Category: philosophical counseling
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What makes the right question right? (II)
I have been writing about the art of inquiry with a view to understanding, in a preliminary fashion, how any philosophical inquiry of the kind I have in mind can ever get underway. The implicit aim in this endeavor is to show that philosophical inquiry is ‘self-transformative’: that it is the kind of activity that,…
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What makes the wrong question wrong? (I)
I One aim of a good inquiry, I have urged, is clarity in the broadest possible sense. Only a good question can allow for an inquiry to get underway. I would like to examine what makes a wrong question the wrong one (Part I) and what makes the right question the right one (Part II). What makes…
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Commitment as a precondition to inquiry
Earlier today I was speaking with Pete Sims at Kaos Pilots about the art of inquiry. Based in Denmark, Kaos Pilots is a three-year program of study in social entrepreneurship. During the third year, students are invited to create a social business project that will take them, quite possibly, to faraway places and put them…
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Confronting our thinking in general
I want to say that the focus of my life is on teaching the art of inquiry. Yesterday, I said that one of the aims of a good inquiry is to disabuse us of our ignorance. To be humbled in this manner is to enter into a time of exceptional confusion. Can anything interesting be said of…
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Bewilderment and the art of inquiry
For the foreseeable future, the focus of my philosophical practice and my work with organizations will be on the art of inquiry. One aim of the art of inquiry is to lead the inquirer into a state of mental confusion (aporia) or bewilderment. The bewilderment implies that the inquirer can no longer say for sure…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 