“A philosophical problem has the form: I don’t know my way about.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

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When we do not know how to orient ourselves to a situation we feel apprehensive. We are aware that a problem exists, but we do not know how to orient ourselves to the problem, and the problem lacks definite form.

Posing a question orients us to a problematic situation and gives us an approach for finding an answer. Formulating the question gives the problem an explicit form so we can communicate the problem to others and share it.

A formulated question works like a compass or a sextant, and helps people find common ground and orientation — a shared point-of-view from which problem can be viewed and seen in the same perspective, which is the point of departure for approaching the problem.

Once the question has been posed and formulated, a point-of-view and perspective on the problem has been established, then an individual or community can get to work comprehending the element of a situation, and relate them together as elements of a solution to a problem.

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A problem that has not yet been resolved into a question is a perplexity. A perplexity can be recognized by the inability to ask meaningful questions, or to account for what the problem is. They also have a distinctive feel: they are unsettling and they tend to arouse anxiety. They are unpleasant. Consequently, people want to resolve perplexities as quickly as possible.

The trouble is, How do we resolve a perplexity?

Many (most?) people see problems, questions and perplexities as essentially the same: they’re the absence of an answer.

Consequently, they try to resolve them all by the same method: Find an answer.

(Think of how many times you’ve heard: “Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.” This sentiment looks positive and action-oriented, and sometimes it is well-founded, especially when used to combat pessimism, cynicism and unproductive fault-finding. However, when it discourages the raising of productive questions, it can ultimately work against decisive and wholehearted action.)

But a perplexity is far more problematic than a question, and it calls for a different response.

A perplexity is rarely settled by answers. It’s resolved by clear questions.

An unasked but answered perplexity remains unsettled and unsettling. Plans founded on such answers are often fraught with controversy, because they’re addressing different problems. Incompatible points-of-view on what should be done are discussed primarily at the level of the concrete decisions around plans or outcomes. The only way to come to agreements is compromising on aspects of the answer. The resolutions tend to have more to do with politics than with the problem itself.

As strange as it sounds, real agreement is founded not on shared answers, but on shared questions.

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Suzanne Langer says this about questions:

The “technique,” or treatment, of a problem begins with its first expression as a question. The way a question is asked limits and disposes the ways in which any answer to it — right or wrong — may be given. If we are asked: “Who made the world?” we may answer: “God made it,” “Chance made it,” “Love and hate made it,” or what you will. We may be right or we may be wrong. But if we reply: “Nobody made it,” we will be accused of trying to be cryptic, smart, or “unsympathetic.” For in this last instance, we have only seemingly given an answer; in reality we have rejected the question. The questioner feels called upon to repeat his problem. “Then how did the world become as it is?” If now we answer: “It has not ‘become’ at all,” he will be really disturbed. This “answer” clearly repudiates the very framework of his thinking, the orientation of his mind, the basic assumptions he has always entertained as common-sense notions about things in general. Everything has become what it is; everything has a cause; every change must be to some end; the world is a thing, and must have been made by some agency, out of some original stuff, for some reason. These are natural ways of thinking. Such implicit “ways” are not avowed by the average man, but simply followed. He is not conscious of assuming any basic principles. They are what a German would call his “Weltanschauung,” his attitude of mind, rather than specific articles of faith. They constitute his outlook; they are deeper than facts he may note or propositions he may moot.

But, though they are not stated, they find expression in the forms of his questions. A question is really an ambiguous proposition; the answer is its determination. There can be only a certain number of alternatives that will complete its sense. In this way the intellectual treatment of any datum, any experience, any subject, is determined by the nature of our questions, and only carried out in the answers.

In philosophy this disposition of problems is the most important thing that a school, a movement, or an age contributes. This is the “genius” of a great philosophy; in its light, systems arise and rule and die. Therefore a philosophy is characterized more by the formulation of its problems than by its solution of them. Its answers establish an edifice of facts; but its questions make the frame in which its picture of facts is plotted. They make more than the frame; they give the angle of perspective, the palette, the style in which the picture is drawn — everything except the subject. In our questions lie our principles of analysis, and our answers may express whatever those principles are able to yield.

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Gadamer says something similar:

It is clear that the structure of the question is implicit in all experience. We cannot have experiences without asking questions. Recognizing that an object is different, and not as we first thought, obviously presupposes the question whether it was this or that. From a logical point of view, the openness essential to experience is precisely the openness of being either this or that. It has the structure of a question. …

… The openness of a question is not boundless. It is limited by the horizon of the question. A question that lacks this horizon is, so to speak, floating. It becomes a question only when its fluid indeterminacy is concretized in a specific “this or that.” In other words, the question has to be posed. Posing a question implies openness but also limitation. It implies the explicit establishing of presuppositions, in terms of which can be seen what still remains open.