Philosophical Questions
106 questions · By Dima Tretyak, creator of DeepTalk · Updated
You don't need a philosophy degree to argue about free will. Philosophical questions are the big ones without a settled answer: what makes a life good, what you owe other people, whether the red you see is the red I see. They're some of the best questions to ask over dinner or late at night, because nobody can be wrong and everyone has an opinion.
The questions below are written for conversation with a partner or friends, not for an exam. They start with life and meaning, then move to fun puzzles, friendship, love, unanswerable questions, ethics worth debating, identity, time and the mind, and society and the future. A few have no answer at all, which is half the fun.
Philosophical questions about life and meaning
The questions most people mean by philosophical: what a good life is and where meaning comes from. Start here.
- 1What makes a life meaningful, as opposed to just happy?
- 2Where do you think meaning comes from: something we find, or something we make?
- 3What would you want to have understood about life by the time you're old?
- 4What do you think keeps people going through the worst parts of life?
- 5How would you know if you were wasting your life?
- 6What's the difference between a good life and a successful one?
- 7What makes a life worthwhile if it doesn't have one big purpose?
- 8What do you think we owe the people who came before us?
- 9Why do you think humans need stories so badly?
- 10How much of a person's life do you think comes down to luck?
- 11What part of being alive do people take most for granted?
- 12Most of us won't be remembered in 200 years, so what makes our choices matter?
Fun philosophical questions
Puzzles that sound silly and turn out to be hard. Good for a dinner table or a long drive, when you want an argument nobody takes personally.
- 13When does a pile of sand stop being a pile if you take away one grain at a time?
- 14Which came first, the chicken or the egg, and how would you defend it?
- 15If you replaced every part of a bike over the years, when would it stop being the same bike?
- 16Why is a joke less funny once you explain it?
- 17Why do we find some things cute and others creepy?
- 18What makes a song sound sad even when it has no words?
- 19What makes something art instead of just a thing someone made?
- 20Why do we feel embarrassed for people on TV who will never know we watched?
- 21If you were teleported by being copied and rebuilt somewhere else, would you arrive, or would someone new?
- 22Why do rare things feel more valuable than useful ones?
- 23Why does nostalgia feel good and sad at the same time?
- 24If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
Rather play than scroll? DeepTalk deals these out one card at a time.
Philosophical questions to ask your friends
Questions about loyalty, honesty and what friends owe each other. They get personal fast, so ask them with friends you trust. More in questions to ask your friends.
- 25What makes a friendship real rather than just convenient?
- 26When is lying to a friend the right thing to do?
- 27How much should friends tell each other about their relationships?
- 28How long should you keep trying with a friend who has stopped making an effort?
- 29How different can a close friend's values be from yours before it stops working?
- 30Why do some friendships survive years of silence while others end over one fight?
- 31Where is the line between honesty and cruelty?
- 32What are people really looking for when they ask for advice?
- 33How do you decide who deserves a second chance?
- 34Why do we judge our friends' choices differently from our own?
- 35Whose job is it to keep a friendship alive?
- 36What makes a promise worth keeping after circumstances change?
Deep philosophical questions about love
What love is, how it changes and how much it should ask of you. Good for a long dinner with a partner. For more, see questions for couples.
- 37What do you think love actually is: a feeling, a choice or something else?
- 38How well do you have to know someone to love them?
- 39Why do we fall for some people and not for others who look perfect on paper?
- 40What's the difference between loving someone and needing them?
- 41How does love change after the first few years?
- 42What would it really mean to love two people at the same time?
- 43What does it mean to really know another person?
- 44Why do people stay in love with someone they know is bad for them?
- 45How much should you change for someone you love?
- 46What does love require that people don't talk about enough?
- 47Why do you think the idea of "the one" is so popular?
- 48Where does attraction end and love begin?
Unanswerable philosophical questions
Questions that philosophers and scientists are still arguing about. Nobody has the answer, so everyone's guess counts.
- 49Why is there something rather than nothing?
- 50What happened before the universe began, if "before" even makes sense?
- 51How would we know if we were living in a simulation?
- 52Where does the feeling of being "you" come from?
- 53What would it mean for the universe to have a purpose?
- 54Why does math describe the physical world so well?
- 55What is consciousness made of?
- 56Why can we ask questions that we have no way of answering?
- 57What would count as proof that God exists, or that God doesn't?
- 58Why do the laws of nature exist at all?
- 59What do you think happens to a person's mind when they die?
Philosophical questions to debate: morality and ethics
Questions about right and wrong that split a room. Ask what someone believes, then ask why. For moral dilemmas and tough scenarios, see hypothetical questions.
- 60What makes an action right or wrong: the intention behind it or its results?
