ABSTRACT
What sort of a thing is a philosophical problem? By what criterion of identity do we decide that this is the same problem as that? How do we tell whether Plato’s problem of innate ideas, Descartes’s problem of innate ideas, and Chomsky’s problem of innate ideas are all one and the same or three distinct problems? When an issue, such as the problem of informative identity-statements, is raised and clearly formulated for the first time by some philosopher, does that philosopher discover the problem or bring it into being? Is a philosophical problem ever solved? If and when it is solved, does it go out of existence or is it shown to have been nonexistent to begin with?
