One of the problems of philosophy is evil. The problem of evil may be stated thus: If the world was created by a God that is good, why is there so much evil in it? Is it that the creator, even though good, is powerless to stop evil? But God is possessed of every perfection there is, including power. So we cannot admit that he is powerless. Then, is it that, even though powerful enough to stop evil, he is not good enough to do so? But we've already established that he is good. And so we cannot admit that he is anything but good. This remains a problem in philosophy. Some scholars have tried to solve this problem by inserting the variable of free will. They say that the presence of evil in the world has nothing to do with God, but only with human beings, who have free will. Therefore, the existence of evil in the world is as a result of the fact that God gave humans free will to do what they please, and humans are not perfect like God is, and so they sometimes do evil. Ergo, the presence of evil. This seems like a good enough explanation for the problem of evil in the world, and yet scholars are not unanimously agreed on it. The whole field of moral philosophy (ethics) perennially wrestles with this problem because, founded on this one problem, is the whole world of responsibility for human behavior and deservedness of possible punishment for wrongdoing. Spinoza for example would explain this issue in a much different way than Berkeley would.
Another problem of philosophy is mind-body interaction. This is a major problem for idealists and dualists. Can we say this problem started with Plato? I'm not sure. Plato was one of the first people that said that we are a duality of spirit and body. Unlike Aristotle and his hylomorphism or soul and body composites, Plato was of the view that the spirit lay in the prison of the body, and is freed after death. [By the way, my own philosophy of spirit, soul and body reconciles Plato's and Aristotle's views.] For Plato, the material world is a shadow one; it is not real. The real world for him is that of forms, and the things in this world exist only by participation in that transcendent world of forms. Descartes took this dualism paradigm a step further. He was of the view that there are two separate realities: the thinking thing (or mind; what Plato would call spirit or soul), and the extended thing (body). These things are separate for Descartes, and we human beings are thinking things. We simply inhabit bodies. But the problem with this epistemological view is this: how does the thinking thing (mind, soul, spirit, as the case may be) interact with the extended thing (body)? For example, how is it that I can move my hand by simply willing it to move? Why is there no understanding as to the processes involved in such a simple, spontaneous activity? The operations of the central nervous system do not answer the problem, because the brain and the spinal cord are part of the extended thing. The thinking thing is outside the body, as we know it. [This is why brain death is not necessarily the death of the human being, and so forth.] No one has as yet solved this problem: not Berkeley, not Descartes, not Leibniz, and not Kant. How does the body interact with the spirit?
Let me take this problem a bit further. Recall that, unlike Berkeley, Descartes and even Aquinas, I propose that the words "soul" and "spirit" are completely different. The aforementioned philosophers use the words interchangeably. I say: STOP. They are different. In my post-contemporary metaphysics, I say: there is a way by which to reconcile Aristotle with Plato. Aristotle says that the body and the soul are an inseparable composite. I say YES. This is because, at death, when the body lets go of the spirit (not the soul, but the spirit), the soul that has been formed in the lifetime just ended is an entity in itself, and it can only be thought of, and judged by God, in terms of the body; in terms of the temporal and material circumstances in which it lived. When people remember that soul, they do so in terms of the food the soul ate; the country the soul lived in; the parents, friends, siblings and associates the soul interacted with. And so yes, Aristotle is correct when he says that the body and the soul are an inseparable composite. But Plato is also right when he says that the spirit (not the soul, but the spirit) is caged in the body, and is set free after death. It is. That spirit belongs to God.
