What is a good question?
There is an apocryphal story that a philosophy (or English, or linguistics,…) exam at Cambridge (or Oxford,...) University included the following item:
“Is this a question?”. . . . . . . . . . .Discuss
According to the story, most students launched into a protracted response dissecting the nature of a question: its technical definition, types of questions, the syntax of questions, etc. Some simply pointed out that if the sentence starts with “Is…”, or “What…”, or “How…” or similar pronoun or existential verb form and ends in a question mark, then it is a question. Others, more tersely, noting that it is a closed question simply answered with “Yes.”
According to the tale one student, after thinking for a while, wrote:
If this is a question, this is my answer.
I don’t know what the student received for a grade, but the response is certainly concise. Though it does beg the question that if it (the original statement) is, in fact, not a question then what does the response mean? Is it an answer—if so, to what? Is it something else? What would that be?
Of course, both the putative question and its ambiguous answer are fully self-referential [1] and so we might expect some confusion and possible paradoxes. The “Is this a question?” statement refers only to itself and has no reference to anything outside of those four words. That said I imagine some examinees may have picked apart those four words in an attempt to generate some suitable number of words with which to impress the examiner [2].
Pretzel logic aside, questions exist and are asked for the purpose of obtaining answers [3] to subjects about which the questioner (presumably) lacks knowledge and has some awareness of that lack (hence the question); in doing so the questioner is primarily displaying First Order Ignorance (1OI) [4]. So how effective are questions in obtaining knowledge? How would we know if they are likely to be effective? And what would effective questions look like?
To answer these three questions, we will revisit parts of the 5OI:
FOOTNOTES
[1] The question “What is a good question?” is also somewhat self-referential. However, it maps onto the set of questions (of which it is, of course, a member), rather than explicitly onto itself. So it is not as self-referential as “Is this a question?”
[2] Just for fun (really?):
“Is” is the first/third person singular present tense of the verb to be and connotes existence of that which is under question (sic). Something that does not exist simply isn’t, so if the sentence is not a question, then “is” does not apply since it isn’t.
“this” is clearly intended to reference the entire sentence of which the word “this” is a part. Therefore, the sentence constitutes a form of Russell set wherein the set contains itself. Such sets are fertile sources of paradoxes. However, “this” could refer to something else, something that is not contained or explained in the text. The questioner (?) might be holding up a piece of paper (which the person taking the exam cannot see) and “this” refers to that. Also “this” could simply refer to the word “this” which means this is very circular logic.
The indefinite article “a” has the meaning of “an example of” but "a" can also mean “one and only one.” So “a question" could be just one question (the question in question) or it could one of a lot or type of questions. I already pointed out that, if it is a question, then it’s a closed question answered by “yes” or “no” (or perhaps “don’t know”). Therefore it would be one instance of a type of questions, wouldn’t you agree?
And... it is possible that there are are series of questions that are labeled: a, b, c,... where a "b" or "c" question is something quite different than an "a" question. In this case "a" does not have a dictionary definition, it is a question labeling mechanism. This interpretation is unlikely since then the question should have been worded: "Is this an a. question?" and the person being examined, rather than risking being wrong, would be right to question the format.Finally, “question” could be interpreted as referring, not to an interrogatory statement, but to an objection or a dispute (as in "I question that answer"); though perhaps, as an answer, this interpretation is somewhat questionable.
[3] That said, there are questions that are posed for the purpose of leading someone (as in a court of law) to provide the answer the questioner wants, to show the cleverness of the questioner, or to try to embarrass the person being questioned. All modes of which are unquestionably used a lot by lawyers and politicians.
[4] In general, any question that contains context is a 1OI question. The context shows that the person asking is aware of a lack of knowledge in a specific area and is attempting to convert the 1OI to 0OI. However, context free questions (eg., "What should happen?"), context-light questions (eg., "What requirements do you have?") or meta-questions (eg., "What questions should I ask you?") are more indicative of Second Order Ignorance (2OI).