From the problems of philosophy to the philosophy of problems - James McNally

Everyone has problems. Whether these are the mundane problems of how to go about our daily lives, the social and political problems which connect us to the lives of the multitude, or the disciplinary problems we ponder by way of our education, we are never without events of uncertainty, solicitude, questioning and answering. While we are expected to think carefully or critically about how to answer the problems which confront us or which we are given, we might give less thought to these problems as problems. In this talk we will look at philosophers, such as John Dewey, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, as well as sociologists such as Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, as theorists who have examined the problematic, or problem-oriented, aspects of thought and action. We will consider how these theorists have raised questions concerning the historicity of problems and solutions; the logical relations between them; and whether, like a solution, a problem can be ‘wrong’ or ‘false.’