There is no such thing as any entirely novel kind of knowledge. It is impossible to apprehend a meaning of any kind if there is no way to assimilate it into pre-existing knowledge along lines of similarity. Thats why culture evolves. The entire history of philosophical and scientific development show this way that the new is always situated and framed by what we already know. One can link upthe genealogy of any history of knowledge via endless families of resemblance.
We think what we want is a complete break from what went before, but what we really want is a deepening and a continuity between the new and the familiar.

I thought Kant'a categories were refuted a long time ago? Hegel anybody?

yes, the very fact that the questions he poses aren't aware of the context In which they are generated, and more importantly, that he may not see the sense of inquiring as to a situating context, could be the answer he seeks.

No Kant's work remains a good body of theory. Hegel is regarded as a mystic.
Every without Kant, what I said remains a good idea since the Idea that Kant had to assert time and space as necessarily grounding all other knowledge remains a good one.

The French for "how many?" is 'combien', one word. The French for "why?" is 'pourquoi', originally two words. "What?" doesn't even have a direct translation into French, being variously 'que', 'quoi', and 'qu'est-ce que'. I don't think the French have a radically different way of viewing the world to us, so I don't see how the singularity of a question like "why?" indicates that it is in some way more significant than, say "what colour?".

There is no such thing as any entirely novel kind of knowledge. — Joshs

I wish I had your conviction. I was and always was in a perpetual state of doubt. Even things like 2+2=4 is to me simply an allegation needing some kind of proof.

The entire history of philosophical and scientific development show this way that the new is always situated and framed by what we already know. — Joshs

Relativity was a novel idea and although it didn't really upset classical physics it did lead to, how shall I describe it, strange ideas like time dilation, time travel. Quantum physics did the same thing. Note, I'm no expert but I'm almost completely convinced that fact is stranger than fiction and just take a look at the variety and complexity of the latter. It may be that there are some truths just waiting to be plucked off the tree of knowledge if only we knew what questions to ask.

We think what we want is a complete break from what went before, but what we really want is a deepening and a continuity between the new and the familiar — Joshs

If you think continuity is required between two corpuses of knowledge I agree. Usually knowledge builds up with simple foundations and diversifies into different disciplines. This has been the trend since we even began investigating the world. Thank you for the comment.

As I said in the OP there is a strong component of linguistic ease of expression in the 7 types of questions. It seems that ''why?'' was invented because it's easier to say it than the longer ''what is the reason?'' However, there's a different concept involved in ''why?'' - that of rationality and logic - that, to me, deserves its own question. Thus ''why?''

Are there other human experiences that are significant enough to deserve its own question?

Obviously Hegel is regarded by you as a mystic. He is regarded by most of today's edifice of social science as the ground from which sprang naturalistic science of biological diverisficaiton and evolution, human cultural change and economic and political development, and psychological and psychotherapeutic dynamics, as well as liberal theology. Here's just a small sampling of those who considered Hegel's insights crucial:William James, John Dewey, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard,
Freud, Daniel Dennett, Foucault. Derrida, Heidegger, Piaget, the Pittsburgh school of analytic philosophy, Habermas, Adorno, Sartre,
"The Idea that Kant had to assert time and space as necessarily grounding all other knowledge remains a good one." Yes, but Hegel rejected Kant's transcendental categories.So while he agreed with Kant that space and time are subjective intuitions, against Kant he argued that they are at the same time properties of relations between objective things in the world also.
Most philosophers today move from Hegel rather than Kant on this point that space and time have inextricably both an objective and subjective aspect.

Perhaps you have never raised a dog or a cat? A perplexed look is pretty much the same thing as the question "why".

He is regarded by most of today's edifice of social science as the ground from which sprang naturalistic science of biological diverisficaiton and evolution, human cultural change and economic and political development, and psychological and psychotherapeutic dynamics, as well as liberal theology. — Joshs

Huh... no?

"What?" doesn't even have a direct translation into French, being variously 'que', 'quoi', and 'qu'est-ce que'. I don't think the French have a radically different way of viewing the world to us, so I don't see how the singularity of a question like "why?" indicates that it is in some way more significant than, say "what colour?". — Pseudonym

"Quoi?" is an acceptable way of asking "what?" in French, but you have to be careful with your intonation, because it can easily be perceived as rude. It's more often a way to signify that you haven't understood what was just said...

Without time and space the rest have no basis.
They should have evolutionary precedent. — charleton

Time and space have structural priority. They are, in a way, the first "dimensions" that must be exploited in developing any functional structure (and, in many sense, even structures without functions).

However, from the point of view of the unit of life, Time and Space can well be superfluous. Living time reflect dynamical recurring values ~ different degrees of lighting, heat, energy (night and day, summer and winter). There is a nearly infinite possible combination of these dynamical values, and the vast majority are not "part of our time". Minute cyclical variations in the degree of ambient radioactivity isn't part of human time, but it might be for unicellular lifeforms which might be destroyed by any un-predicted change in that value... or such things.

