Theorists often conceive of forgiveness as “wiping the slate clean” or something of the sort with respect to the offender’s moral infraction. This raises a puzzle concerning how (or whether) the relevant wrongdoing can continue to play a role in the forgiver’s deliberations, attitudes, and practical orientation toward the offender once forgiveness has taken place. For example, consider an agent who forgives her offender for an act of wrongdoing only to later blame her again for that very same act. Is (...) the relevant agent morally criticizable for breaching a commitment internal to her earlier forgiveness? When, if ever, is “un- forgiving,” justified? In brief, I argue that sometimes, we can genuinely forgive a wrongdoer for a particular transgression and at some later time, justifiably un-forgive her for it. Though the act of un-forgiving is underexplored, I argue that attending to this phenomenon will not only illuminate an important, often overlooked aspect of moral life, but it will also help to inform extant accounts of the nature and ethics of forgiveness. (shrink)

We often use the term “attachment” to describe our emotional connectedness to objects in the world. We become attached to our careers, to our homes, to certain ideas, and perhaps most importantly, to other people. Interestingly, despite its import and ubiquity in our everyday lives, the topic of attachment per se has been largely ignored in the philosophy literature. I address this lacuna by identifying attachment as a rich “mode of mattering” that can help to inform certain aspects of (...) agency and emotion. First, drawing on insights from Ancient stoicism and developmental and clinical psychology, I suggest that the relevant form of attachment involves a felt need for its object and a particular relationship between the object and the attached agent’s sense of security. I then argue that these features serve to distinguish the attitude from the more philosophically familiar notion of caring. Finally, I show that recognizing this form of attachment as a distinct mode of mattering has important implications for understanding grief. (shrink)

Historically, video games featuring content perceived as excessively violent have drawn moral criticism from an indignant (and sometimes, morally outraged) public. Defenders of violent video games have insisted that such criticisms are unwarranted, as committing acts of virtual violence against computer-controlled characters – no matter how heinous or cruel those actions would be if performed in real life – harm no actual people. In this paper, I present and critically analyze key aspects of this debate. I argue that while many (...) ethical objections to playing violent video games seem to miss their marks, there is sufficient reason to take modest steps in order to address the concerns that theorists have raised. (shrink)

In the contemporary philosophical literature, the topic of security has been largely neglected, and this is especially true of the affect of security. In what follows, I aim to nudge the affect of security toward the philosophical foreground by offering a basic analysis of this attitude. Specifically, I sketch an account on which the affect of security is helpfully construed as a feeling of confidence in one’s ability to competently and effectively exercise one’s agency. Security, so construed, is an affective (...) attitude toward one’s agency that both admits of affect regulation and plays a crucial meta-affective regulatory role in facilitating and modulating other affective dispositions and occurrent emotions. Examining this attitude can help to illuminate both the phenomenology and motivational structure of agency and the nature of certain emotions. (shrink)

Psychologists often characterize the infant’s attachment to her primary caregiver as love. Philosophical accounts of love, however, tend to speak against this possibility. Love is typically thought to require sophisticated cognitive capacities that infants do not possess. Nevertheless, there are important similarities between the infant-primary caregiver bond and mature love, and the former is commonly thought to play an important role in one’s capacity for the latter. In this work, I examine the relationship between the infant-primary caregiver bond and love. (...) I argue that while these very early attachments do not represent genuine love, a fuller understanding of them can inform extant philosophical views of love. (shrink)

Morally responsible agency and agentive authority are familiar themes in the philosophical literature on ethics and agency. Morally responsible agents are those who are apt candidates for the blaming attitudes and actions by which we hold one another accountable for moral violations. Those who lack morally responsible agency—e.g., non-human animals, very young children, and (some) individuals with severe cognitive impairments—are typically considered exempt from moral responsibility. Agentive authority is a normative position that grounds powers, claims, and rights to which one (...) is entitled in virtue of being a particular kind of agent. As an autonomous agent, you have a claim-right against me (and I, a corresponding obligation to you) not to interfere with certain of your self-regarding decisions. In this paper, I consider whether and how exemption from moral responsibility might imply diminished agentive authority. Using (one type of) psychopathic agency as a test case, I argue that, contra some theoretical frameworks, one can retain agentive authority even if exempt from moral responsibility. (shrink)

