Hard and Soft Inquiry There are two poles to intellectual inquiry - I will call them ‘hard’ and ‘soft.’ Hard approaches make precise claims, draw strict boundaries and generally try to capture their object of investigation in their conceptual net. They have a tendency towards reduction and (over)simplification. When the hard approach works, it makes every other approach redundant, like what’s happened with planetary motion. Before Newton, it might have still been possible to imagine the Moon and Venus influencing your mood or cursing your business rivals, but which serious thinker today would go that route?
Kyborg 19: SOS 3
Kyborg 19: SOS 3
Kyborg 19: SOS 3
Hard and Soft Inquiry There are two poles to intellectual inquiry - I will call them ‘hard’ and ‘soft.’ Hard approaches make precise claims, draw strict boundaries and generally try to capture their object of investigation in their conceptual net. They have a tendency towards reduction and (over)simplification. When the hard approach works, it makes every other approach redundant, like what’s happened with planetary motion. Before Newton, it might have still been possible to imagine the Moon and Venus influencing your mood or cursing your business rivals, but which serious thinker today would go that route?