Wonder
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Watching the Fish
I've been publishing some short pieces on Medium lately. It's a way of doing some quick writing about things I've taught about for years.
This latest one is about watching fish, and I hope you enjoy it. Here's a sample:
I love fish. And whenever I say that, most people assume I love either eating fish or catching them. But neither of those is what I mean.
What I mean, more than anything, is that I love watching them at home in the places where they live.
You can find the whole article here.
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SPUnK: The Society for the Preservation of Unnecessary Knowledge
My brilliant and curious student James Jennings was interviewed by the brilliant and curious Hugh Weber on South Dakota Public Broadcasting's Dakota Midday.
James is a Philosophy and Classics major at Augustana University, and he's also the Prime Minister of SPUnK, a campus group I advise at Augustana University.
SPUnK - the Society for the Preservation of Unnecessary Knowledge - is devoted to learning about things we don't need to learn about, because we think unnecessary knowledge is worth preserving and promoting. We distinguish between those things students are told they must study in order to get a job, and those things that we study because there is delight in wonder, and in learning new things, even if we don't yet see their practical use. As both Plato's Socrates and Aristotle pointed out, the love of wisdom begins in wonder, and we seek knowledge not for some simple or material gain but for the satisfaction of wonder and out of a desire to know. Here's Aristotle:
This is what SPUnK is all about.
James and Hugh will teach you about paper towns, curiosity, education, Abraham Flexner, Albert Einstein, Rubik's Cubes, and other unnecessary knowledge. It's a short interview, well worth a few minutes of your time. Unnecessary knowledge is worth quite a lot more than a little of our time, after all.
* For two places Plato and Aristotle say this, see Plato's Theaetetus 155b and Aristotle's Metaphysics 982b.)
** Peirce writes about this in the first chapter of Justus Buchler's The Philosophical Writings of Peirce.
James is a Philosophy and Classics major at Augustana University, and he's also the Prime Minister of SPUnK, a campus group I advise at Augustana University.
SPUnK - the Society for the Preservation of Unnecessary Knowledge - is devoted to learning about things we don't need to learn about, because we think unnecessary knowledge is worth preserving and promoting. We distinguish between those things students are told they must study in order to get a job, and those things that we study because there is delight in wonder, and in learning new things, even if we don't yet see their practical use. As both Plato's Socrates and Aristotle pointed out, the love of wisdom begins in wonder, and we seek knowledge not for some simple or material gain but for the satisfaction of wonder and out of a desire to know. Here's Aristotle:
"Now he who wonders and is perplexed feels that he is ignorant (thus the myth-lover is in a sense a philosopher, since myths are composed of wonders); therefore if it was to escape ignorance that men studied philosophy, it is obvious that they pursued science for the sake of knowledge, and not for any practical utility.The actual course of events bears witness to this; for speculation of this kind began with a view to recreation and pastime, at a time when practically all the necessities of life were already supplied. Clearly then it is for no extrinsic advantage that we seek this knowledge; for just as we call a man independent who exists for himself and not for another, so we call this the only independent science, since it alone exists for itself."*Or, as Charles Peirce once put it, science is the practice of those who desire to find things out.**
This is what SPUnK is all about.
James and Hugh will teach you about paper towns, curiosity, education, Abraham Flexner, Albert Einstein, Rubik's Cubes, and other unnecessary knowledge. It's a short interview, well worth a few minutes of your time. Unnecessary knowledge is worth quite a lot more than a little of our time, after all.
*****
* For two places Plato and Aristotle say this, see Plato's Theaetetus 155b and Aristotle's Metaphysics 982b.)