In “Freedom and Resentment,” P.F. Strawson (1962) introduced the “reactive attitudes” as attitudes to which we are prone in response to a moral agent’s expressed quality of will. Theorists have since represented a subset of those attitudes as modes of holding agents responsible. To resent another for some wrongdoing – or again, to experience moral indignation toward her – is to hold her responsible for the act. To experience guilt, on the other hand, is to hold oneself responsible. Importantly, on (...) many accounts, we can also hold ourselves and others responsible for morally good actions. Though the locution sounds a bit odd, in experiencing gratitude toward my neighbor for helping me move, I, in some sense, “hold him responsible” for his supererogatory act. And just as gratitude is the positive analog of resentment, there would seem to be a positive analog of guilt as well. Theorists have variously referred to this attitude as moral self-congratulations, moral self-approbation, and (a kind of) moral pride. The point is that, whatever we decide to call it, there is a distinctive attitude by which we hold ourselves responsible – or perhaps better, take responsibility – for morally good conduct. It is this attitude that I am concerned to examine here. (shrink)

In Zimbabwe, popular music, particularly the Zimdancehall music genre, has become a cultural site where Shona moral values clash with explicit sexual lyrical content despite a censorship regime in the country. This article examines the nature and cultural consequences of the moral decadence that emerges in popular Zimdancehall song lyrics by several musicians. The article illustrates how vulgar language popularises Zimdancehall songs in unheralded ways that foster identities laced with cultural ambivalences that may portray the artists as both famous and (...) depraved. This qualitative study does textual and content analysis of 11 purposively sampled songs with sex terms to elucidate the cultural inconsistencies in Zimdancehall song narratives. Analysis is informed by the Neuro-Psycho-Social theory, which recognises how socio-cultural restrictions are challenged by an emerging ghetto culture like new wine in old bottles. Alternative unsanctioned new popular music genres can be used to permeate the sociocultural system. (shrink)

This chapter investigates the problem of knowledge production on economic poverty in Africa as, largely, an instance of epistemic injustice. It applies Karl Popper’s critical rationalism to the issue of knowledge production on poverty. Methodologies of researches on poverty in Africa subtly promotes intended epistemic injustices against the subjects as the poor are underrepresented in knowledge about them; the experiences of the poor are often ignored, and their epistemic capacity for unearthing the push and pull factors of poverty are greeted (...) with much inferiority, skepticism and contempt. In severing the intersection between researching and reporting poverty in Africa and epistemic injustice, this chapter argues that Popper’s critical rationalism is philosophically indispensable. Popper’s scientific and political thoughts are potent theoretical interventions in addressing the epistemic, methodological, social, moral and political problems of poverty in Africa. The elements of scientific method inquiry, rationality, piecemeal social engineering, liberalism and intellectual openness explicit in Popper’s philosophy are explored, applied and found relevant to promoting poverty research ideals and policy development in Africa and beyond. The chapter concludes on the importance of Popper’s works, which span beyond his time and space, to knowledge about Africa. (shrink)

This chapter argues against a new and perhaps more benign way of classifying Nietzsche as a political conservative. It also adds to the argument that even though Nietzsche is seen as more leftist than he appears, he is not an egalitarian. It does so by making an extended and detailed case against Julian Young’s claim that the flourishing of the community is Nietzsche’s highest value. The final section suggests that Nietzsche’s view might nevertheless be able to accommodate richer notions of (...) community value than is commonly supposed—one that, in important respects, is similar to the value that he attributes to the exceptional individual. (shrink)

It is largely uncontroversial that to love some person or object is (among other things) to care about that person or object. Love and caring, however, are importantly different attitudes. We do not love every person or object about which we care. In this work, we critically analyze extant accounts of how love differs from mere caring, and we propose an alternate view in order to better capture this distinction.