He is regarded by most of today's edifice of social science as the ground from which sprang naturalistic science of biological diverisficaiton and evolution, human cultural change and economic and political development, and psychological and psychotherapeutic dynamics, as well as liberal theology. — Joshs

You have no evidence here that Hegel or any one of your list of thinkers (presumably pulled out of the Table of Contents of "The Ladybird's Book of Clever Blokes for Girls"), would refute Kant's excellent idea that Space and Time are necessary preconditions to ask any question.

Perhaps you have never raised a dog or a cat? A perplexed look is pretty much the same thing as the question "why". — Akanthinos

(Y)

Their sharp fangs made me think of other things.

But ''where?'' can be reduced to ''what is the location?'' — TheMadFool

"What" in this context is different than "what" in general. Ie. What is the location of the object? The location is the part of space where the state of having the asked object is true.

Human reasoning is more abstract than animals. — TheMadFool

Can you speak in a civilized manner without insulting animals?

Can you speak in a civilized manner without insulting animals? — BlueBanana

(Y) sorry. No offence intended. There's a thin line between fact and insult.

Wouldn't you agree, tho, that an entity disposed toward seeking information about a state that is current, is not doing something in an entirely different scale than an entity which is asking "why" in the hope that some other agent will provide him linguistically the same information? The first entity would be said to be disposed to ask "why?", if it had any linguistic performance available.

Not just Hegel , of course, but the movement of Evolutionist German Romantic idealism of which he was a part. The advent of the social sciences in the 19th century owed more to Kant than to Hegel, but in 2018, much of the social sciences(certainly sociology, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, ethnography) show the influence of Hegelian and post-Hegelian thought.

Maybe they're asking "what"

Wouldn't you agree, tho, that an entity disposed toward seeking information about a state that is current, is not doing something in an entirely different scale than an entity which is asking "why" in the hope that some other agent will provide him linguistically the same information? The first entity would be said to be disposed to ask "why?", if it had any linguistic performance available. — Akanthinos

Yes, I agree. Questions needn't be symbolized. Do you think non-symbolic (non-linguistic) inquiry is better/worse than having language-based questions? Is there something interesting in the questioning tilt of a dog's head than all of the questions in philosophy?

Do you think non-symbolic (non-linguistic) inquiry is better/worse than having language-based questions? — TheMadFool

Well, I doubt it would make much sense to deny how linguistic inquiry is capable of so much more than non-symbolic inquiry. With a question, you can bypass every effort needed to find the answer by yourself, which is why it's so goddamn annoying when people constantly prefer to ask questions instead of seeking answers for themselves. They expect all the labour's fruits with none of the labour. I would be hard-pressed to find a line of argument to justify that prelinguistic world interaction is more powerful than the linguistic one. That's not what interest me.

Is there something interesting in the questioning tilt of a dog's head than all of the questions in philosophy? — TheMadFool

Yes! Absolutely! I have always been completely convinced that there is more truth and wisdom about the world contained in the interactions of a toddler with its toy, of a dog with its owner, in the way you walk into a house for the first time, then in all the books you'll ever find about the subject. But that's more about my existential approach to knowledge than about the subject, really.

Language infects and transform everything it touches. Once thrown in the world of language, there is no stepping back, not in any meaningful way for philosophy and epistemology, anyways. The tilt of the dog's head, the large, fixated eyes of the cat with it's exclamative vocalization, these are our last anchors back to this prelinguistic reality.

And it's not like language doesn't come with its own cost, too. It warps just as it infects reality. As someone who was suicidal for a while, let me tell you, your own language can kill you just as easily as someone else's gun. It doesn't have to be all that dramatic either. Shame doesn't make much sense to prelinguistic beings. A master might be able to shame his dog, but I've never seen a dog shame another.

I would be hard-pressed to find a line of argument to justify that prelinguistic world interaction is more powerful than the linguistic one. — Akanthinos

I think we still resort to prelinguistic questioning. A perplexed look, for example, is very similar to one that a dog/cat sometimes expresses.

And it's not like language doesn't come with its own cost, too. It warps just as it infects reality. — Akanthinos

Can you expand on that. How does language infect reality?

I'm not sure but it can be said that language is a mode of communication. Thinking, even rational thinking, doesn't need language as such. As other posters here have commented even animals are capable of thought (that's an interesting topic in itself). So, some important nuances of truth may have been sacrificed for ease of communication. Do you mean that?

I think we still resort to prelinguistic questioning. A perplexed look, for example, is very similar to one that a dog/cat sometimes expresses. — TheMadFool

It never remains prelinguistic for long. The perplexed look is either a lead to an exclamative thought or a sign that leads to an explanation of another's thoughts. Our brains have stewed too long in a symbolic universe not to constantly fall back to that mode of relation.

Can you expand on that. How does language infect reality? — TheMadFool

It infects our relation to the world, forcing us to constantly name everything, predicate everything, conjuguate everything. It coopt everyone of our cognitive functions and obscure their reality, relegating them to the nether of subconsciousness. It turns us into infectuous agents, categorizing, ordering and itemizing everything so as to relate easier to it, as if that was any easier than just living in it. And in turn, it obscure the reality of the world, by legitimizing questions regarding the existence of concepts. Dogs and cats aren't idealists.

Of course, this infection is a sort of commensalism, it is for the most often either neutral or positive for the host. It can also be incredibly negative.