Philosophy, In a Sense

It is philosophy’s unacknowledged secret that all of its claims are true in some sense and false in another. There is consequently no correct answer to any of the big philosophical questions. This is not because there’s no such thing as truth (in a sense there is) but because the answer will always be ‘in one sense yes, and in another no’: Do we have free will? Can one know anything for certain? Are there moral truths? Can machines think? Does the past exist? And, most importantly, is Die Hard a Christmas movie? and are Jaffa Cakes biscuits or cakes?

It’s no secret that we can artificially render any claim true by giving it a new sense (‘public school’ means private school etc.), but we cannot, à la Humpty Dumpty , re-define all words including those used in one’s redefinitions...

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