“Enthusiastically acclaimed in Europe, Cornelis Verhoeven’s The Philosophy of Wonder starts with the premise that any authentic philosophy begins as a posture of wonder before reality. “Wonder is the foundation of the whole of philosophy,” he states. “It is not the beginning of thought in the sense that it might lead on to something better founded, something like philosophical principles, which could be cheerfully manipulated without any ambiguity. Nor does the philosopher begin by wondering, (...) proceed to an examination, and thus rid himself of a tiresome guest. It is not the beginning but the principle, the basic structure. It is not only the beginning but also the end; it guides and accompanies thought. It has not only the first but also the last word” Verhoeven develops his posture-the posture of one who thinks rather than one who merely learns a system-from the starting point of a striking reverence for reality. Wonder is possible only to one who is truly open to what reality is, is ruled by it, and who stands in fascination of the fact that what is there is there. Verhoeven’s approach to authentic thought and philosophy implies a rebellion against prevailing attitudes, against the tyranny of mediocrity that today’s world often imposes. Wonder is a rebellion against certitude and security. Authenticity demands that one remove himself from the tyranny of the revenge, that one slow down in a past-moving world. It demands that one receive reality with reverence and in a mood of contemplation rather than manipulation.The Philosophy of Wonder is neither a textbook nor a do-it-yourself philosophy book with “foundations” and “concepts.” Rather, it is a prod that engenders wonder. Wonder is not a quasi-romantic, wide-eyed passivity; it is an aggressive action, an exciting adventure, an exercise in free fall. Whenever philosophy has become a system, says Verhoeven, it has surrendered its birthright.”- Publisher. (shrink)

Introduction: Wonder and the births of philosophy -- Socrates' small difficulty -- The wound of wonder -- The death and resurrection of Thaumazein -- The Thales dilemma -- Repetition : Martin Heidegger -- Metaphysics small difficulty -- Wonder and the first beginning -- Wonder and the other beginning -- Theaetetus redux : the ghost of the Pseudes Doxa -- Once again to the cave -- Rethinking Thaumazein -- Openness : Emmanuel Levinas -- Passivity and responsibility (...) -- The ethics of the cave -- Infinity and astonishment -- Opening out : from existent to existence -- Closing down : from existence to existent -- Locking up : totality and infinity -- The phantom of the autrement -- Awakening -- Relation : Jean-Luc Nancy -- The problem of Mitsein -- Mitsein as essential inessentiality -- The myth of essentialism -- Unworking -- Interruption -- Repetition -- Decision : Jacques Derrida -- Thaumazein, the irresponsible, and the undecidable -- Hospitality -- Undecidability revisited -- Much madness is divinest sense (or, who comes after the decision?) -- How to avoid the subject (or, that's not my hedgehog!) -- Undecidability, take three : think here of Kierkegaard -- Mysterium tremendum -- Postlude: Possibility. (shrink)

The dissertation considers what is at stake when theoretical wonder ceases to be an originating affect for speculative thought and becomes, instead, a limiting concept for critical philosophy. It attempts to show that: wonder functions for its classical proponents in an entirely different context than that presupposed by the aesthetics of the sublime . This difference can be ascribed to the way in which the feeling of the sublime is operative in the overcoming of modern theodicy , (...) whereas wonder is an intimation of what Edward O. Wilson has recently called, the "consilient perspective" . Whereas, wonder suggests the beginnings of an overarching conceptual unity linking together mind and nature, the sublime, by contrast, is part of an ontology of freedom, in which our subjective capacity to withstand the blows of natural contingency without resorting to conceptual redescription or aesthetic totalization reveals the workings of an underlying "faculty of resistance." The resultant ambivalence of the sublime feeling is elucidated differently by Kant and Schiller, such that the former regards it as the cognitive lucidity resulting from the self-cancellation of the passions, whereas the latter views it as a function of the will, insofar as it suggests a subjective capacity to attend to things differently. Finally, it is suggested that the true source of sublimity in Kant and Schiller is the force of personality to lend unity and meaning to phenomena which would otherwise lack such. (shrink)

This book is the compilation of over fifty years of teaching Metaphysics, Philosophy of the Person, Epistemology, and Ethics, including Virtue Ethics, in the classroom setting. Philosophy Begins in Wonder offers the classroom dynamic on the written page. Here you will find philosophical questions raised, many possible answers provided, guidance in discerning how to evaluate the answers, and encouragement for even greater considerations beyond the scope of this book. Philosophy that begins in wonder is open (...) to proceeding further in a lifetime journey of wonder, avoiding the unnecessary pitfalls of cynicism, pessimism, and despair. This spirit of wonder offers to one a life of amazement, joy, gratitude and, therein, often the unexpected moments of knowledge, understanding, insights, and occasionally wisdom. --- back cover of book. (shrink)

