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Transcript of Wondering and Wandering
On Wandering and Wondering: "Theôria" in Greek Philosophy and CultureAuthor(s): Andrea Wilson NightingaleSource: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall, 2001), pp. 23-58Published by: Trustees of Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163840Accessed: 19/07/2009 22:36
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On Wandering and Wondering: Theoria in Greek Philosophy and Culture
ANDREA WILSON NIGHTINGALE
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry its
progress, ignorance its end. I'll go further: There is a
certain strong and generous ignorance that concedes
nothing to knowledge in honor and courage, an igno rance that requires no less knowledge to conceive it
than does knowledge.
?Montaigne
Ahe Greek thinkers of the fourth century bce
were the first to call themselves philosophers, the first to de
fine philosophy as a specialized discipline and a unique cul
tural practice. In addition to developing ideas and arguments,
fourth-century philosophers had to stake out the boundaries
of their discipline. Plato, Aristotle, and other fourth-century thinkers all matched themselves against traditional wise men
even as they developed different conceptions of philosophy in competition with one another. The fourth-century debate
over the true nature of philosophy was lively and con
tentious. This foundational debate generated, among other
things, an extraordinary claim: that the highest form of wis
dom is theoria, an intellectual activity that is neither practi cal nor productive nor political.1 The Greek word theoria
means, in its most literal sense, "witnessing a spectacle." The philosophic theorist gazes with the "eye of the soul"
upon divine and eternal verities. In its most extreme form, which is articulated by Aristotle, theoria is hailed as a con
templative activity that is completely "useless" (achr?ston) in the world of human affairs. I want to examine the emer
gence in the fourth century of the conception of the philoso
pher as a "spectator"?an idea that has had a profound
24 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
impact on Western thinking. How did the Greek philoso
phers articulate and defend this novel form of knowing? What is at stake, philosophically and politically, in identify
ing the philosopher as a disinterested spectator, detached
from the exigencies of the physical and social world?
Most twentieth-century thinkers, of course, view Greek
metaphysical philosophy with suspicion if not scorn. The
conception of knowledge as theoria is, for some, a cowardly
flight from the world of action and, for others, a pernicious
power-grab posing as disinterested speculation. There can be
little doubt that we "see" differently from the ancients. Let
us grant that Platonic and Aristotelian contemplation was
blind in certain ways; the philosophic contemplative turns
his back, at least for a time, on the physical and social world
to discover metaphysical "truths." But modern and post modern insight has its own blindnesses, its refusals to see.
Thinkers such as Nietzsche and Derrida, in fact, explicitly assert that humans come equipped with "blind spots." Our
vision, they suggest, is not only limited and perspectival but
positively distorted by the operations of desire, the will to
power, the tyrannies of ideology, and the vagaries of lan
guage. One quite prevalent modern mode of "seeing" that
separates us from?and, to some extent, blinds us to?the
Greek philosophers is what we might call "looking with sus
picion." For ancient theoria was rooted in a radically differ
ent orientation to the world: theoria involved "looking with
wonder," an activity in which reason works in conjunction with reverence.
i.
A brief look at Greek conceptions of wisdom in the sixth and
fifth century bce will set the stage for this discussion. In this
period, "wise men" came in many forms: poets, prophets,
doctors, statesmen, scientists, and various kinds of intellec
tuals. None of these men called themselves "philosophers," nor did others refer to them in this way. In fact, the words
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 25
"pbilosophi?" and "philosophein" were very rarely used un
til the fourth century bce and, when they were used, signi fied "intellectual cultivation" in the broadest sense. It was
the title of "sophos" that was coveted and contested in this
period: the early thinkers wanted to be ranked among the
wise. Although different kinds of wise men were clearly seen
to be practicing distinct activities, there was nonetheless a
generalized competition among the different groups for the
title of "wise man."
Consider, for example, Tha?es, a sixth-century sage who
was identified as the first "philosopher" by fourth-century
philosophers. Pre-Platonic sources tell us that Tha?es pre dicted an eclipse; that he engineered the diversion of a river
during a military expedition; that he was a political leader
who fought to create a confederation of Ionian city-states in
a period of war.2 The later tradition reports that Tha?es res
cued his own citizens of Miletus by preventing them from
forming an alliance with the king of Lydia. Finally, we are
told that Tha?es, foreseeing that it would be a good season
for olives, rented all the oil-presses in the region and ob
tained a monopoly on the proceeds.3 These stories portray a
man of many skills. Alongside his astronomical expertise, Tha?es demonstrates a good deal of practical wisdom: di
verting a river, directing political affairs, and exhibiting a
keen understanding of agriculture and commerce.
It comes as a great surprise, then, when fourth-century
philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Heraclides of Pon
tus represent Tha?es as the prototypical contemplative. In
Plato's Theaetetus, for example, Socrates says that Tha?es
fell into a well when he was contemplating the stars; he was
then mocked by a maidservant for being so eager to look at
the sky that he did not see what lay at his feet. As Socrates
goes on to say, this is the lot of all philosophers, since they are focused primarily on the contemplation of higher truths.
