
Crumb Eye
ANSWERS: 2
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Scientists seek an answer, not philosophers. Philosophers will ask a rhetorical question to make you think about yourself and the world around you. In response to the question below: Philosophy isn't the search for knowledge but self truth. A philosopher does not seek an answer to their question but hopes that everyone else will seek their own individual answer to that particular question to better understand themselves.
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Philosophers have a variety of motivations and goals like everybody else. Most philosophers (I hope) are philosophers because they seek and love truth. We want to know and understand what is real and true, and we believe that helping others to understand truth and reality is worthwhile and valuable. We don't expect anyone to just accept what we say as truth, so we try to help lead others to see truth for themselves. It is a little like the old "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he can eat every day" adage - I want everybody to be able accurately to evaluate truth for himself and not expect some teacher to tell him what to believe - or for that matter to trust any teacher to be always right. I guess the straightest answer I can give is that, typically, philosophers ask questions and teach others to ask questions as a tool both to find answers and to lead others to find answers for themselves. ____ Note: the words "man" "he" and "him" should be interpreted as generic humans... or is that "hupersons" these days... I try not to keep up with shallow hostility to conventional grammar and spelling...
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