Aristotle asserts that philosophy, which begins in wonder, seeks principles and causes in the world, just as mythology does, but each in a different way. This article argues that Homer analyzes the world according to Vico’s imaginative genera; early Greek philosophy according to natural genera, and philosophers in the strict sense according to rational genera. Thus, Homer’s rainbow is the goddess Iris, which Xenophanes divides into natural object and divinity, and which Aristotle calls principles or causes. In (...) the transition from imaginative to natural genus, wonder is lost because the enchanted world of mythology has become explicable in terms of the five senses. Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical approach seeks to restore wonder without remythologizing the world. Homer’s Oceanus myth is examined, in relation to the testimony of Thales and the fragments of Xenophanes, and as reflected explicitly and implicitly in the works of Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

Wonder Woman and Philosophy: The Amazonian Mystique explores a wide range of philosophical questions surrounding the most popular female superhero of all time, from her creation as feminist propaganda during World War II up to the first female lead in the blockbuster DC movie-franchise. The first book dedicated to the philosophical questions raised by the complex and enduringly iconic super-heroine Fighting fascism with feminism since 1941, considers the power of Wonder Woman as an exploration of gender identity (...) and also that of the human condition – what limits us and what we can overcome Confronts the ambiguities of Wonder Woman, from her roles as a feminist cause and fully empowered woman, to her objectification as sexual fantasy Topics explored include origin stories and identity, propaganda and art, altruism and the ethics of care, Amazonians as transhumanists, eroticism and graphic novels, the crafting of a heroine, domination, relationships, the ethics of killing and torture, and many more. (shrink)

While Heidegger's earlier phenomenological writings inform much contemporary discourse in the continental philosophy of religion, his 1927 essay on ‘Phenomenology and Theology’ offers a largely uncontested distinction between philosophy and theology on the basis of their possibilities as sciences following ontological difference. This paper reconsiders Heidegger's distinction by invoking spirit and wonder, concepts Jacques Derrida and Mary-Jane Rubenstein have more recently emphasized as central to thought that is open to that which ruptures metaphysical schemas. I contend Heidegger's (...) use of ontological difference as a formal distinction between philosophy and theology distances us from the wonder, spirit, and truth (alētheia) that undoes the binaries behind which we take shelter. However, I temper this critique with the recognition that Heidegger, Derrida, and Rubenstein equally recognize an inescapable repetition of metaphysical thinking in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

I argue that the love of wisdom can be recovered by reawakening in humans the genuine sense of wonder, i.e., by recovering the transformed condition in which humans experience philosophical asking as a meaning-bestowing and existentially-transforming phenomenon. Wonder in this sense is primarily a metaphysical and not psychological state, and it is evoked by the transforming phenomenon of philosophical asking. Philosophical asking is not reducible to a something, e.g., a sentence in question-form, that provokes the setting up and (...) critique of theories but rather is essentially a way of existing, a dwelling, that is marked by the astonishment of watching the world, and ourselves, open up and transfigure by our very asking, i.e., by our existing as askers. (shrink)

This brief, accessible introduction shows that philosophy is valuable, practical, and significant for every aspect of Christian life and ministry.

One will never be able to interrogate wonder philosophically except by way of a questioning that the operation of wonder will already have determined. It is a well-known teaching in the writings of both Plato and Aristotle that wonder (thauma) is the beginning of philosophy. But few philosophers have given wonder much thought—certainly, no philosopher that I am aware of has, like Professor Sallis, returned time and again to think through wonder. Sallis’s thinking through (...) wonder is guided by his reading of ancient Greek philosophy, and furthermore, as I hope to show, it opens up a reengagement with Greek philosophers—in particular, with those early Greek thinkers who are known collectively as the .. (shrink)

