[lit-ideas] Thauma aporo philosophia anthropous phuseos kai katos

Good morning! Today's message: "Philosophia thauma phuseos, thauma  
anthropous" 
 
J. Krueger writes, very inspirational:
 
>Why are the most interesting things 
>-- like black holes, quantum physics, the 
>origin of "herky-jerky"...) never really 
>important -- not worthy of being a priority.  
>Yet they drown one in the curiosity which 
>would, if only you were a cat, kill you.

Exactly, or a possum  (cfr. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats).
 
I would add to the list of priorities, "Curiosity killed a cat". I'd bet  
it's Chaucer -- but this doesn't count as a bet until McEvoy _takes_ my bet. 
 
Anyway, I was referring to J. Krueger's 'amazement' sense of black holes,  
when I thought -- "But this is what Socrates said -- before drinking the  
hemlock. I asked Geary, about it
 
He said
 
>aporo
 
-- Not to nitpick -- and indeed "aporia" is the greatest of it all, there's  
also "thaumazein", but R. Paul must have the correct Loeb quotation for that. 
I  found online:
 
_Politics and the  Ideals of Culture_ (http://www.friesian.com/muntean2.htm)  
     
Could it be that philosophy in the Greek sense  -- which begins with 
'wonder', with thaumazein, and ends (at least  in Plato and Aristotle) in the 
speechless ...
_www.friesian.com/muntean2.htm_ (http://www.friesian.com/muntean2.htm )  

 
 
but since I'm not into  politics or the ideals of culture, 
I did not care to  check. Spanish for 'wonder' is "ASOMBRO" 
(any cognates in French?).  It's a phrase I learned to love
<NOBR>from J. L. Borges.  

<NOBR>"Wonder" sounds too Anglo-Saxon to  me, and "thauma
<NOBR>(and that's a verb anyway) too  Greek. Seneca I cannot 
how  he called it.  

But the feeling remains. There's something about WONDERMENT and PHILOSOPHY,  
that you don't _sense_ with 'wonderment' and ANY OTHER 'discipline'  including 
literature -- or technoloy.
 
There's something childish about wonderment -- and feline too. He (Chaucer)  
or she who thought Curiosity Killed The Cat never cared to ponder on how much  
the cat enjoyed that!
 
_http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%
3Aentry%3D%2347917_ 
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=#47917)
 
 
_thauma_ 
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lang=greek&lookup=qau=ma&bytepos=72761771&wordcount=1&embed=2&doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057)
 , n. 
(cf. _thaumazô_ 
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lang=greek&lookup=qauma/zw&bytepos=72762057&wordcount=1&embed=2&doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.00
57) , v. _theaomai_ 
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/morphindex?lang=greek&lookup=qea/omai&bytepos=72762057&wordcount=1&embed=2&doc=Perseus:text:1999.0
4.0057) ) wonder, marvel, 
 
-- repr. in English, 'thaumasite', Min. 
 
Min. [mod. (Nordenskiöld, 1878), f. Gr. 
 
           wonderful, marvellous + -ite: so named ‘on account of its unusual  
composition’.]  ‘A white, amorphous  mineral composed of silicate, carbonate 
and sulphate of calcium, and water’  (Chester). 1881 in _WATTS_ 
(http://0-dictionary.oed.com.csulib.ctstateu.edu/help/bib/oed2-w.html#watts)   
Dict. Chem. 
VIII.  1921.
 
Cf. thaumato-, combining form of Gr. , wonder, marvel.  <NOBR>thauma,  the 
origination of life as a miraculous process: opposed to nomogeny. 
<NOBR>thaumatogramod.L.  thaumatographia], a writing concerning the wonders of  
nature. 
<NOBR>thaumat  excessive reverence for the miraculous or marvellous. 
<NOBR>thauma  

But this is getting too ecumenical, and little Socratic. I think what  
Aristotle and Socrates before him had in mind is
 
                    THALES OF MILETO
 
_He_ is the one who _first_ wondered, and thus created himself a  
'philosopher'. He wondered about things, and wonder whether all things could 
not  in the 
end be _water_. His philosophy has been recently discredited on the face  that 
he lived _on the water_ (Mileto). 
 
That's when Socrates replied that _his_ wonderment was at this thing called  
Man (Shakespeare repeated that). 
 
Oddly no OED references for "Curiosity killed the Cat" -- Whittington. 
 
Cheers,
 
JL
Buenos Aires, Argentina 
 
 



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