On the Futility and Absurdity Of ‘Why’ Questions in Science and Philosophy: Towards A Pragmatic Emphasis on Alleviating the Suffering of The World

The arch pessimist philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, along with countless other thinkers, most notably Leibniz and Heidegger, famously proposed that a ‘why’ question – roughly along the lines of ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ – was fundamental to all metaphysical enquiry. However, unlike many of his philosophical descendants, he did not dwell long on this notoriously fuzzy and, arguably, vacuously unintelligible question, but moved quickly on to seek answers to what he saw as the root cause of human suffering in the blind, striving will. In spite of the eminently practical turn in philosophy since Schopenhauer – the linguistic turn inspired by Wittgenstein and J L Austin, American pragmatism, and the emphasis on the useful and practical in moral philosophy by Peter Singer and others – there remains a tendency in current culture and theory to be bewitched by the ‘why’ questions in one form or another. The principal thesis of this article is that certain ‘why’ questions – the so-called big metaphysical questions of science and philosophy – are still accorded far too much importance and attention and should be downplayed in favour of activity directed to alleviating suffering in the world, both natural and anthropogenic.