The thesis of this book is that "wonder is the foundation of the whole of philosophy.... It is not only the beginning but also the end; it guides and accompanies thought. It is not only the first but also the last word." This is because "wonder is man’s attitude in the face of the mystery of things." That is, "in wonder, things are no longer what they were and it can thus be said that they lose (...) their identity.... Only when we decide to think no further do things acquire an apparent identity." Thought and wonder live only in the distance between the trivial identity of things and their infinitely deferred divine identity. Wonder, and therefore philosophy, are threatened on many sides: by a complacency which takes things as simply thus and so, by general education which equips one to converse about many things but gives knowledge of nothing, by haste which rushes by things without noticing them, by systematization and certitude impatient with identity deferred. The study of philosophy as an academic discipline is no guarantee of wonder and can even be its enemy. The author’s intent is to excite wonder, to provide an incitement to philosophy. The ten chapters of the book orchestrate his theme from different starting points and by different paths. The starting points are as different as the symbolism of the noonday sun, Plato’s myths, poetic response to a rose in bloom, and the nature of gift and festivity. The paths are lyrical, etymological, phenomenological. The cumulative effects are not so much clear and distinct ideas as paradoxes. The result is a provocative and often obscure book, which makes considerable demands upon the reader. As such, it hardly seems like the sort of book one would hand to an undergraduate who wanted to know what philosophy is about. Rather, it might better be thought of as a book for people who think they know what philosophy is about, a book which could serve to make one wonder if he does know what philosophy and many other things are and are not.—H. F. (shrink)

This is a book about the aesthetics of wonder, about wonder as it figures in our relation to the visual world and to rare or new experiences.

Genevieve Lloyd illuminates and challenges some perplexing aspects of contemporary attitudes to wonder. She draws especially on Flaubert, who influenced the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. She also reaches into contemporary debates on refugees, secularisation and climate change.

Philosophy begins with wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. Yet Plato and Aristotle did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion or concept is important? What is wonder.

_Synthesizes the most important recent work on wonder and brings a number of disciplines into conversation. _.

In terms of intervening in embodied experience, medical treatment is wonder-full in its ambition and its metaphysical presumption; yet, wonder’s role in clinical medicine has received little philosophical attention. In this paper, I propose, to doctors and others in routine clinical life, the value of an openness to wonder and to the sense of wonder. Key to this is the identity of the central ethical challenges facing most clinicians, which is not the high-tech drama of the (...) popular conceptions of medical ethics but, rather, the routine of patients’ undramatic but unremitting demands for the clinician’s time and respectful attention. Wonder (conceived as an intense and transfiguring attentiveness) is a ubiquitous ethical source, an alternative to the more familiar respect for rational autonomy, a source of renewal galvanizing diagnostic imagination, and a timely recalling of the embodied agency of both patient and clinician. (shrink)

The premise that underlies this volume is that there are strong interconnections between wonder, education and human flourishing. And more specifically, that wonder can make a significant difference to how well one's education progresses and how well one's life goes. The contributors to this volume--both senior, well-known and beginning researchers and students of wonder--variously explore aspects of these connections from philosophical, empirical, theoretical and practical perspectives. The three chapters that comprise Part I of the book are devoted (...) to the importance of wonder for education and for human flourishing. Part II contains four chapters offering conceptual analyses of wonder and perspectives from developmental psychology and philosophy (Spinoza, Wittgenstein, philosophy of religion). The seven chapters that form Part III contain a wealth of ideas and educational strategies to promote wonder in education and teacher education. This volume not only underlines and articulates the importance of wonder in education and in life but also offers fresh perspectives, allowing us to look with renewed wonder at wonder itself--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Curiosity, seen as a motive to do exploration within definite and generally accepted frames, is to be distinguished from wonder, where doubt about the frames themselves is the underlying factor. Granted this distinction, it will be argued that educational institutions need to build on both notions, i.e. wonder as well as curiosity.

