When children first learn at school how to write a text, they are told to consider five key questions: Where? Who? What? When? Why? + I would include “How?” Most of the time, the first four are easy to answer; however, responses falter when it comes to the last two. This is hardly a coincidence, as even those in positions of great responsibility often struggle to find the answer. So, is this the most important question, precisely because it seems to be the hardest to answer?

If you asked a child - or, alternatively, a philosopher – you can already approach the answer. During the first years of life, parents are often driven nearly to despair because their children will not stop asking, “What is that?” and “Why?” Unfortunately, for many people, this curiosity to understand the nuances and mechanisms through which our world is constituted diminishes with age. For philosophers, however, it does not.

“What is being as being, that is, what is beingness?” is the guiding question of philosophy, compelling the thinker to look beyond the immediately visible, beyond what appears obvious, and to interrogate being as such. This is also what metaphysics addresses: meta meaning “beyond” and physis referring to nature or being in the Greek origins of philosophical thought (*). The interrogation of beingness ultimately leads towards questions of first principles: the ground of existence and, in Plato, the Good as the highest principle of intelligibility and value. This distinguishes the philosopher from the sophist: someone who ceases to question ideas once the initial astonishment at their existence has faded. Yet sophists claim knowledge of the truth and turn it into a source of profit, rather than continuing to reflect and inquire.

So, is philosophizing the answer to how we should ask questions? In my view, no - not solely. Although philosophical thinking strips away the superficial layers of common sense and compels us to think more deeply, it can become so detached from the way in which we ordinarily think, make decisions, and live that it risks rejection because it does not appear immediately useful in everyday life. But does that make it wrong? How could something be wrong that we do naturally from birth?

The answer is that it is not. What? And why? These questions initiate a path beyond what we perceive, and that in itself is extraordinary. Yet they are not sufficient: our world requires further layers before such thinking can take root. The outermost layer consists of Where? Who? and When? - questions that provide a solid foundation from which the process of thinking can begin. In the middle lies How?, acting as a bridge between our world, which demands action, and the metaphysical level. Its position may explain why it seems so difficult for us to find an answer. Yet, if we do not resign ourselves to uncertainty and continue to think, we may eventually reach the innermost layer: What (is)? And why is it?

Clearly, this framework is abstract, yet it offers a defined structure that might help guide our thoughts whenever we find ourselves in an aporetic situation. And certainly, the ultimate goal need not be to find an answer to all these questions. The act of caring, questioning, and reflecting may already make us more conscious of - and more attentive to - the dynamics of the world around us.