1. Answering the Question Question

The Question Question first presented itself to me when I started thinking and writing about questions. At that time, I was primarily occupied by work on questions in logic and the philosophy of language. For, while it is true that philosophers throughout history have not attempted to answer the Question Question, there is, nonetheless, a specialised field dedicated to the study of questions in logic and linguistics, which emerged in the twentieth century.Footnote ¹ In general terms, a question is defined by theorists working in this field, in terms of the propositions that answer it (also known as the question's ‘answer-set’). As one theorist observed in the late 1990s:

We will not be grappling with the details of this analysis in what follows. However, two things are worth noting about the quotation, for present purposes. Firstly, it is one of a relatively small number of instances, in any philosophical literature, where an answer to the Question Question is articulated. Secondly, in order to understand it, one must have a relatively advanced grasp of various technical notions in logic and linguistics. In other words, it is far from intuitive. This is not something that logicians or linguists need to worry about in order to do valuable work on questions. However, when it comes to answering the Question Question, I think it is problematic.

That is because I believe a satisfying answer to the Question Question should reflect an everyday conception of questions. It should reveal the idea of a question that we learn to use as infants and carry around with us in daily life: the concept that is embedded in our cognitive architecture, so to speak. The ‘logician's answer’ quoted above, is not this (and arguably it is not intended as an answer the Question Question, in the sense I intend). At any rate, my aim here is to present an answer that anyone familiar with questions can understand and recognise. Questions are, after all, part of the stock of the world and a ubiquitous feature of human life. Any answer to the Question Question that seeks to capture the value and significance of questions in our lives should respond to and reflect the everyday conception we have of them. It is undeniable, I think, that there is a gap between this conception and work on questions in logic and linguistics.

In response to this gap, I began constructing a definition of questions. It was also at that time that I began collecting questions and initiated what is now an extensive and unruly question collection. As it turns out, this has also played a role in answering the Question Question. I started the collection by asking one hundred people to write down the first ten questions that came into their head. With the exception of ‘how are you’, none of the resulting one thousand questions were the same (‘how are you’ was repeated four times). The questions ranged from ‘do you want cashback’ to ‘do you love me’, and include gems such as ‘am I getting uglier’, ‘is a giraffe bigger than an elephant’, and ‘how long does a pack of cheese last’. To these, I added the first one hundred questions that came into my own head, the first one hundred questions that I found in the philosophy books on my bookshelves, the top one hundred questions typed into Google that year, and one hundred quiz show questions. Since then, I have added questions that I have been asked, have heard asked, and have read or witnessed in a whole variety of settings, from supermarket queues to newspaper headlines.Footnote ²

As you might expect, the question collection contains a dizzying variety of questions. This is one of the most intriguing things about it. Moreover, it constitutes a valuable data-set when answering the Question Question. Indeed, curating the collection is itself an exercise in conceptual analysis. In order to determine what should and shouldn't be included in the collection, one must determine what, if anything, serves to unify such a seemingly diverse array. In other words, one must decide what counts as a question. Even with an answer in mind, the question collection continues to serve as a valuable resource in refining the contours of the analysis. Importantly, the collection contains many questions from everyday life; the questions that people ask and answer on a daily basis. This is what makes the collection particularly valuable to me in arriving at a satisfying answer to the Question Question.

A second loosely empirical method that has shaped my answer to the Question Question is an online survey. The survey, which has been running via my website, again for about ten years, aims to provoke reflection on the nature of questions and expose some basic intuitions (aka ‘folk intuitions’) about what they are. It focuses on understanding what questions look and feel like from the perspective of everyday questioners (aka ‘the folk’). The survey describes ten short scenarios, revolving around a day in the life of an imagined school teacher called Sarah. In each case, survey participants are asked to make a judgment about whether or not the scenario contains a question. They are also invited (but not obligated) to explain their response. The results offer a valuable insight into the way that people identify and conceptualise questions, again providing an important data-set when it comes to answering the Question Question.Footnote ³

Like the question collection, the survey, which has received over 6,000 responses to date (as of 23 Oct 2020), has played a role in constructing a definition of questions. Both of these methods have encouraged analysis via a process of elimination: examining what a question isn't, rather than what a question is. Consequently, I will follow this process in the remainder of the paper, beginning by ruling out some plausible answers and then constructing the answer at which I have arrived. I will discuss the results of the survey along the way. Readers who have not taken part in the survey may wish to complete it before continuing. The survey takes an average of twelve minutes to complete and can be accessed at: www.philosophyofquestions.com/questionnaire/.

