Quotation
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“Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.”
Plato · Platonism · Ancient · c. 369 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that philosophy starts from the jolt of not understanding something familiar, not from a stock of doctrines. A competing reading notes that Theaetetus is about to be puzzled by Protagoras and Heraclitus, so wonder here is a specific intellectual vertigo, not a generalised awe at sunsets. The line is Theaetetus 155c–d, spoken by Socrates as the young man grows dizzy. Plato is staging the beginning of inquiry inside a talk about knowledge.
Did Plato really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Benjamin Jowett's English of Theaetetus 155d is the familiar form of this sentence. The Greek says that wondering is the mark of a philosopher and that philosophy begins in it and nowhere else.
Where it comes from
Theaetetus 155d
Approximate date: c. 369 BCE.
How to use it
A direct debit you do not remember setting up, or a rule at school that everyone obeys and nobody can explain, is a better instance than a poster about amazement. The feeling of 'how can that be?' is the start he means, if you stay with the question. Wonder that only decorates a day and never asks a follow-up has not begun the activity.
A mindset reading
The habit is to treat puzzlement as the doorway, not as a failure to be informed already. Ask what exactly is strange, and to whom it would no longer be strange. Philosophy, on this line, has no other starting point.
Understand the philosophy
Socrates is answering Theaetetus's confusion about how something can be both one and many in appearance. Wonder, thaumazein, is the dizzy feeling that a contradiction has shown up in ordinary things. Iris, he adds in a mythic flourish, is the child of Thaumas, wonder. The dialogue will not settle the definition of knowledge, and it does insist that the dizziness is the right beginning.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that philosophy starts from the jolt of not understanding something familiar, not from a stock of doctrines. A competing reading notes that Theaetetus is about to be puzzled by Protagoras and Heraclitus, so wonder here is a specific intellectual vertigo, not a generalised awe at sunsets. The line is Theaetetus 155c–d, spoken by Socrates as the young man grows dizzy. Plato is staging the beginning of inquiry inside a talk about knowledge.
Did Plato really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Benjamin Jowett's English of Theaetetus 155d is the familiar form of this sentence. The Greek says that wondering is the mark of a philosopher and that philosophy begins in it and nowhere else.
Which work is it in?
Theaetetus 155d Approximate date: c. 369 BCE.