ABSTRACT
The first kind of response to the fundamental question does not provide an explanatory answer. Instead it involves responding to the act of putting the question in the first place, and leads us to investigate the appropriateness or intelligibility of the asking, rather than the subject of existence itself. We may call these responses 'deflationary', because they seek to deflate the question from its position as a thematically structured exploration of ideas, and transform it into a reflection on the limitations of the (human) thinker who asks 'why'. The formulations that fall into this category seek to show either that there is no answer to be found, or that the inquiry itself has no cognitive meaning, and therefore that there is no basis for the provision of an answer.
