The source of Western Scholarship

I read an account of Errol Morris's investigation into two photographs taken by Roger Fenton on the Crimea War. It was intriguing, but it also made me think of some issues that I had been pondering over on and off over the last 15 years. So I submitted a comment to his article in his New York Times blog. But just in case they decide not to publish my submission because they said it has to be relevant (and it isn't extremely relevant to the article, except in the philosophical sense), I'm reproducing my ideas here:

My Submission
I read the account of the investigation with great interest - albeit a little late. I was very captivated by the intriguing questions involving why Fenton did what he did (if he indeed did what he was accused of doing). However it is all psychological speculation, as Mr Morris rightly pointed out.

I have an interest in such discussion; somehow they trigger in me a fascination that I cannot understand, but - and I direct this question at myself as much as I direct it to everyone who thinks - is there any point in determining the sequence of the pictures? Is there any purpose in determining the motives of the photographer? What do we gain from it?

Such activities are the predominant objectives behind much of Western scholarship, I notice (no, I have not done a cop-out by attributing this view to a nebulous non-specific Actor), but why do we study things in this manner? Where does it all come from?

We do the same things with history as well: why did Caesar carry out his political rise in the way he did? We ask the same questions in literature too. Did Salman Rushdie actually have a subconscious death-wish when he made comments in his books on Islam? We will never be able to ask Caesar, and we can't trust Mr Rushdie about his subconscious, can we, whatever he says?

We might as well spend time speculating the question of why biblical scriptures were written in the way they had been. Oh, but that's what scholars have done over the centuries, isn't it? Scholars have tried to ask questions about the authenticity of scripture and wondered if there is any meaning in invoking a God-figure to explain processes in reality.

Much of scholarship stems from the first search for God. Is there a God? Why did God reveal Himself this way, assuming He did? These questions similarly attributing motive and intention to a person that we have no way of meeting, and there is also no way we can verify any of the answers, which logically speaking are mere conjectures as well.

So we are doing the same thing here again with these pictures. We are making conjectures of the intention of a person we are never going to meet, and drawing conclusions that we are never going to be able to verify.

Is there a purpose behind this?