Philippe Huneman, "Why?: The Philosophy Behind the Question" (Stanford UP, 2023)

Dec 29, 2025

Philippe Huneman, a philosopher, discusses the different meanings of 'why' and its impact on various disciplines. He explores the cause of events, the reason of beliefs, and the purpose of actions. Huneman introduces key philosophers and delves into metaphysics. He also acknowledges the limits of reason and our natural instinct to ask 'why' despite knowing there may not be a definitive answer.

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INSIGHT

Structural Mathematics Can Explain Phenomena

Some scientific explanations rely on mathematical or structural properties rather than specific causal mechanisms.
Topological features of networks (e.g., scale-free structure) can explain robustness without citing particular causal interactions.

ANECDOTE

Fridge Example Shows Beliefs Drive Actions

Huneman uses the image of Mickey Mouse opening a fridge to show actions get explained by beliefs and desires.
Children and adults alike ascribe desires and beliefs to explain behavior, illustrating our early theory-of-mind capacities.

INSIGHT

Explain Actions Versus Judge Them

Distinguish reasons-to-act (instrumental coherence) from good reasons (moral or practical justification).
Explaining actions uses instrumental rationality; moral evaluation is a separate normative judgment.

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Why did triceratops have horns? Why did World War I occur? Why does Romeo love Juliet? And, most importantly, why ask why? In Why?: The Philosophy Behind the Question (Stanford UP, 2023), philosopher Philippe Huneman describes the different meanings of "why," and how those meanings can, and should (or should not), be conflated.

As Huneman outlines, there are three basic meanings of why: the cause of an event, the reason of a belief, and the reason why I do what I do (the purpose). Each of these meanings, in turn, impacts how we approach knowledge in a wide array of disciplines: science, history, psychology, and metaphysics. Exhibiting a rare combination of conversational ease and intellectual rigor, Huneman teases out the hidden dimensions of questions as seemingly simple as "Why did Mickey Mouse open the refrigerator?" or as seemingly unanswerable as "Why am I me?" In doing so, he provides an extraordinary tour of canonical and contemporary philosophical thought, from Plato and Aristotle, through Descartes and Spinoza, to Elizabeth Anscombe and Ruth Millikan, and beyond.

Of course, no proper reckoning with the question "why?" can afford not to acknowledge its limits, which are the limits, and the ends, of reason itself. Huneman thus concludes with a provocative elaboration of what Kant called the "natural need for metaphysics," the unallayed instinct we have to ask the question even when we know there can be no unequivocal answer.

Philippe Huneman is Research Director at the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, CNRS/ Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and the author of several books in French and English, including Philosophical Sketches of Death in Biology: An Historical and Analytic Investigation (2022).

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel.

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