"Why is That?"
May 19, 2024 13:07:41 GMT -8
Post by The Ninevite on May 19, 2024 13:07:41 GMT -8
"Why is that?' as a question in and of itself only has two possible answers. "Why?" applies to human moral reason, a people act the way they do either because of where they come from or because of where they are going. People dedicated to their fortunes at birth including education and educational principles provided in childhood take fewer absolute risks than people with less to venture and more to gain, or by people who are unhappy with the social structure and requirements, usually political, surrounding their fortunes (a fortune is, overall, a circumstance of birth, including primogeniture, heritage, inheritance).
Having said that an answer to "why" applies itself to moral reason, it's important to avoid falling into the turpitude of Will Durant level scholarship, who's author mistakenly believed that reasoning why is a connotative pursuit in the active tense within biography. An answer to the wherefores of a logical syllogism, provided that it is true by virtue of being both sound in its premises and valid in its execution, is written using results from either prior or posterior analytics. if the philosophical reason for a truth being present is in its antecedents, then it is true because of the first causes and prior actions of the Prime Mover.
The most important misperception that I need to correct at the outset before proceeding is the widespread belief that in philosophy, people ask the question why, and then answer it by one of a number of methods. Philosophy isn't methodological. The idea of a method is founded on there being in fact more than one way to do something, like win a game of chess or obtain an item. An item can be made, or bought, or borrowed or inherited, and a strategic game such as chess is designed to be unpredictable enough that there is more than one way to win. Philosophically asking the question why, where the only two possible answers are "because of the circumstances and situation at the beginning" or "because of the plans, strategy, hoped for outcome and end result goals" is a procedure. There is only one way to proceed with philosophy, and the square of oppositions is just as many set in stone, humanly speaking, as the Ten Commandments are theologically speaking.
Modern humanities and psychology, which compete as alternatives to philosophy, tend to begin the hazing out of Aristotle's reason by redefining the seven branches of learning as methods for discovery rather than as bodies of knowledge. Astronomy is one of the seven liberal arts, and it is a set body of knowledge, which never changes. It isn't a method for finding things out, and I'm certain that you must realize that astrology isn't one either but let's take the comparison of the two as our starting point to answer the question of why logic, which is what we use to find out why they did that that way, is immutable.
It's still fun to ask why, or rather it can be daunting, if the question is real, and irritating if it's just a made-up question. One reason I find in reading the stacks that people hear the question "why is that they are schoolteachers, and their students who would much rather be outside playing football are lamenting that they have to learn something they don't think they'll ever need. This occurs most often in math teachers' memoirs, and the kids phrase it "when will I ever use this". Good question, there are some mathematics that are not very useful, if at all, and at times a game of football might be more instructive. Something you might want to ask yourself or a teacher some time if lie rings, octal arithmetic, the logic of set theory, or (heaven forbid) hexadecimal notation and binary notation come up is "how is that even mathematical". Why is an interesting question, perusing answers to specific cases of it often gives the people who find themselves the first, or at least the first person they know, to answer it, more satisfaction at the end than their less curious contemporaries caused them trouble while they were searching for the answers. But don't neglect "how do I do this" or "how is that an example of" as good angles of attack for a problem.
It's also true that not everyone who inquires after whys and wherefores does so overtly and makes it obvious that they are searching for answers. Scholars who want to be the first to solve a problem seldom announce that they are looking for solutions, and silly answers to questions both sober and boisterous by people who have no real interest in them are common noise pollution.
Having said that an answer to "why" applies itself to moral reason, it's important to avoid falling into the turpitude of Will Durant level scholarship, who's author mistakenly believed that reasoning why is a connotative pursuit in the active tense within biography. An answer to the wherefores of a logical syllogism, provided that it is true by virtue of being both sound in its premises and valid in its execution, is written using results from either prior or posterior analytics. if the philosophical reason for a truth being present is in its antecedents, then it is true because of the first causes and prior actions of the Prime Mover.
The most important misperception that I need to correct at the outset before proceeding is the widespread belief that in philosophy, people ask the question why, and then answer it by one of a number of methods. Philosophy isn't methodological. The idea of a method is founded on there being in fact more than one way to do something, like win a game of chess or obtain an item. An item can be made, or bought, or borrowed or inherited, and a strategic game such as chess is designed to be unpredictable enough that there is more than one way to win. Philosophically asking the question why, where the only two possible answers are "because of the circumstances and situation at the beginning" or "because of the plans, strategy, hoped for outcome and end result goals" is a procedure. There is only one way to proceed with philosophy, and the square of oppositions is just as many set in stone, humanly speaking, as the Ten Commandments are theologically speaking.
Modern humanities and psychology, which compete as alternatives to philosophy, tend to begin the hazing out of Aristotle's reason by redefining the seven branches of learning as methods for discovery rather than as bodies of knowledge. Astronomy is one of the seven liberal arts, and it is a set body of knowledge, which never changes. It isn't a method for finding things out, and I'm certain that you must realize that astrology isn't one either but let's take the comparison of the two as our starting point to answer the question of why logic, which is what we use to find out why they did that that way, is immutable.
It's still fun to ask why, or rather it can be daunting, if the question is real, and irritating if it's just a made-up question. One reason I find in reading the stacks that people hear the question "why is that they are schoolteachers, and their students who would much rather be outside playing football are lamenting that they have to learn something they don't think they'll ever need. This occurs most often in math teachers' memoirs, and the kids phrase it "when will I ever use this". Good question, there are some mathematics that are not very useful, if at all, and at times a game of football might be more instructive. Something you might want to ask yourself or a teacher some time if lie rings, octal arithmetic, the logic of set theory, or (heaven forbid) hexadecimal notation and binary notation come up is "how is that even mathematical". Why is an interesting question, perusing answers to specific cases of it often gives the people who find themselves the first, or at least the first person they know, to answer it, more satisfaction at the end than their less curious contemporaries caused them trouble while they were searching for the answers. But don't neglect "how do I do this" or "how is that an example of" as good angles of attack for a problem.
It's also true that not everyone who inquires after whys and wherefores does so overtly and makes it obvious that they are searching for answers. Scholars who want to be the first to solve a problem seldom announce that they are looking for solutions, and silly answers to questions both sober and boisterous by people who have no real interest in them are common noise pollution.