** Peirce writes about this in the first chapter of Justus Buchler's The Philosophical Writings of Peirce.
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Popper On The Gift Of Wonder
“My first thesis is that every philosophy, and especially every philosophical ‘school,’ is liable to degenerate in such a way that its problems become practically indistinguishable from pseudo-problems, and its cant, accordingly, practically indistinguishable from meaningless babble. This, I shall try to show, is a consequence of philosophical inbreeding. The degeneration of philosophical schools in its turn is the consequence of the mistaken belief that one can philosophize without having been compelled to philosophize by problems outside philosophy—in mathematics, for example, or in cosmology, or in politics or in religion, or in social life. In other words my first thesis is this: Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted in urgent problems outside philosophy and they die if these roots decay. In their efforts to solve them, philosophers are liable to pursue what looks like a philosophical method or technique or an unfailing key to philosophical success. But no such methods or techniques exist, in philosophy methods are unimportant, any method is legitimate if it leads to results capable of being rationally discussed. What matters is not methods or techniques but a sensitivity to problems, and a consuming passion for them, or, as the Greeks said, the gift of wonder.”
-- Karl Popper, “The Nature of Philosophical Problems,” in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. (Routledge, 2002) 95. (Boldface emphasis mine.)
-- Karl Popper, “The Nature of Philosophical Problems,” in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. (Routledge, 2002) 95. (Boldface emphasis mine.)
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Look Up!
Just saw this over at Slate and had to post it here. It's a beautiful animation of a full year of the phases of the moon, done by NASA.
If you like that, you might also like something I wrote about looking at the moon a year ago.
Guarda la luna, la bella luna!
If you like that, you might also like something I wrote about looking at the moon a year ago.
Guarda la luna, la bella luna!
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Philosophy Begins in Wonder
Aristotle famously remarked that the love of wisdom - philosophy - begins in wonder. This is correct.
It has since been noted that philosophy aims at the conclusion of wonder. This, unlike the first statement, might not be correct.
So much depends on what we understand the aim of philosophy to be. If we model it on the applied sciences, then its aim is to solve particular problems, in which case it aims to be done with its work. The conclusion of a chain of reasoning becomes its consummation, and the consummation becomes the end.
But if philosophy should also aim to make us scientists as Peirce understood science - he says it is "the pursuit of those who desire to find things out" and something that is carried out in a community, not by an isolated individual - then it aims not just at solving problems but at introducing us to the world.
Bugbee points out (Inward Morning, August 31 entry) that in wonder, "reality has begun to sink into us." Think about it: when you really wonder at something, isn't it because of a disclosure? Wonder may seem to concern what is hidden, but the beginning of wonder is also the beginning of an opening, when the world opens to us. If it were not so, we would not even know to wonder.
Philosophy teaches us - or ought to teach us - to open ourselves in return. This opening of ourselves is not the conclusion of wonder but the development of the habit of wonder. I don't mean the slack-jawed laziness that poses as wonder and pretends that all things are wonderful while being open to none of them, but, as Bugbee puts it, a commitment to being in the wilderness and the patience to let ourselves be "overtaken...by that which can make us at home in this condition."
It has since been noted that philosophy aims at the conclusion of wonder. This, unlike the first statement, might not be correct.
So much depends on what we understand the aim of philosophy to be. If we model it on the applied sciences, then its aim is to solve particular problems, in which case it aims to be done with its work. The conclusion of a chain of reasoning becomes its consummation, and the consummation becomes the end.
But if philosophy should also aim to make us scientists as Peirce understood science - he says it is "the pursuit of those who desire to find things out" and something that is carried out in a community, not by an isolated individual - then it aims not just at solving problems but at introducing us to the world.
Bugbee points out (Inward Morning, August 31 entry) that in wonder, "reality has begun to sink into us." Think about it: when you really wonder at something, isn't it because of a disclosure? Wonder may seem to concern what is hidden, but the beginning of wonder is also the beginning of an opening, when the world opens to us. If it were not so, we would not even know to wonder.
Philosophy teaches us - or ought to teach us - to open ourselves in return. This opening of ourselves is not the conclusion of wonder but the development of the habit of wonder. I don't mean the slack-jawed laziness that poses as wonder and pretends that all things are wonderful while being open to none of them, but, as Bugbee puts it, a commitment to being in the wilderness and the patience to let ourselves be "overtaken...by that which can make us at home in this condition."