2. What a question is not

The process of elimination just described has to start somewhere and there are many places one could start: a question is not a cup of tea, or a waterfall, or a night sky. Of course, it makes sense to start with an answer that has some initial plausibility. An examination of definitions offered in reference sources, such as dictionaries and reference websites, provides a useful starting point. The Oxford English Dictionary (3rd edition, 2010), for example, defines a question as ‘a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information’ (p.1455). The same definition is found when typing the phrase ‘what is a question’ into Google (as of 23 Oct 2020). Wikipedia defines a question as ‘an utterance which typically functions as a request for information, which is expected to be provided in the form of an answer’ (as of 23 Oct 2020). Dictionary.com defines a question as ‘A sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply’ (as of 23 Oct 2020). Likewise, the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a question as ‘a sentence, phrase, or word that asks for information or is used to test someone's knowledge’ (as of 23 Oct 2020). Finally, the Collins Concise English Dictionary (8th edition, 2012) defines a question as ‘a form of words addressed to a person in order to elicit information or evoke a response; interrogative sentence’ (p. 1359, emphasis added).

Notably, in all of these, a question is defined in terms of its manifestation as some form of linguistic expression: a word, sentence, phrase or utterance. I will start, then, with the idea that a question is a specific type of sentence: an interrogative sentence. An interrogative sentence is precisely a sentence that asks or expresses a question. Interrogatives are one of the basic sentence types. As such, defining a question as an interrogative sentence is a neat way to categorise questions as a fundamental feature of language (which they are). Despite this, I argue that questions are not always interrogative sentences. As such, we must look beyond interrogatives for a definition of questions. Moreover, I argue that questions are not always expressed in language. As such, we must ultimately look beyond language entirely, in order to answer the Question Question.

3. What a question is

In order to construct a satisfying answer to the Question Question, a shift in perspective is needed. I said earlier that defining questions as interrogative sentences represents a formal approach; one that prioritises question form as a means of identifying and analysing questions. This approach, broadly speaking, is also the one adopted by those working on questions in logic and linguistics; it is the source of the ‘logician's answer’, which we encountered at the start. While there is plenty to be said in favour of formal analysis, it is, I believe, not possible to derive a satisfying answer to the Question Question in this manner. The formal approach restricts analysis of questions to analysis of their form (be it their overt linguistic or underlying logical form). Yet, as we have seen from the preceding discussion, questions come in a multitude of forms. The questions I have in my question collection, and those identified in the survey scenarios, provide a broad illustration of this. What's more, we typically know questions when we see, hear and feel them, regardless of whether they come packaged up as neat interrogative sentences or as something else entirely. In everyday life, we do not identify questions by their form. Rather, I argue, we identify them by their function.

This shift in perspective can be articulated as a shift from formal to functional analysis. One makes the shift by changing the starting point. Instead of starting with questions as a feature of language (which, of course, they are), one starts with questions as a feature of everyday life (which, of course, they are). These two perspectives are not mutually exclusive – indeed, they overlap in interesting and important ways. But, as the starting point of analysis, they are distinct and lead to different lines of argument. By starting with questions as a feature of everyday life, it is more natural to focus on the role or function of questions (what do questions do), rather than on their logical or linguistic form (what form do questions take). In this respect, the Question Question is as much about what a question does, as what a question is. I construct my definition of questions with this in mind, beginning with an examination of questions as acts and proceeding to investigate what kind of act a question is. Ultimately, I argue that a question is an information-seeking act. This is my answer to the Question Question.

4. Objections considered

Having made the move from formal to functional analysis, I have arrived at the information-seeking account of questions with relative ease. One might be concerned that this is all too quick. In order to substantiate the account, I will address a series of relevant, interrelated objections. These all centre around the reasonable observation that we do not always have information-seeking in mind when we ask questions. Indeed, we ask questions for a whole variety of different reasons: to demonstrate concern or care for another person, for example, or to provoke a response such as surprise or embarrassment. As such, one might argue that, while information-seeking is a common goal of question asking, it is not the only goal: questions are not always asked in order to seek information. Consequently, just as I have argued that a question is not always an interrogative sentence, a critic might contend that a question is not always an information-seeking act.

