32 – Reflection: asking questions and proposing answers
system, and which of these rules generate its structure?
For example, ‘Why is the industrial wealth of the First
World inseparable from the rural poverty of the Third
World?’
5 Deductive explanations – what combinations of conditions
or premisses allow us to infer a logical conclusion? For
example, ‘Why are utilitarians committed to opposing
capital punishment?’
To what extent, how much, how far, how significant
There are many ways of asking questions that call for a judgement,
assessment or evaluation. These are some of them. The simplest
idea of evaluating is to rank a phenomenon on a scale – say, cold
to hot, useless to useful, bad to good – which gives some measure
of degree. Those questions that begin ‘How . . . ’ will give you the
criterion or scale on which the phenomenon has to be assessed, for
example quantity in the case of ‘how much’, temperature in the case
of ‘how hot’, significance in the case of ‘how significant’ and so on.
‘To what extent’ and ‘how far’ are questions that leave to you the
task of deciding the best criteria by which to evaluate the issue in
question:
‘ . . . Mill’s open-mindedness was too large for the system he
inherited’ (A. D. Lindsay). To what extent did John Stuart
Mill differ from early utilitarian attitudes to state
intervention in social and economic affairs?
To what extent do you believe the mass media play a key
role in social control?
How far is the rise in suicide rates during times of economic
prosperity attributable to people’s earlier experiences
during economic recession?
How important is the Porter to the main plot of
Shakespeare’s Macbeth? Is he just comic ‘relief’?
system, and which of these rules generate its structure?
For example, ‘Why is the industrial wealth of the First
World inseparable from the rural poverty of the Third
World?’
5 Deductive explanations – what combinations of conditions
or premisses allow us to infer a logical conclusion? For
example, ‘Why are utilitarians committed to opposing
capital punishment?’
To what extent, how much, how far, how significant
There are many ways of asking questions that call for a judgement,
assessment or evaluation. These are some of them. The simplest
idea of evaluating is to rank a phenomenon on a scale – say, cold
to hot, useless to useful, bad to good – which gives some measure
of degree. Those questions that begin ‘How . . . ’ will give you the
criterion or scale on which the phenomenon has to be assessed, for
example quantity in the case of ‘how much’, temperature in the case
of ‘how hot’, significance in the case of ‘how significant’ and so on.
‘To what extent’ and ‘how far’ are questions that leave to you the
task of deciding the best criteria by which to evaluate the issue in
question:
‘ . . . Mill’s open-mindedness was too large for the system he
inherited’ (A. D. Lindsay). To what extent did John Stuart
Mill differ from early utilitarian attitudes to state
intervention in social and economic affairs?
To what extent do you believe the mass media play a key
role in social control?
How far is the rise in suicide rates during times of economic
prosperity attributable to people’s earlier experiences
during economic recession?
How important is the Porter to the main plot of
Shakespeare’s Macbeth? Is he just comic ‘relief’?