[lit-ideas] Thauma aporo philosophia anthropous phuseos kai katos
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:08:14 EDT
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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