The phenomenon of wonder has fascinated scholars for centuries, yet today the subject is understudied and not rooted in any specific academic discipline. Attempts at building a preliminary account of wonder reveals that the experience of wonder is characterised by seven properties: wonder is sudden, extraordinary and personal; intensifies the cognitive focus; intensifies the use of imagination; instigates awareness of ignorance; causes temporary displacement; makes the world newly present; and brings emotional upheaval. Furthermore, wonder can (...) be distinguished from other similar altered states, including awe, horror, the sublime, curiosity, amazement, admiration and astonishment. Human flourishing is a concept in ethics that has enjoyed a revival since Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 article ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. Through the work of Neo-Aristotelian philosophers Douglas Rasmussen, Alasdair McIntyre and Martha Nussbaum who have contributed to the field a working model of human flourishing attentive to human nature was established. As a result of in-depth examination of the contribution of both emotion and imagination in the experience of wonder through a Neo-Aristotelian lens it becomes evident that wonder may contribute to human flourishing via a number of effects, including widening of perception, extension of moral scope or sensitivity and prompting deep wonder, a wondrous afterglow, openness, humility, an imaginative attitude, reverence and gratitude. Importantly, for wonder to act as a strong contributor to human flourishing one needs to wonder at the right thing, in the right amount, in the right time, in the right way and for the right purpose. Cultivating a balanced sense of wonder is thus by no means an easy task but having a critical attitude towards one’s wonderment would aid one to wonder in a virtuous way. (shrink)

Wonder’s significance is a recurrent theme in the history of philosophy. In the Theaetetus, Plato’s Socrates claims that philosophy begins in wonder (thaumazein). Aristotle echoes these sentiments in his Metaphysics; it is wonder and astonishment that first led us to philosophize. Philosophers from the Ancients through Wittgenstein discuss wonder, yet scant recent attention has been given to developing a general systematic account of emotional wonder. I develop an account of emotional wonder and (...) defend its connection with apparent or seeming value. Recently, several philosophers invoke wonder to back non-eudaimonistic value judgments. I introduce methods to incorporate these judgments into a eudaimonistic moral framework. On the analysis presented, wonder requires its object to seem valuable, but whether the object is in fact valuable remains an open question. Wonder enraptures us with objects that might be of true or merely illusory value, grounded either in our own well-being or in non-eudaimonistic value. (shrink)

Wonder is commonly perceived as akin to curiosity, as stimulating inquiry, and as something that enhances pleasure in learning, but there are many experiences of wonder that have a less obvious place in education. In Wonder and Education, Anders Schinkel theorises a kind of wonder which he calls 'contemplative wonder'. Contemplative wonder opens up space for the consideration of (radical) alternatives wherever it occurs, and in many cases is linked with deep experiences of value; (...) therefore, it is not just important for education in general, but also, more specifically, for moral and political education. (shrink)

Structured to introduce the reader into all aspects of the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), this book aims to stimulate further interest into his thought. Once considered the most studious and systematic of all the German philosophers of the twentieth-century, this prolific author has been nearly forgotten. For many years a student and an admirer of Hartmann's work, Cicovacki argues that a closer look into Hartmann's ontologically and axiologically oriented philosophy contains a promise of a vital philosophical orientation, (...) especially with regard to our understanding of the nature, place, and role of humanity in the larger world. "The Analysis of Wonder" - Hartmann's own definition of philosophy - is an invitation to the readers to challenge their preconceived and self-interested notions of reality in order to relearn to appreciate the always changing and conflicting world, in all of its complexity, richness, and sublimity. (shrink)

Wonders and the Order of Nature is about the ways in which European naturalists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonder and wonders, the passion and its objects, to envision themselves and the natural world. Monsters, gems that shone in the dark, petrifying springs, celestial apparitions---these were the marvels that adorned romances, puzzled philosophers, lured collectors, and frightened the devout. Drawing on the histories of art, science, philosophy, and literature, Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park explore (...) and explain how wonder and wonders fortified princely power, rewove the texture of scientific experience, and shaped the sensibility of intellectuals. This is a history of the passions of inquiry, of how wonder sometimes inflamed, sometimes dampened curiosity about nature’s best-kept secrets. Refracted through the prism of wonders, the order of nature splinters into a spectrum of orders, a tour of possible worlds. Frontmatter Preface, page 9 Introduction: At the Limit, page 13 I THE TOPOGRAPHY OF WONDER, page 21 II THE PROPERTIES OF THINGS, page 67 III WONDER AMONG THE PHILOSOPHERS, page 109 IV MARVELOUS PARTICULARS, page 135 V MONSTERS: A CASE STUDY, page 173 VI STRANGE FACTS, page 215 VII WONDERS OF ART, WONDERS OF NATURE, page 255 VIII THE PASSIONS OF INQUIRY, page 303 IX THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE ANTI-MARVELOUS, page 329 Epilogue, page 365 Photo Credits, page 369 Notes, page 373 Bibliography, page 451 Index, page 499. (shrink)