- 61Where do you think morality comes from?
- 62When is breaking the law the right thing to do?
- 63How much do we owe strangers compared to the people we love?
- 64Why should anyone be good if they'd never get caught being bad?
- 65What's the difference between punishment and revenge?
- 66Whose standards should we use to judge people from the past: theirs or ours?
- 67Where do you draw the line on how we treat animals?
- 68When does a lie become a betrayal?
- 69What would make something unforgivable?
- 70Why do people who agree on the facts still disagree about what's right?
- 71How much credit do people really deserve for their own success?
Philosophical questions about the self and identity
What makes you you, and how much of it you chose. These work one-on-one, with someone who'll answer honestly.
- 72What makes you the same person you were ten years ago?
- 73How much of your personality do you think you chose?
- 74Which part of you do you think would never change, no matter what happened?
- 75How much of who you are comes from the people who raised you?
- 76What would still be you if you lost all your memories?
- 77Where's the line between changing and becoming someone else?
- 78What does being true to yourself mean when you keep changing?
- 79Why do we care so much about how other people see us?
- 80How free do you think your choices really are?
- 81What part of you would live on in other people's memories?
- 82Why do we feel like a different person at 3 a.m.?
Questions about time, reality and the mind
Questions about what's real and how we know it. Some are classic thought experiments in philosophy of mind, rewritten for the dinner table.
- 83Why does time seem to speed up as you get older?
- 84How do you know that the red you see is the same red I see?
- 85What makes a memory true if it changes a little every time you recall it?
- 86Where does the past go once it's over?
- 87What would it take to convince you that this moment isn't real?
- 88What do you think dreams are for?
- 89Why do we remember some ordinary days and forget important ones?
- 90Where do numbers exist when nobody is counting them?
- 91What would it mean for a machine to really understand something?
- 92Why does time only seem to move in one direction?
- 93How much can you trust your own senses?
- 94What do you think a thought actually is?
Philosophical questions about society and the future
Questions about fairness, freedom and where we're headed. Good for a group that likes a debate. Keep it about ideas, not about each other's votes.
- 95What will people in a hundred years think we got completely wrong?
- 96What makes a law fair?
- 97How much freedom should people give up for safety?
- 98Why do societies need heroes?
- 99What do we owe future generations who don't exist yet?
- 100Who should get to decide what counts as true in a society?
- 101What would a fair society look like to you?
- 102Why doesn't better technology always make people happier?
- 103What should never be for sale?
- 104How much privacy is a person entitled to?
- 105What would an AI need to be able to do before it deserved rights?
- 106What does it mean to be a good citizen?
How to use these questions
- Pick one question and give everyone a minute to think before anyone answers.
- After each answer, ask why. The reasons are more interesting than the answer itself.
- Disagree with the idea, not the person. Nobody gets graded.
- Start with the fun puzzles in a group, and save love and identity questions for one-on-one or a partner.
- Go slow. One good question can last a whole dinner, so don't rush to the next one.
- It's fine to change your mind halfway through. Say so out loud.
Play them as cards instead
DeepTalk deals questions like these one card at a time, with 20 decks and over 2,000 questions for couples and friends.
Frequently asked questions
What are the top 10 philosophical questions?
There's no official list, but these come up again and again: Why is there something rather than nothing? Do we have free will? What makes a life good? What can we know for certain? What makes an action right or wrong? What is consciousness? What makes you the same person over time? Does God exist? What is justice? What happens when we die?
What are the five philosophical questions?
There's no single agreed set. A common way to sort them is by the main branches of philosophy. Metaphysics: what exists? Epistemology: what can we know? Ethics: how should we act? Logic: what makes reasoning valid? Aesthetics: what is beauty?
What is the greatest question in philosophy?
Philosophers don't agree. Two strong candidates are "How should we live?", which goes back to Socrates, and "Why is there something rather than nothing?", which Leibniz posed in the early 1700s. Others would name free will or consciousness.
What are 5 deep philosophical questions?
Try "What makes a life meaningful, as opposed to just happy?", "How free do you think your choices really are?", "Why should anyone be good if they'd never get caught being bad?", "What makes you the same person you were ten years ago?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
Do philosophical questions have answers?
Some have been argued about for more than two thousand years without agreement. Others got answered by turning into science: physics was once called natural philosophy. In conversation, the goal isn't to settle the question but to find out what you and the other person believe and why.
How do you start a philosophical conversation with friends?
Start with a fun puzzle, like whether a tree falling in an empty forest makes a sound. Ask everyone for their answer, then ask why. Once people are enjoying the argument, move to questions about life, love or morality.
Related collections
Want questions from several collections at once? Try the question generator: pick who you're asking, the mood and the occasion.