Submitted by Catchabula on Wed, 24/09/2008 - 18:30.
Catchabula
Posts: 25
On the Art of Wondering
(Another excerpt from the Kyronian Dialogues)
Catchabula:
(...) I meant Wilco's explanation of his favourite motto "The Art of Wondering makes life worth living", as can be found on the homepage of the HCS. It's a nice text and a beautiful philosophy although it's not completely original; it was Aristotle who first said that Wondering is of great value as the origin of philosophy. Now I'm not a native english-speaker but I feel some ambiguity in the word "Wondering", and perhaps you could tell me whether I'm right or not. "Wondering" has to do with astonishment, amazement, fascination, so with emotions, but it also means asking yourself all kinds of questions, which is essentially intellectual by nature. Maybe the etymology of the word could be of help here; it must be germanic by origin, as "Wonderful things" are "Thaumata" in greek and "Mirabilia" in latin, and as such have been used in the title of many a fantastic book throughout the ages (...). Talking about Wonder, this also reminds me of the motto of the famous mathematician Simon Stevin, well known for his work on decimal fractions. It's strangely related with Wilco's motto and perhaps I should discuss it with him once: "Wonder en is geen wonder", "Wonder is no wonder at all". This states that natural explanations are possible for all seemingly supernatural phenomena, something that is obvious for modern-day scientists but not yet in the 17th century. In Stevin's motto the word "Wonder(ful)" is related with "miraculous" and in the word "miracle" one can easily see the latin verb "mirari" again, that means to wonder as well as to admire (so according to the latin dictionary several meanings are already present in this word). All this to show how words have their own history and ambiguity and how their different shades of significance can express and induce various ways of thinking. As we stated before, exploring the semantic field of a word can lead to surprising results. Exploring and even forging words was a patented method of several philosophers, Heidegger for example (...)
Kyros:
Yes you're right about the meaning of the word 'wonder', though it doesn't seem ambiguous to me. Wonder is both a noun and a verb, the noun meaning the astonishment/amazement while the verb means something like questioning yourself. 'Wondering' is a verb because of the -ing (which makes it a present progressive verb), so it has the latter meaning.
Catchabula:
So that's how it feels to someone who was born and raised in english, and that's what I was asking about. Although I don't think we're talking about mere synonyms here. I still feel that "Wondering" is one word with different faces, like the head of the roman god Janus. These two sides of meaning seem clearly different to me and the same word has to do with two wholly different concepts. I feel one can be amazed without asking himself questions and one can ask himself questions for other reasons than being amazed. Although there surely is a connection this relationship is still unclear and so is Wilco's intention for using this word (probably he consciously plays on its ambiguity, one of the few non-scientific moments he allows himself). But my point was that the analysis of words and their significance has value for thinking, and not only to avoid ambiguity but also for creative and explorative purposes. Many words have several meanings, even the word "thinking" itself, ranging from "supposing something" to "a cognitive process characterised by aim and method", and yet there is some connection between these aspects. We were wondering about wondering and that was thinking about thinking. And we were thinking about wondering and that was wondering about thinking. Also words are Wonderful. Again that inextricable -if not inexplicable- relation between words and thoughts (...)
Catchabula
Posts: 25
On the Art of Wondering
(Another excerpt from the Kyronian Dialogues)
Catchabula:
(...) I meant Wilco's explanation of his favourite motto "The Art of Wondering makes life worth living", as can be found on the homepage of the HCS. It's a nice text and a beautiful philosophy although it's not completely original; it was Aristotle who first said that Wondering is of great value as the origin of philosophy. Now I'm not a native english-speaker but I feel some ambiguity in the word "Wondering", and perhaps you could tell me whether I'm right or not. "Wondering" has to do with astonishment, amazement, fascination, so with emotions, but it also means asking yourself all kinds of questions, which is essentially intellectual by nature. Maybe the etymology of the word could be of help here; it must be germanic by origin, as "Wonderful things" are "Thaumata" in greek and "Mirabilia" in latin, and as such have been used in the title of many a fantastic book throughout the ages (...). Talking about Wonder, this also reminds me of the motto of the famous mathematician Simon Stevin, well known for his work on decimal fractions. It's strangely related with Wilco's motto and perhaps I should discuss it with him once: "Wonder en is geen wonder", "Wonder is no wonder at all". This states that natural explanations are possible for all seemingly supernatural phenomena, something that is obvious for modern-day scientists but not yet in the 17th century. In Stevin's motto the word "Wonder(ful)" is related with "miraculous" and in the word "miracle" one can easily see the latin verb "mirari" again, that means to wonder as well as to admire (so according to the latin dictionary several meanings are already present in this word). All this to show how words have their own history and ambiguity and how their different shades of significance can express and induce various ways of thinking. As we stated before, exploring the semantic field of a word can lead to surprising results. Exploring and even forging words was a patented method of several philosophers, Heidegger for example (...)
Kyros:
Yes you're right about the meaning of the word 'wonder', though it doesn't seem ambiguous to me. Wonder is both a noun and a verb, the noun meaning the astonishment/amazement while the verb means something like questioning yourself. 'Wondering' is a verb because of the -ing (which makes it a present progressive verb), so it has the latter meaning.
Catchabula:
So that's how it feels to someone who was born and raised in english, and that's what I was asking about. Although I don't think we're talking about mere synonyms here. I still feel that "Wondering" is one word with different faces, like the head of the roman god Janus. These two sides of meaning seem clearly different to me and the same word has to do with two wholly different concepts. I feel one can be amazed without asking himself questions and one can ask himself questions for other reasons than being amazed. Although there surely is a connection this relationship is still unclear and so is Wilco's intention for using this word (probably he consciously plays on its ambiguity, one of the few non-scientific moments he allows himself). But my point was that the analysis of words and their significance has value for thinking, and not only to avoid ambiguity but also for creative and explorative purposes. Many words have several meanings, even the word "thinking" itself, ranging from "supposing something" to "a cognitive process characterised by aim and method", and yet there is some connection between these aspects. We were wondering about wondering and that was thinking about thinking. And we were thinking about wondering and that was wondering about thinking. Also words are Wonderful. Again that inextricable -if not inexplicable- relation between words and thoughts (...)