Other questions

Once it is a question of determining the problem or the Idea as such, once it is a question of setting the dialectic in motion, the question "What is X?" gives way to other questions, otherwise powerful and efficacious, otherwise imperative: "How much, how and in what cases?" The question "What is X?" animates only the so-called aporetic dialogues--in other words, those in which the very form of the question gives rise to contradiction and leads to nihilism, no doubt because they have only propaedeutic aims--the aim of opening up the region of the problem in general, leaving to other procedures the task of determining it as a problem or as an Idea. When Socratic irony was taken seriously and the dialectic as a whole was confused with its propaedeutic, extremely troublesome consequences followed: for the dialectic ceased to be the science of problems and ultimately became confused with the simple movement of the negative, and of contradiction. Philosophers began to talk like young men from the farmyard. [...] It should be noticed how few philosophers have placed their trust inthe question "What is X?" in order to have Ideas. Certainly not Aristotle. ... Once the dialectic brews up its matter instead of being applied in a vacuum for propaedeutic ends, the questions "How much?", "How?", "In what cases?" and "Who?" abound.
-Difference and Repetition, 188

A typical narrative from Deleuze. It's helpful, though, to keep in mind. More on Deleuze in another post coming up...