Questions. Pia Lauritzen

This line opens many a short conversation, and it is also a fitting opening for a short book like this. The question “May I ask you something?” seldom prompts more than a one-word response, and there’s a reason for that: It’s a question that forecloses the issue at hand before even managing to raise it.

The issue at hand is whether or not we may ask a question. But in asking whether we may ask or not, we’ve already embarked on asking. We’ve already presumed that the answer is “Yes.” Which is why we sometimes don’t even wait for our question to be answered before moving on to our next question, our real question: “Which way is Main Street?” or “Do you have this in size 10?”

Some philosophers hold that the question “May I ask you something?” isn’t really a question at all, since it doesn’t permit multiple answers, but instead presupposes one specific, predefined answer. Some philosophers hold the opposite: that it’s in the nature of questions to foreclose the

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Questions. Pia Lauritzen

Questions

CONTENTS

CALLING QUESTIONS INTO QUESTION? “MAY I ASK YOU SOMETHING?”

CALLING QUESTIONS INTO QUESTION?

“MAY I ASK YOU SOMETHING?”