2025-03-19

Art of Inquiry

The first moment, a confrontation with our thinking in general, leads us to a second moment, a realization that the old way is foreclosed. The third moment is the leading onto a ‘space of possibilities.’ That is to say, we make the transition from a ‘space of actuality’ concerning how things have to be into a space in which novel possibilities are revealed to us. My life or my role in this organization, not having to head one way anymore, might now head in any number of fruitful (or unfruitful) directions. In this instant, there is exhilaration as well as caution, bewilderment as well as curiosity.
To be bewildered, he writes in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, is to ‘lose in pathless places, to confound for want of a plain road.’ The bewildered person, having been led astray, is lost, turned about, and disoriented, generally lacking a good sense of his bearings. By letting his basic commitments to be drawn into question, he has lost his place in the world. What is of great value? To what can one assign significance? What sign points the way forward?
We can say that being virtuous is performing an action over and over again in the right way (manner) for the right reason (justification) for the right end (final cause).
Whatever their differences may be, these definitions share the characteristic of manner, way, fashion, and appropriateness. A virtuous man does not simply offer a guest tea. He does so in the right manner. A compassionate woman smiles at the hurt one and puts her hand on him with lightness and strength. There is thus a felt quality to a virtue that can only be experienced ‘from within.’
Patience is not about waiting; it is giving us the time we need to think seriously in the hope of extricating ourselves from this sense of confusion. Without patience, there is no ‘slipping the trap, let alone ‘turning the key? Patience seems, if not to be the act itself, then to be the condition of possibil-ity for focusing our attention on broader questions. Being patient, I am not attending to this design flaw (let’s say: I’m not ‘troubleshooting’), this disagreement between co-workers, or this instance of poor communication. I am concerned with the relationship between this design flaw and design more generally; with the nature of amity within this organization; or with the nature and structure of communication.
Courage invites us to stand firm in the face of fear. In this way, it introduces us to a set of important questions we need to ask about ourselves. What is it that we are afraid of? Is this something worth being afraid of? Are we strong enough to endure a time in which things do not make sense to us? If we have asked the right question (about which more in the following chapter), do we have what it takes to ‘see the question through to the end’? For how long can we put ourselves into this project?
The third and the final virtue which is vital for living through a time of great confusion is openness. Few are willing to start over. Especially the ones on the career path. They believe that there are stepping stones that are laid out by some institution and which they must follow.
Patience slows you down. Courage moves you along. Openeness points you to novel directions.

A bad question will arrive at:
at doxa, i.e., at common sense. Someone concludes that this is what everyone believes; this is (just) the way we do things here; that this is how things have always been; this is what is commonly held to be true. The problem with common sense is that it cannot take us any- where-into an inquiry into what we do not know but would like to understand.

at stuckness. The inquirer feels stuck because he senses that he has reached these conclusions before. The person who is stuck believes that there is only A or B (etc.) and neither is palatable. Stuckness suggests that, in truth, the inquirer went nowhere, only repeating or rehears-ing what he had already thought before. The stuck person is perhaps doing no more than register-ing his dissatisfaction. I’m not sure that I would count this genre as thinking.

at discord, creating a sense of dissonance. I may say that conclusion P is true but I don’t want to believe it (cognitive dissonance). E.g., climate change is adversely impacting devel-oping nations, but I don’t want to believe that my energy use matters. Or I may say that I should do Q but I don’t want to do that (volitional dissonance). E.g., the company is losing profits, but I don’t want to lay off workers.