Early last week, I finished reading Sobel's "Galileo's Daughter" and was left pondering what distinguished Galileo from his peers and predecessors in regards to his understanding of motion.
Sobel points out that it was Galileo's devotion to How movement occurs, as opposed to Why, that enabled him to approach the problem from a different perspective than past and current philosophers of his time.
Galileo had no cause to question Why, as his religious faith, his familial relations and his robust intuition for his mathematical approach served as a consistent base to draw from, supporting the rigours of his efforts and attention regarding the Hows of motion.
In having read of Galileo's process, I have been giving a great deal of consideration to the correlation between How and Why.
It seems to me, that we human beings tend to often argue over limited specifics of the Hows and the Whys, and lack the recognition that both points of questioning have synchronous energy that is more fundamentally concerned with relationship itself:
with one another, with ourselves, with All ( defined as you like - the universe, multiverse, cosmos, world, etc).
In the host of modalities, whether scientific, philosophical, theological, individual, or cultural, How and Why have shifted over time. Certain ideas, traditions, hypotheses and theories have stood out, but regardless which ones dominate, it is the sustaining of the ongoing current of dialogue between us - all of us - that is paramount.
Therefore, to deepen and sustain this dialogical relationship, it is imperative to reflect on How and Why as a symbiotic relationship, ever present in thinking and feeling, and that together they are tremendously influential guides.
How and Why reveal a person's concerns, dreams, and personality, as much as they can reveal relationships between people and their contexts. And so, it is through an honest enquiry into our own and one another's Hows and Whys, that we not only connect but we may also evolve. This is especially possible when we relinquish our concerns for the outcomes and focus on the enlargement of our capacities (as I heard Vandana Shiva put it once).
In effect, it may be possible to utilize How and Why so effectively that they fall away from their initial significances and become a crucible for holding and nourishing the nuances of our relationships to one another, to ourselves, and beyond...
...How-ever and Why-ever you would like to define them.
And, as always, the album "The Books of Magra: Hax-Sus" is available for streaming!