Heidegger and the Thinking of Place: Explorations in the Topology of Being

Epilogue: Beginning in Wonder

Epilogue: Beginning in Wonder In essential history, the beginning comes last. —Heidegger, Parmenides The Origin of Philosophy “It is through wonder [thaumazein],” says Aristotle, “that men now begin and originally began to philosophize”;1 and as Plato tells us, through the mouth of Socrates, “wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.”2 These sayings are well known, and they are also representative of an important thread that runs through much of the Western philosophical tradition.3 Nevertheless, in contemporary philosophy at least, they are seldom reflected upon. For the most part, it seems, such sayings are taken to indicate that philosophy has its starting point, understood in terms of its motivational or psychological impetus, in puzzlement or curiosity at some feature or features of the world. Yet although puzzlement and curiosity are undoubtedly an important part of philosophical experience, to say that it is wonder in the sense of puzzlement and curiosity alone that stands as the origin of philosophy seems inadequate both to the character of philosophy itself and to the character of wonder. If philosophy is to be more than a mere game, but an activity into which one is drawn because of the demanding nature of the issues it addresses—because of the way one is inevitably given over to caring about those issues—then mere puzzlement seems not to be a good description of that out of which philosophy first arises. If wonder is itself something that can capture us—that can enthrall and enrapture— as it surely can, then wonder must be more than puzzlement, more than curiosity. The way that Plato and Aristotle themselves talk of the phenomenon of wonder seems to confirm that it is, indeed, not just puzzlement or 252 Epilogue curiosity that is at issue here. “He was not a bad genealogist who said that Iris [the rainbow/messenger of heaven] is the child of Thaumas [wonder],” says Plato’s Socrates,4 and Aristotle goes on, in the Metaphysics, to say that “the myth-lover [philomythos] is in a sense a philosopher [philosophos], since myths are composed of wonders.”5 It is surely not wonder in the sense of puzzlement alone that myth evokes; nor does curiosity seem a likely relative of the rainbow. Moreover, talk of wonder as that in which philosophy has its beginning is unlikely to mean, in the Platonic and Aristotelian context, merely that which serves as the psychological impetus toward the activity of philosophizing. For the Greeks especially, the idea of beginning or origin is not just the idea of a temporal starting point, but that which determines the very nature of the thing whose origin or beginning it is: thus Aristotle tells us that “‘nature’ [physis] is a beginning [arche].”6 The Greek arche, which Aristotle employs here, captures just this idea of beginning or origin as also determining “cause” or first principle. Talk of wonder as the beginning or origin of philosophy does not imply that philosophy is primarily about wonder or that there is a need for a “philosophy of wonder” as somehow the true and proper basis of philosophy , nor does it mean that philosophy can only ever be properly carried on while one is in a state of wonderment or that puzzlement and curiosity have no role to play in philosophical activity. Talk of wonder as the beginning of philosophy should rather be taken to indicate something about the character of philosophy as such, and so about its nature and limit, about that to which it is a response and so that to which it must be adequate . Inasmuch as wonder is taken to be “the feeling of the philosopher,” so wonder must be that which is determinative of philosophy and philosophical activity, that which is its proper “measure,” and to which it must, in some sense, always return. But what, then, is wonder, such that it may be the origin of philosophy? And what is philosophy, if wonder is its origin? Appearance and Encounter Wonder can take many forms. We may wonder at things, but we can also wonder about them. In this latter sense, our wondering takes the form of a questioning that may itself be a response to an initial astonishment, puzzlement, or curiosity—to wonder about things may thus mean no more than to puzzle over them, to think about them or to seek some explanation for them. The sense of wonder at issue in Plato and Aristotle, however, is...