In a similar vein, Heraclides of Pontus (a member of Plato's
Academy) wrote a dialogue in which Tha?es claims that he
always lived in solitude as a private individual and kept
26 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
aloof from state affairs.4 Finally, Aristotle tells us that Tha?es
possessed a wisdom that was "rare, marvellous, difficult, and superhuman"?a wisdom that was, importantly, "use
less" (achr?ston), since it does not deal with "things that are
good for human beings."5 For Aristotle, Thaies was the first
known philosopher because he claimed that the world origi nated from water; his other skills and activities, we infer, were irrelevant. How, then, do we get from the practical, po
litical, and polymathic Tha?es to an otherworldly contem
plative?from a performer of wisdom in the social and
political arena to a detached spectator of truth?
Let us briefly consider the archaic sages and the culture in
which they lived. How did a sage achieve celebrity in this pe riod? As the Hellenist Richard Martin has shown, what dis
tinguished these individuals was their extraordinary
"performance of wisdom."6 The sages "performed" their
wisdom in different ways?by efficacious actions, by wise
discourses, or by a combination of action and discourse. The
word "perform" is not used here in the sense of play-acting or pretending; rather, it signifies the displaying or enacting of wisdom in any public context. We must remember that, in
this period, there were no schools of higher learning confer
ring authority or credentials. In addition, the vast majority of Greeks were not even literate, since the technology of
writing was only just beginning to take hold in this era. In
the absence of schools and written texts, an individual had
to perform or demonstrate his expertise to the greater public if he was to earn the title of "sophos." He had to bring some
extraordinary discourse or action into the public view.
There is considerable evidence that (in addition to the
sages) the early thinkers who later came to be called "pre Socratic philosophers" were able performers of practical and
political wisdom.7 For example, the Ionian thinkers, who
are most famous for their speculations on the nature of the
cosmos, were seriously engaged with practical problems of
meteorology (Tha?es) and geography (Anaximander was the
first in the Greek tradition to create a map of the "earth").
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 27
Pythagoras was part religious guru, part mathematician,
part politician. Parmenides is said to have served as a law
maker in his city.8 In Empedocles, we find not only a natural
philosopher but a religious thinker, orator, and physician. Melissos served as a general for his city of Samos, one of the
most powerful islands in the Athenian league, and even
fought a sea battle against Pericles in 441/0.9 Democritus,
who is now identified almost solely with the theory of atom
ism, was a political leader who had a coin stamped with his
name; he also wrote treatises on medicine, anthropology, and geography, as well as on ethical and political topics. As
Paul Cartledge asks, "Who are we to say whether Democri
tus might not himself have seen his 'scientific' work as fun
damental but yet subordinated ultimately to an overarching and overriding ethical-political project rather than as an in
dependent end and goal in itself?"10 The same question could be posed of other "pre-Socratic" thinkers. Indeed, in
the Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, which was published in 1999, a number of scholars attempt to analyze these thinkers not merely as the creators of the
abstract ideas of "philosophy" but as engaging in therapeu
tic, salvific, theological, and poetic projects akin to those of
many non-philosophical "wise men" of their day.11
Many of the so-called "sophists," too, were important po litical players as well as performers of rhetorical and techni
cal expertise. Some of the sophists even performed political discourses at Olympic festivals and other panhellenic gather
ings. Hippias, for example, performed at an Olympian festi
val with a costume and accoutrements that he had made all
by himself: a ring, oil flask, wax seal, strigil, shoes, cloak, tu
nic, and belt.12 This reminds us that the sophists did not
confine themselves to the higher or "liberal" arts but dis
played a wide variety of manual and technical skills that had
clear practical benefits.13 Finally, there is evidence that the
scientists who were experts in medical theory (the "Hippo cratic" writers) put on their fanciest clothes and set up shop in public places to perform, before an audience of passers
28 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
by, surgical operations and procedures as well as rhetorical
discourses on medical topics. *4 It is difficult to overstate the
pervasiveness of performative activities in the public spaces of ancient Athens (e.g., in the theaters, assemblies, courtrooms,
gymnasia, festivals, religious sanctuaries, and especially the
agora)?the antics of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley come to
mind.
Where, then, does the notion of knowledge as a form of
vision or seeing?as spectating rather than performing? come from? It is a commonplace to say that one of the Greek
words for "knowing" (oida) is the perfect tense of the verb
"to see" (horan). But the fact that a Greek person said?as
we do in English?"I see" to signify "I understand" or
"know" tells us very little, since this was an incredibly com
mon word that had no technical or philosophical associa
tions. In fact, in the early Greek thinkers who were later
called "philosophers," there is little if any evidence that
knowledge takes the form of "seeing" truth. When the pos session or acquisition of knowledge is described by pre-Pla tonic thinkers (which is rather rare), it generally involves
hearing or learning a divine or superhuman logos. The em
phasis is on discourse and hearing rather than spectating or
seeing.15
Consider, for example, Parmenides' famous poem, which
opens with an account of the poet's journey along the "re
sounding road of the goddess." The poet is escorted by the
maiden daughters of the sun, who lead him "into the light."