This objection is especially appropriate in light of COUNTRIES. In this scenario, Sarah is described as being ‘interested to know’ how many countries there are. As such, her information-seeking motive is written into the scenario and the dice are loaded, so to speak, in favour of the information-seeking account. Indeed, the account lines up perfectly with the survey results in this paradigmatic case. But the alignment is arguably too neat. There are a multitude of less paradigmatic, but no less familiar, scenarios in which most of us would identify questions without any overt information-seeking motive in sight. Further still, there are many scenarios in which most of us would identify questions where an entirely different, non-information-seeking motive is overtly in play.

A scenario of the latter kind is tested in the survey. In this scenario, Sarah is attending a staff meeting in which a colleague she doesn't particularly like (the one that provoked the disinterested ‘how are you’ from earlier) is being unhelpfully rude and obstructive regarding a particular issue. Sarah knows that he has not read the minutes from last week's meeting, which he did not attend, and in order to expose this she interjects at the end of his comments, saying, ‘what did you think of the suggestion Julia made last week to address this issue’. I call this scenario EXPOSE. In response to this scenario, 62% of the survey participants judge there to be a question (3,038 participants), 29% judge there to be no question (1,391 participants), and 9% are unsure (430 participants). The majority judge there to be a question in this scenario.

Unlike in COUNTRIES, there is no information-seeking motive written into this scenario. In fact, the scenario attributes a different motive to Sarah; that of exposing the disliked colleague. One can imagine that she does this in order to embarrass him into dropping the subject about which he is being rude and obstructive, or force him to modify his behaviour in some way. At any rate, it seems that Sarah's motive for interjecting is explicitly not information-seeking. Despite this, the majority (albeit relatively small) judge there to be a question in the scenario. As such, EXPOSE appears to provide support for the objection that not all questions are information-seeking acts.

As with all the scenarios discussed, I think the majority are right in this case. There is a question in the scenario, despite the absence of an overt information-seeking motive. How can one make sense of this, given the information-seeking account of questions. The answer to this relies on a relatively subtle point. Put simply, to say that a question is an information-seeking act is not to attribute an overt or conscious information-seeking motive in every instance of question asking. In other words, I am not claiming that information-seeking is the only thing we do with questions or that we always have information-seeking on our minds, when asking questions. These would indeed run counter to an everyday conception of questions. Nonetheless, I maintain that a question is defined by its information-seeking function.

To elucidate, it is useful to think of a question as a tool. Tools are typically identified in terms of a defined function. A wrench, for example, is a tool for tightening and untightening screws. A hammer, on the other hand, is a tool for hammering in nails. These different functions are what makes one piece of metal a wrench and another, a hammer. This, however, does not mean that wrenches and hammers are only ever used to (un)tighten screws and hammer in nails. They can and are used for numerous other purposes: to prop open doors, to smash through glass panes, to display in sculptural art. These alternative uses do not change what it is to be a hammer or a wrench. To define a thing in terms of its function is not to determine every instance of its use. Rather, it is to identify the thing that makes it what it is, as opposed to something else. A question is a like a tool for seeking information; a cognitive tool, if you like. It is defined by its information-seeking function. This is what makes a question a question, as opposed to something else.

We can interpret EXPOSE with this in mind. Sarah is still engaged in an information-seeking act, even though her overt intention is not to seek information but to expose her colleague. In fact, she has chosen to expose him precisely by seeking information from him. The goal of exposing him is achieved by means of the information-seeking act; the question. Sarah could have chosen an alternative means, an assertion for example, in which case the colleague's absence would have been exposed in a different way. If, for example, Sarah had interjected with the statement ‘you were not at the last staff meeting and haven't read the minutes’ she would have achieved the desired effect with a statement, rather than a question. By asking a question, Sarah uses information-seeking to achieve this effect. Again, it is precisely the attempt to seek information from her colleague about what he thought of Julia's suggestion in last week's staff meeting that does the work of exposing the fact that he wasn't there and hasn't read the minutes.

Sarah uses a question to expose her colleague. The fact that she uses a question in this way does not change what it is to be a question. Again, to define a thing in terms of its function is not to determine every instance of its use. Rather, it is to identify the thing that makes it what it is, as opposed to something else. A question is defined by its information-seeking function, not by its role in exposing or embarrassing someone, or indeed, by anything else that we do with questions. This is the case, even when no overt or conscious information-seeking motive is present and some other motive is overtly in play, as illustrated by EXPOSE.

