- September 14th, 2018, 9:06 pm
#319691
You could approach it like this: the most "important" (a loaded term) type of intelligence is that which is inclined toward inquiry. It stands in distinction to dogma. Now, dogma is certainly not therefore the worst kind, it is just at odds with what will contradict it, and is fundamentally important, for without dogma, there is no inquiry, but this is ahead of the game.
Inquiry opens doors to possibilities, for one thing. One could not have knowledge in the first place unless inquiry had been brought to bear upon presumptions of knowledge, prior to it inception. to know means having inquired, and inquiry is inherently destructive, which is required in order to bring new possibilities to light. For another, inquiry has no limits. it is quite an amazing phenomenon, for once it starts, it never ends by its own nature, but keeps going into any proposition that would make a claim to knowledge, and such claims are always forthcoming. Paradigms, Thomas Kuhn called them. Beliefs is another word, short of knowledge. Then knowledge, more secure but provisional. Third, inquiry shows us our own nature, for since every knowledge claim is subject to inquiry, and it is knowedge claims that are, as with all things, at the basis for understanding what we are, what I am, then, it follows that there is no finality to the quest for the identity of the self. This makes for the most interesting thing a person can do: shut up and let the world speak. To do this, we must give up the pretense to knowing.