Concept
Inquiry
Overview
An inquiry (also spelled as enquiry in British English) is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ways that each type of inquiry achieves its aim.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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But when the inquiry is what the character of something is, the inquiry is conducted either simply, or by way of comparison. Simply, in this way: "Whether glory is to be sought for." By way of comparison, in this way: "Whether glory is to be preferred to riches." Of simple inquiries there are three kinds; about seeking for or avoiding…
Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
States what Inquiry is; names Inquiry several times.
It means that there is no particular end set up in advance so as to shut in the activities of observation, forming of ideas, and application. Inquiry is emancipated. It is encouraged to attend to every fact that is relevant to defining the problem or need, and to follow up every suggestion that promises a clue. The barriers to free inquiry are so many and so solid that mankind is to be congratulated that the very…
John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy
Names Inquiry several times; states what Inquiry is.
We may now characterize this stage of thinking with reference to our original remark that different stages denote various degrees in the evolution of the doubt-inquiry function. As compared with the period of fixed ideas, doubt is awake, and inquiry is active, but in itself it is rigidly limited. On one side it is bounded by fixed ultimate truths, whose very nature is that they cannot be doubted, which are not…
John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic
States what Inquiry is; names Inquiry several times.
Related ideas
- Analogy
- Rabbinic Judaism
- Immanuel Kant
- Problem solving
- John Dewey
- Logical equivalence
- Propositional logic
- Augustus De Morgan
- Model theory
- Hypothesis
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Collins English Dictionary
- Knowledge
- Rhetoric
- Hebrew Bible
- Doubt
- Aristotle
- Inference
- Logical consequence
- George Boole
- Inductive reasoning
- British English
- Logic
- Syllogism
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of logic.