In fact, EXPOSE also illuminates a related issue mentioned earlier; that of rhetorical questions. Notice that the relatively small majority in EXPOSE (62%), is only slightly higher than the majorities seen in RAIN (58%) and DISINTERESTED (54%): the only two scenarios in the survey where the majority judged there to be no question. I think the relationship between these scenarios can be well accounted for by examining the place of rhetorical questions in relation to the Question Question. In turn, this will help to refine the contours of the information-seeking account, in light of the objection I have been addressing.

As noted, many of the survey participants interpreted RAIN and DISINTERESTED as containing rhetorical questions. For many (although not all), this had the effect of discounting the interrogative sentences in the scenarios as not ‘real’ or ‘genuine’ questions. Likewise, the interrogative sentence in EXPOSE can plausibly be interpreted as a rhetorical question. The survey participants’ responses in the open comments section reflect this. One participant, for example, writes, ‘the question seems like more of a rhetorical prop than a real inquiry for information.’ Another comments, ‘the question is mere rhetoric since Sarah knows that x has not read the minutes and did not attend the meeting.’ A third participant makes an explicit connection between EXPOSE and RAIN: ‘Like the rhetorical question about the rain, this question serves a purpose other than gaining an answer.’

As we saw with RAIN and DISINTERESTED, the survey participants are divided with respect to whether or not the interrogative sentence in EXPOSE is a rhetorical question. More tellingly, they are also divided on whether rhetorical questions should be counted as real questions. One participant, who responded ‘yes’, writes, ‘I think probably it's a question, because it's not exactly rhetorical.’ Another, who responded ‘no’, comments, ‘There wasn't a question, or if there was, it was rhetorical.’ This two-layered lack of consensus among the participants, regarding the nature and status of rhetorical questions, explains the relatively small majorities found in response to all three scenarios. The unclear place of rhetorical questions in relation to the Question Question leads to divergent responses in the survey. How, then, should rhetorical questions be interpreted when it comes to answering the Question Question.

There is not space to develop a full-bodied account of rhetorical questions in this paper. However, a preliminary analysis can be offered, using the functional approach, which distinguishes rhetorical from non-rhetorical questions along functional lines. The information-seeking account of questions provides grounds for this. Thus, I define a question as an information-seeking act and propose that a rhetorical question can be defined negatively by the absence of an information-seeking function. Whatever else is required in order to develop a positive account of rhetorical questions, the absence of an information-seeking function can be viewed as a necessary condition. There is plenty more to be said about rhetorical questions, in their own right. However, this distinction helps to further refine the contours of the information-seeking account of questions. We can see this in operation in the survey.

In EXPOSE, Sarah is using the information-seeking function of questions to expose her disruptive colleague. Again, it is precisely the fact that she is seeking information from him that does the work of exposing him in this way. In DISINTERESTED, Sarah is not perceived to be seeking information from the disliked colleague. As many of the survey participants observed, she is adopting a convention of British politeness that is, to some extent, defined by a shared understanding that the utterance ‘how are you’ in this context, is not made in order to seek information. As one participant observed, ‘The intention isn't to gain information or understanding.’ Likewise, in RAIN, Sarah's utterance is not made in order to seek information about whether it will ever stop raining. It is, as many participants commented, more like an expression of disappointment or frustration. In both DISINTERESTED and RAIN, there is no information-seeking taking place. In EXPOSE, Sarah is seeking information in order to achieve the goal of exposing her colleague. As such, the latter scenario contains a question, while the former do not. This is predicted by the information-seeking account of questions and reflected in the survey results.

The distinction between rhetorical and non-rhetorical questions (or just questions) adds further clarity to the claim that a question is an information-seeking act. It allows for certain predictions about what will and will not be identified as a question, according to an everyday conception. It can also be used as a method for including or excluding things from the question collection. If something is an information-seeking act, then it gets a place in the collection. If it is rhetorical or conventional or something else, then it does not.Footnote ⁵ Clarifying the nature and status of rhetorical questions helps to identify a clear, analytical boundary around the information-seeking account of questions. Intuitions may diverge on what counts as an information-seeking act, but whether or not something is a question is determined by the result.

That being said, everyday life is never as clean or ordered as conceptual analysis would like it to be. As such, there are inevitably many things that it is difficult to classify, even with the information-seeking account of questions in place. I think of these as grey area cases. Grey area cases reflect the need for a pragmatic attitude in any attempt to answer the Question Question (and, indeed, in the analysis of everyday concepts more generally).

