Philosophy is born in wonder, but it is no
wonder that many of us rarely even get to the beginning of philosophy. Why is this?
Everyone knows that the universe is full of wonders. If you could see a clear, dark night's sky, the stars would still be burning in their majesty,
indifferent to human fate. Their light
comes from unimaginable distances. Time
distorts. We look into the past. What could be more wonderful than that? Or take a beautiful sunset? There is no reason for that kind of beauty to
exist, yet it does, and it is a wonder that it does. From the largest perspective, it is a wonder
that the earth exists at all in the supportive semi-permanent balance in which
we find it, that life exists, that consciousness exists. From the smallest perspective, there is as
much wonder in the small machines of nature and art as in the whole of the universe.
This wonder is the gateway to philosophy,
because it takes us out of ourselves, out of our immediate lives and into a
world of thought and speculation, reason and argument, dialogue and
dialectic. Out of this wonder comes the "what" and the "how" and the "why" questions that have been the stuff of philosophy through the
centuries.
Wonder is lost in the routines of life and
the automatic habits that structure behavior, the expectations that guide our
senses, make us look for what we expect to find. We become so focused on a cluster of
interests, that the larger and smaller worlds no longer make an
impression. Stop for an instant and look
around. There are wonders everywhere,
things whose explanations do not explain.
That is when philosophy is needed, and so that is when it is born.
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