Wonder and value -- The nature and location of value -- Meaning, meaningful work, and spectres of bleakness -- Worthwhile life and meaning -- The argument from value -- Disvalue -- Pantheism -- Morality and value -- Embodiments of value in nature and society -- Creativity and inspiration in art, music, literature, and science -- Fulfilling our purpose.

This paper argues that the concept of primal wonder in P4C, proposed by Thomas E. Jackson, can be seen as a “sprout” or seed of intellectual virtue. My understanding of his insight is inspired by Mengzi’s view of moral cultivation and Aristotle’s eudaimonist account of virtue ethics. According to Mengzi, all humans possess four innate sprouts of virtue, and the aim of moral education is to nurture these moral sprouts so that they can grow up into fully ripened virtues. (...) In terms of P4C, Jackson contends that all of us are born already with a special feeling of wonder which he refers to as “primal wonder”. Synthesizing his statement with Mengzi’s agricultural metaphor of moral sprouts, I shall take one step forward by arguing that the innate sense of wonder within every child can be seen as a sprout of virtue. Additionally, once children’s primal wonder has been transformed into a virtue through implementing P4C in the classroom, this admirable character trait, I suggest, should be understood as an intellectual virtue according to Aristotelian virtue ethics. This is because the virtue of wonder can promote children’s intellectual flourishing, which is fully endorsed by Aristotle’s contention that the happiest kind of life is a philosophical one, and that philosophy begins in wonder. In short, if primal wonder as a sprout of intellectual virtue can lead to the highest good for human beings, then one of the main educational goals of doing philosophy with children, I suggest, is to turn their primal wonder into a virtuous habit so that they can live an examined life. (shrink)

In Making Wonderful, Martin M. Tweedale tells how an ideology arose in the West that energized the economic expansion that has led to ecological disaster. He takes us back to the rise of cities and autocratic rulers, and analyzes how respect for custom and tradition gave way to the dominance of top-down rational planning and organization. Then came a highly attractive myth of an eventual future in which all of humankind's material and spiritual ills would be banished and life "made (...) wonderful." Originating in Zoroastrianism and, through Jewish apocalyptic works, flowing into early Christianity, this belief produced utopian ideologies that set the West apart from the other civilizations of the old world. Tweedale shows how this thinking became popular among Western elites in the early modern period and eventually resulted in the distinctively Western doctrine of progress, an idea that once coupled with a virtually religious faith in the capacity of science and technology to improve human life, released economic expansion from traditional constraints. Exploring sources from philosophy, religion, and the history of ideas, Making Wonderful is for all readers who are intellectually curious about the roots of our eco-catastrophe. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the golden era and proposes an exercise of creativity whereby we imagine Diana, the Amazon, becoming Wonder Woman in order to overthrow Man's World. Through Wonder Woman's story, we can build a feminist epic that depicts women who fight patriarchy. In the novel Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary, Wittig and Zeig describe the Amazons as the warriors thanks to whom we have been able to enter the Golden Age, an age without patriarchy or (...) sex differences. Diana, by becoming Wonder Woman and by fighting against heteropatriarchal injustice, leads the war toward the destruction of this dualistic division. The connection between Amazons and Guerrilleres, between two generations of fighters against patriarchy, aims to inspire our sorority and union in this fight against heteronormative, oppressive structures that affect us all, especially women and other subjects with alternative sexual and gender identities. (shrink)

Anxiety versus fear, wonder versus curiosity are some of the ways in which philosophers have described encounters with nothing. What does it mean to be anxious in the face of nothing in particular, and to wonder at the mere fact that anything exists, rather than nothing? For Kierkegaard anxiety opens freedom, for Heidegger wonder is a distress and for Wittgenstein wonder and anxiety are deeply connected to the ethical.