WE SELECT QUESTIONS WITHIN GIVEN METAPHYSICAL FRAMEWORKS
The question, which question is worth pursuing? is a crucial question on which there is hardly any literature - but which is asked and answered regularly. The canons employed in this procedure can be made explicit and improved upon.
These canons are part of what we take to be the viewpoint of the community to which the questioner belongs. That viewpoint includes, to repeat Collingwood's assertion, the metaphysics of the community. Not that the individual is bound by his society's viewpoint - indeed, he may invent his own. But for a new metaphysics to signify, it must capture an audience of investigators. It does that by raising questions that interest a public of students willing to spend time attacking them. The metaphysics, then, is operationally - but only operationally - equivalent to the cluster of questions it gives rise to, to use Bromberger's phrase. This is why Faraday, the inventor of a new viewpoint in physics, spoke of * that duty to science which consists in the enunciation of problems to be solved...' So, I suggest, that question is best and most worthy of pursuing, which is most likely to alter our viewpoint, our metaphysics, our whole view of the universe. Science has made a habit of altering our viewpoint, and there is method in this madness. Moreover, this method is contrary to current methodological views, particularly those of K. R. Popper.III.
More on the topic WE SELECT QUESTIONS WITHIN GIVEN METAPHYSICAL FRAMEWORKS:
-
Contemporary philosophical research -
Fundamentals of philosophy -
Logic -
Philosophy of Science and Technology -
Political philosophy -
Social philosophy -
-
Conflictology -
Ecology -
Economy -
Finance -
History -
Law -
Medicine -
Philosophy -
Religious studies -