We do not create the spirit, even though in a sense we create the soul, because of the behavioral and other choices we make in a lifetime. [But we do not completely create the soul, because the masculine or spiritual principle of the soul is the spirit, and we do not create that. And that is why sometimes we wonder why we can do nothing about falling in love with someone, or why certain fields of study appeal to us more than others do: why we feel for example as if we would like to study math, but our natural inclinations push us to study literature and language, and so forth.] Aristotle and Plato are both right: the soul and the body are inseparable composites because even after death a soul is necessarily remembered in terms of its body (material circumstances); for even Aquinas would include matter (body) in his definition of the human essence (where Aristotle would not). We think of dead people in terms of their bodies; what they were to us; how they treated us, and so forth. But the spirit that interacted with the body to make the soul does leave the body upon death. And so, Plato is also correct. Both of them are right, but only if we do not use the terms "spirit" and "soul" as if they were synonyms. They aren't. Philosophers over the years have been doing so. They have been using these terms as synonyms. I say to them: STOP. Just stop. Okay? Stop. Spirit is different from soul. I mean, one can use the words: mind, person, personality and so forth interchangeably with soul; but never with spirit. We do not create spirit. God is spirit. He gives us a portion of his spirit for a purpose. Please, if you like, read again my blog post entitled: "What is Spirit, What is Soul, and What is Body?" But notice that my distinction between soul and spirit does not solve the problem of how body interacts with spirit, or even soul. I still am at a loss as to the solution of this philosophical problem.
Yet another problem of philosophy is suicide. This is a problem for existentialists. Existentialists believe that existence precedes essence. [Here, don't think of Anselm or Aquinas, as such.] For existentialists, there is no teleology; no purpose for human life. A person is born, surges up in the world, and makes out his or her own essence. Let me explain further. Okay. Think of a chair. Before it was fashioned, its essence existed in the mind of the carpenter. In the same way, some scholars - not existentialists - believe that the essence of the human being existed in the mind of God before the human was born (Recall in this regard that God said concerning Jeremiah: "From the womb before the birth I knew you.") If this be the case, God had a purpose for that human life, a purpose he knew even before that human was born. And so, for these philosophers, there is a teleology to human life. But for existentialists - many of whom by the way do not believe in God - there is no essence of human being existing in the mind of God. A human being is simply randomly born and, having attained the age of reason, begins to fashion a goal for himself. He becomes the center of his own universe; the human becomes the yardstick for measuring moral behavior. In short, the human is God unto himself or herself. All well and good. Forget the fact that we can't always succeed at what we choose; forget the fact that some choices end up harder to pull off than others, because of our natural talents and predispositions; and the presence of a hierarchy to life. There remains the problem of suicide. If we are God to ourselves, and we chart our own life, and have a responsibility to be the yardstick of morality, how can we then at any point choose to kill ourselves? And so, the problem of suicide is real for existentialists.
One more problem for epistemology is that of appearance versus reality. This was a problem for Descartes. In his first meditation, he was puzzled as to what could be real. He realized that the experiences we sometimes have in dreams resemble those we have in real life. He also realized that a house could look smaller when viewed from a distance. We all know about mirages, dejavus, illusions, and so forth. How can we differentiate between appearance and reality? Plato simply urged us to call this world the one of appearance, and the world of forms, reality. Berkeley would have us deny the existence of material objects, except as ideas or sensations in the mind. Aristotle would have us differentiate between substance and accident; Kant would have us demarcate noumena from phenomena. Heidegger would direct our attention to "the things themselves," and so forth. Yet the problem of appearance versus reality endures. Descartes in trying to solve this enduring problem insists on rejecting the knowledge sourced via the senses, and accepting only arithmetic. Aquinas proposes degrees of perfections of things. Plato separates knowledge from ignorance and opinion, and in his divided line paradigm, advances a hierarchy of certitude from sensation to cogitation, a situation described in his Theatetus as the state wherein the soul by itself, in itself and through itself reaches truth. Newman would call us to realize there is a distinction between inference and assent, and certitude or secondary assent is knowledge. St Augustine would call this state a connection with the inner teacher. Plotinus would call it a connection with the One. Avicenna would call it a state where the agent intellect aligns perfectly with individual potential intellect. All these aforementioned philosophers agree that there is a difference between appearance (what is not, for Parmenides) and reality (what is). But how can we always know what is; how can we always be sure about truth? This remains a problem for epistemology.
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