Unanswerable Questions

Book excerpt: Transcendence is commonly taken to be about another world, one that transcends this one. Instead, I would say that transcendence is about unanswerable questions, and unanswerable questions arise naturally in human life. We deal with them without answering them (or answer them only with irony), for example, in the comic strips, but philosophers are usually loath to admit that there even are any unanswerable questions. Philosophy of religion usually starts with familiar questions such as ‘‘Is there a God?’’ and the like. (That’s kind of like ‘‘Do neutrinos exist?’’ or ‘‘Is there a luminiferous ether?’’) Begin instead with more basic questions: What is your idea of ultimate reality? What does it mean to ‘‘succeed’’ in life? Where does your ultimate reality show itself in life and the world? Unanswerable Questions is the sequel to The Accountant’s Tale.