Beginning in wonder - placing the origin of thinking

Abstract

"It is through wonder [thaumazein]," says Aristotle, "that men now begin and originally began to philosophize"; and as Plato tells us, through the mouth of Socrates, "wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder." These sayings are well known, and they are also representative of an important thread that runs through much of the Western philosophical tradition,' and yet, in contemporary philosophy at least, they are not much reflected upon.