One such grey area case is represented in the last scenario of the survey. In this scenario, Sarah is leaving work for the day and night has already fallen. She pauses at one point and looks up to the clear, dark sky above. Marvelling at the scale and beauty of the scene she says silently inside her head ‘how big is the universe’. She considers this for several minutes and then continues home. I call this scenario SKY. In response to this scenario, 53% of the survey participants judge there to be a question (2,592 participants), 35% judge there to be no question (1,698 participants), and 12% are unsure (560 participants). The scenario elicits only a very small majority who judge there to be a question and the largest percentage of ‘unsure’ responses.

This is a grey area case. However, I think the lack of consensus reflected in the survey results for SKY can be explained by the information-seeking account of questions. It seems likely that Sarah knows that there is no possibility of her actually finding out how big the universe is by saying silently inside her head ‘how big is the universe’. However, it is unclear whether this fact alone should or does prevent her from seeking information in this way. As one survey participant, who responded ‘unsure’, puts it:

The case is unclear precisely because it is unclear whether Sarah is really engaged in an information-seeking act. Does wondering, pondering or awe, inspired by genuine curiosity, amount to information-seeking. Perhaps in some primitive sense, it does. On the other hand, perhaps this is a different kind of act entirely. SKY represents a grey area case when it comes to answering the Question Question, even with the information-seeking account in place. This raises a suite of fascinating questions of its own (many of which are considered by the survey participants). The existence of grey area cases, however, does not undermine the information-seeking account of questions but rather serves to illustrate the complexity of the task one undertakes when attempting to provide a satisfying answer to the Question Question.

5. An answer to the Question Question

A question is an information-seeking act. This is my answer to the Question Question. If this answer seems intuitive to you (perhaps even bordering on the obvious or mundane) then I have done what I set out to do. As I said at the outset, my goal is to present an answer to the Question Question that responds to and reflects an everyday conception of questions. This aim goes far beyond that of constructing accessible prose. As a philosopher, it is my privilege to spend time engaging in abstract conceptual analysis. But the object of analysis, in this case, is not itself an abstract entity, detached from the practical concerns of daily life. Quite the opposite, in fact, questions are an integral part of the way that we communicate with each other, coordinate our social and epistemic interactions, and learn about the world in which we live. They are part of the stock of the world and a ubiquitous feature of human life. A satisfying answer to the Question Question should reflect this.

I observed, at the outset, that relatively few answers to the Question Question have been offered throughout the history of philosophy. There is, as far as I am aware, only one other English language paper with the title ‘What is a question?’Footnote ⁶ This paper was written by the logician and legal philosopher, Felix S. Cohen, in 1929. Cohen (Reference Cohen1929) opens his paper with the following sentence: ‘‘What is a question?’ is a question which seems to have been almost totally ignored by logicians’ (p.350). I submit that it is a question that has been almost totally ignored by philosophy at large (and, in fact, logicians and linguists have done by far the most work in this field). Philosophy has plenty more to offer on this topic.

The answer that Cohen (Reference Cohen1929) provides is, as one might expect, a version of the logician's answer I quoted at the start: ‘A question, it is submitted, is simply a propositional function (or propositional form)’ (p.353). As before, this answer reflects a formal approach to the analysis of questions and understanding it requires one to know, at least, how the terms proposition, form and function, are used by logicians. It is, again, far from intuitive. Any answer to the Question Question that seeks to move beyond this kind of formal analysis and, most importantly, capture the value and significance of questions in our lives must, I think, respond to and reflect an intuitive, everyday conception of questions.

That said, I am not attempting to undermine the logician's answer to the Question Question. Nor, for that matter, to undercut the definitions provided in dictionaries and reference sources (although perhaps these could be tweaked). Both of these sources contribute something valuable to the interpretation and analysis of questions. Nonetheless, as I see it, there is a wide open space between dictionary definitions and logical constructs, where the everyday conception of questions resides. This paper is an attempt to fill some of that space with philosophical reflection on the nature of questions. More importantly, it is an invitation for others to do the same. In one sense, questions are abstract but in another they are familiar and tangible. We all know what it is like to ask a question. My hope is that this paper provides a stimulus for further thought and discussion about this familiar act, and the practice of questioning in which it is embedded.Footnote ⁷