Understanding ‘Why’ (2021)

William James makes a similar distinction about asking "what something is" in Varieties of Religious Experience.

> First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is its constitution, origin, and history? And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it is once here? The answer to the one question is given in an existential judgment or proposition. The answer to the other is a proposition of value, what the Germans call a Werthurtheil, or what we may, if we like, denominate a spiritual judgment. Neither judgment can be deduced immediately from the other. They proceed from diverse intellectual preoccupations, and the mind combines them only by making them first separately, and then adding them together.

my much less informed take on this topic:

I considered "why?", "what?", and "how to?" by thinking the types of answers:

'what' expects an answer of a name, or reference.

'how' expects an answer of a recipe, like an algorithm possibly

'why' is more complicated, it involves intention. to keep it simple (and short), it's a mix of both of the above, but I provide no references nor bibliography; and quite honestly, I didn't even read through that whole 14-17 minute long article. at a glance, I am saying something roughly similar, but without knowing about all those academic erudites, and without invoking such arcane terminology as "teleological"