PART V
QUINTESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
What is a question?
"A specific linguistic form, called a question, often serves as point of departure on the road towards new knowledge" (Elias, 1991). Questions are enquiries, the aim of which is to reduce the multiplicity of possibilities to a manageable set (Bruin, 2001). The information the question solicits is "that which enables us to make a selection from a set of possibilities or to narrow the range of possibilities about which we are ignorant" (Mackay, 1969). Some of these questions are familiar as Rudyard Kipling's guide to writing a story. Others of these terms are no longer in such widespread use as they once were, but the queries they enable add up to a relatively complete overview of the various aspects of a topic that one might want to know. If there are additional questions that are needed to delve into a topic, or satisfy the curiosity of a questioner, they can be added to any particular enquiry. As in the case of the Inferential Operators, it is rarely necessary to use all of the items on the list during any one inquiry - the person(s) involved decide the extent of their "need to know".
Of the many lists of this kind previously compiled, the one item almost never on any of them is the last one of the Quintessential Questions, namely "How?" In the past, many with a philosophical bend regarded the "how" of things as entirely mundane rather than theoretical, and as such, not really worthy of consideration. In the modern (or post-modern) world though, this attitude is seen to display the foolish kind of elitism or snobbery particularly characteristic of Classical Cultures. There is no obligation to use the "How?" but no inhibition against using it either. Without the "How?" modern science and technology would not exist.
How to use quintessential questions
The idea of acquiring knowledge through questioning, whether the questions are directed at circumstances, interlocutors, or oneself, goes at least as far back as Socrates in philosophy and Raymond Lull in theology. The presumption is that a succession of questions will enable the enquirer to deepen or broaden, particularize or generalize knowing to such an extent that one's understanding thereby increases appreciably - a kind of formalized version of "20 Questions".
There are many questions that do not (explicitly) ask one of the ten quintessential queries. But, for most of these other questions it is usually possible to re-state them so that they do fit the quintessential mode. “Is that [So-and-So]?” can be transformed into “Who is that?” “Could that be a [gizmo]?” might be re-worded as “What is that?” “Are you arriving this evening?” would also find expression as “When will you be arriving?” “Can you tell me where you started from?” would be phrased in the Biblical idiom as “Whence cometh thou”? “Give me your location?” could be asked as “Where are you?” Etc. Grammatically, "who", "what" and "which" are pronouns, "when", "where", "whence", "whither", "how" and "why" are adverbs, and "whether" is a conjunction.
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