“Thaumazein” (Θαυμάζειν) is the infinitive of the Greek verb "Thaumazo," (Θαυμάζω) meaning ‘to wonder,’ ‘to be astonished.’ According to Heidegger, wonder and astonishment are the sources of all philosophical speculation: “Thus, astonishment is the disposition in which and for which the Being of being unfolds. Astonishment is the tuning within which the Greek philosophers were granted the correspondence to the Being of being.” (What is Philosophy? 1956). [So ist das Esrtaunen die Dis-position, in der und für die das Sein des Seienden sich öffnet. Das Erstaunen ist die Stimmung, innerhalb derer den griechischen Philosophen das Entsprechen zum Sein des Seienden gewährt war.] “Astonishment carries and pervades philosophy.” Heidegger refers us back to Aristotle: “For through astonishment men have begun to philosophize both in our times and at the beginning.” (Metaphysica A 2, 982 b 12 sq.]. In that vein, my blog is an exposition of various things that have made me wonder, and which have astonished me over the years. I seldom move here beyond the astonishment, leaving the philosophizing for another forum, attempting only to share my wonder with my readers. The presentation is prosaic. Short essays, citations, poems, photographs and videos, are presented without any reference to the wonder and astonishment that lies at their origins.
"The whole point of the flâneur’s wanderings is that he does not know what he cares about. As the German writer Franz Hessel, an occasional collaborator with Walter Benjamin, put it, “in order to engage in flânerie, one must not have anything too definite in mind.” Compared with Facebook’s highly deterministic universe, even Microsoft’s unimaginative slogan from the 1990s — “Where do you want to go today?” — sounds excitingly subversive. Who asks that silly question in the age of Facebook?"
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