Philosophical Wonder

Socrates said that "philosophy begins in wonder." What is this experience of wonder and why is it so important for philosophy or, more generally, the love of wisdom? Starting with Aristotle, many philosophers have thought of philosophical wonder as a sort of puzzlement that prompts us to seek out new, better understandings of ourselves and our world. From this point of view, although philosophy begins in wonder, it seeks to overcome it. Understanding dispels puzzlement and with it our wonder. Plato had a quite different view. For him, the love of wisdom begins in wonder and is sustained by it. We will explore why he thought this and how it might affect our understanding of education and inquiry. -From Gabriel Richardson Lear This will be an open-ended discussion based on the ideas introduced in the videos or the quotations posted below. Please watch this 2018 talk, starting at 9min 48seconds: HERE Or read it HERE Optional: If you have time, watch her 2013 talk on philosophical wonder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btmk-jvksOw QUOTES ABOUT WONDER: Theaetetus, 155d: "For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy, and he who said that Iris was the child of Thaumas made a good genealogy" Aristotle (Metaphysics I.2, 982b): "For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe." René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul): "Wonder is a sudden surprise of the soul which makes it tend to consider attentively those objects which seem to it rare and extraordinary.” The special usefulness of wonder lies in its getting us to learn and retain in our memory things that we previously didn’t know. We wonder only at what strikes us as unusual and extraordinary, and something will impress us in that way only if we haven’t before known of it or anything like it. . . . But when something that is new to us comes before our intellect or our senses, we won’t retain it in our memory unless the idea [see Glossary] of it in our brain is strengthened by some passion, or perhaps by a special state of attention and reflection that we choose to adopt. When something strikes us as •good or bad, there are other passions that can make us focus on it; but when something strikes us merely as •unusual, all we have is wonder. That is why people who aren’t naturally inclined to wonder are usually very ignorant." Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica I-II, Q. 32, a. 8): "Wonder is a kind of desire for knowledge; a desire which comes to man when he sees an effect of which the cause either is unknown to him, or surpasses his knowledge or faculty of understanding.” Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.” Alfred North Whitehead (Modes of Thought): "Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.” Ludwig Wittgenstein (Culture and Value): "Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.”