Wonder as the Origin of Philosophy

“(1) It begins with surprise, shock. Little kids do it all the time; everything surprises them because they have no ruts yet. (2) Then it becomes intellectual; emotional wonder turns into intellectual wonder. We want to explain these surprises, like uncles and oranges and spiders and tubas. We naturally want to know why. It's a little kid's favorite word. We want to know everything there is to know about everything there is (to paraphrase Lonergan). (3) Finally, the deepest wonder, the fruit of the other two, is appreciation, contemplation: something very close to love. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all say 'philosophy begins in wonder.' If the thing done today by scholarly cyborgs doesn't, then it's not philosophy. It may be worthwhile to do. So is bookbinding, and computer repair, and news reporting; it's just a different thing. When you wonder, you get all still inside, not wordy. Words that come from wonder come from silence. They have heft, and weight. Words that come from other words are just more members of the chain gang. If that's no longer fashionable, so what? Chesterton says that whoever marries the spirit of the times must soon become a widower.”
~Peter Kreeft