{"id":1714,"date":"2016-09-22T21:17:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T01:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/nwcenter\/wordpress\/?post_type=questionslibrary&#038;p=1714"},"modified":"2025-02-18T14:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T22:03:12","slug":"alberts-impossible-toothache","status":"publish","type":"questionslibrary","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/questionslibrary\/alberts-impossible-toothache\/","title":{"rendered":"Albert&#8217;s Impossible Toothache"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Turtles don&#8217;t have teeth, but Albert says he has a toothache. Is Albert just imagining that he has a toothache? Is it possible for imaginary aches to hurt as much as real ones?<\/li>\n<li>Is it possible that Albert is pointing at a real ache, but not a toothache?<\/li>\n<li>Can we point to things and talk about them, even if we don&#8217;t know what to call them?<\/li>\n<li>How do we know we are talking about the same thing?<\/li>\n<li>How do we know we understand each other?<\/li>\n<li>Do we mean the same things when we say the following words:\n<ul>\n<li>Happiness.<\/li>\n<li>Dog.<\/li>\n<li>Friend.<\/li>\n<li>Tree.<\/li>\n<li>Lake.<\/li>\n<li>Green.<\/li>\n<li>Sweet.<\/li>\n<li>Scary.<\/li>\n<li>Beautiful.<\/li>\n<li>Book.<\/li>\n<li>Baby.<\/li>\n<li>Earth.<\/li>\n<li>Toy.<\/li>\n<li>Love.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The relationship between possibility and reality:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If something has never happened before, does that mean it\u2019s impossible that it will ever happen? How do you know that something has never happened before?<\/li>\n<li>Can you imagine something that is &#8220;impossible?\u201d What? How do you know it\u2019s impossible?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Truth and lying<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is the difference between telling the truth and lying?<\/li>\n<li>Was Albert telling the truth?<\/li>\n<li>Could Albert have forgotten that he was a turtle?<\/li>\n<li>Could Albert have forgotten that he didn\u2019t have teeth?<\/li>\n<li>Could you forget who you are?<\/li>\n<li>Why do we believe someone is telling the truth or not?<\/li>\n<li>Can you be saying something that is not true and not be lying?<\/li>\n<li>Do you have to know something is not true for it to be a lie? Can you tell a lie if you don\u2019t know it\u2019s a lie?<\/li>\n<li>Would it be true if I said the following things?\n<ul>\n<li>That I believed I was a cat, if I did believe it?<\/li>\n<li>That I was a cat, if I believed it?<\/li>\n<li>That it was raining out, if it was?<\/li>\n<li>That it was raining out, if I thought it was but it wasn\u2019t?<\/li>\n<li>That it would be sunny tomorrow?<\/li>\n<li>That I was a daddy?<\/li>\n<li>That my hair was purple?<\/li>\n<li>That I was angry?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Can you think of something you\u2019ve said that wasn\u2019t true but wasn\u2019t a lie either?<\/li>\n<li>Why do we tell the truth?\n<ul>\n<li>To make friends?<\/li>\n<li>To be fair to others?<\/li>\n<li>To have fun?<\/li>\n<li>To stay out of trouble?<\/li>\n<li>To make adults happy?<\/li>\n<li>Because we don\u2019t like lies?<\/li>\n<li>To be happy with ourselves?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The nature of childhood<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why didn\u2019t Albert\u2019s family believe him? Would the story have been the same if Albert\u2019s mother had been the one complaining of a toothache instead of Albert?<\/li>\n<li>Do people believe adults more easily than children?<\/li>\n<li>Are adults more trustworthy than children?<\/li>\n<li>Are children \u201cadults in the making\u201d or is there more to childhood than that?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1715,"template":"","dqcategories":[373,374,375],"class_list":["post-1714","questionslibrary","type-questionslibrary","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","dqcategories-ethics","dqcategories-metaphysics","dqcategories-philosophy-of-childhood"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Albert&#039;s Impossible Toothache - PLATO<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Albert&#039;s Impossible Toothache - PLATO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Turtles don&#8217;t have teeth, but Albert says he has a toothache. 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