"Why is laughter contagious? Why do mountains exist? Why do we long for the past ever if it is scarred by suffering? Spanning a vast array of subjects that range from the philosophical to the theological, from the philological to the scientific, "The Philosipher Respons" is the record of a set of questions put by the litterateur Abu? H?ayya?n al-Tawh?i?di? to the philosopher and historian Abu? ?Ali? Miskawayh. Both figures were foremost contributors to the remarkable flowering of cultural and intellectual life that took place in the Islamic world during the reign of the Buyid dynasty in the fourth/tenth centuries.