CONCEPT
Wonder as Philosophical Act
Pieper's account of
thaumazein — the Greek word for astonishment, the disposition Plato and
Aristotle identified as the origin of philosophy itself — as an involuntary arrest of consciousness that cannot be produced, commanded, or optimized, only received by a mind that has learned to be still.
In the
Theaetetus, Plato records Socrates telling Theaetetus that philosophy begins in wonder. Aristotle repeats the claim at the opening of the
Metaphysics: 'It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize.' Pieper built his philosophy of leisure on the involuntary quality of this wonder. Wonder cannot be produced. It cannot be commanded, scheduled, or optimized. It is not the output of a process. It is
the gift of a disposition — the disposition of the person who has learned to be open, receptive, available to the shock of existence. The philosopher does not decide to wonder; wonder arrives. She is going about her business, and something arrests her attention — the regularity of the stars, the behavior of water, the fact that this moment is and in a moment will not be — and the arrest is involuntary. This involuntary quality