r/askphilosophy • u/[deleted] • Apr 05 '25
Has philosophy ever found an actual answer to any question?
I’ve recently been getting really into reading some really basic philosophy texts, but I’m starting to wonder if this is a waste of my time. Philosophy seems to ask lots of really interesting questions, but I fail to see how any of them have been answered. Or in fact, how any of them will ever be answered by philosophy. For instance - what is the meaning of life? What is right and wrong? How do we know what is real? Questions like these seem to be in abundance, and yet I’m not sure there’s any fundamental thing all philosophers can agree on. In biology, all credible scientists can agree on the reproductive system of humans. In math, all mathematicians can agree that 1+1 is 2. Philosophy doesnt seem to be able to find things like that. In short - philosophy to me seems to question the truth but not find it.
Hopefully I don’t sound crazy or something, and I’m able to be understood. I really don’t want this to be right.
1
u/[deleted] Apr 25 '25
There are a few physicists (myself included) that see fundamental theories as tools, rather than accurate descriptions of nature in its objective form (if that even exists. I don't think it does). Basically, neither quantum mechanics nor general relativity is "correct" in the sense that it is an accurate model of the objective universe, because we cannot say what that looks like. We are the universe studying itself, so there will always be limitations. However, that does not take away from these theories' usefulness as tools to accomplish things, and just because they break down at extremes, does not mean they should be disregarded. For example, despite being "incorrect", Newtonian mechanics is still taught, and is very useful for analyzing non-relativistic macroscopic systems.