They then come to the "ethereal gates" at the "threshhold of
day and night," and a goddess opens the doors. At this
point, the reader is expecting nothing less than a revelation.
The movement "into the light" as well as the opening of the
divine doors lead us to expect that the poet will finally see
the truth unveiled. In fact, he encounters a goddess who says to him: "welcome . . . you must learn all things" (frag. i).
There is no description of the appearance of the goddess
and, indeed, no visual detail at all. What the poet encounters
when he crosses the threshold is a goddess who takes voice.
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 29
"Come now, and I will tell you," she says, "and, when you
have heard me (akousas), carry my account away" (frag. 2).
Contrast the famous journey in Plato's Allegory of the Cave
(Republic 7), written over a century later. In Plato, the
philosopher moves out of the darkness of the cave and into
the light, where he sees with the "eye of his soul" the beings in the metaphysical realm of the Forms. In Parmenides, by
contrast, the truth is revealed by the language of a goddess who plays the role of muse. There is no "vision" of truth in
this or other philosophical texts of the early period.
2.
In the pre-Platonic thinkers, truth is something that is heard
or spoken, not something that is seen. The philosophers who
developed the "spectator theory of knowledge" in the fourth
century were thus engaging in a novel enterprise which
needed to be defined and defended. In the effort to both con
ceptualize and legitimize this new intellectual practice, these
philosophers invoked a specific civic institution that the an
cients called "theoria.''' Theoria is generally defined as a
journey or pilgrimage to a destination away from one's own
city undertaken for the purpose of seeing as an eye-witness certain events and spectacles.16
In the classical period, theoria came in three different vari
eties. The first two involved pilgrimages to religious oracles
or festivals and, in the third, the theoros travelled abroad as
a researcher or tourist: all three involved a detachment from
one's homeland, an act of seeing or spectating, and (in many
cases) some sort of transformation of the viewer.
In the first and most traditional sense, a theoria was a civic
embassy sent to an oracular center, generally for the pur
poses of consulting the oracle. The ambassador?called the
theoros?was an official envoy whose role was to journey to
the shrine, perform specific sacrifices and rituals, consult the
oracle, and bear witness to the events or activities that tran
spired there. He was then required to return to his native
30 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
city and give a complete and honest account of what he had
witnessed and heard. The theoros is thus charged with the
task of communicating to the city what the god has unveiled
to him. The theoros, then, is carrying out a transaction with
divine as well with human beings: this is a mission that must
be done with religious correctness.
A second form of theoria was an embassy of men sent by a city to witness a religious festival. The Olympian, Pythian,
Nemean, and Isthmian festivals drew theoroi from all over
Greece, and they provided occasions for different Greek
cities to interact with one another. Other big festivals such as
the Panathenaia and Civic Dionysia in Athens also drew in
ternational audiences. The the?roi who were sent to these
festivals were, in most cases, elite and aristocratic men who
were important political players in their cities: these men
were representing their city to other Greeks and were ex
pected to make a good showing. The members of this kind
of theoria were also required to return home and give a full
account of what they had witnessed and learned.
Theoria, then, was a cultural practice that brought Greeks
from different cities and ideologies into contact with one an
other in shared religious sanctuaries. This practice had a po
litical as well as a religious dimension. In investigating the
political and ideological valence of the gatherings at reli
gious shrines and festivals, one must look beyond the local
politics of an individual city such as Athens. Most of our ev
idence comes from Athens, however, and thus Athenian fes
tivals provide important data for the study of theoria. In
recent work on the Panathenaia and the Civic Dionysia, scholars have examined the ways that these festivals "repre sent the city to the citizens"; the spectators are generally viewed as "Athenian citizens gazing at their own polis and
its practices." This exclusive focus on the "democratic gaze" of the Athenian citizens?on the local theat?s (spectator) rather than the foreign theoros?has almost completely
eclipsed (what we might call) the "th?orie gazes" of the for
eign visitors. Yet there is abundant evidence that large num
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 31
bers of foreign the?roi attended the big festivals in Athens.
The Athenians were well aware that people from different
cities were attending their festivals and viewing the specta cles and events from different ideological perspectives.*7 In
order to understand the big Athenian festivals as "th?orie
events," then, one must move beyond the Athenocentric ap
proach taken by many recent scholars and focus on the
multi- or panhellenic nature of these events.
Since the major shrines, festivals, and oracular centers at
tracted people from cities all over Greece, they brought dis
parate peoples and ideologies into contact. As Rutherford
has argued,
an underlying reason for going to a panhellenic sanctuary was to
assert the voice of one's own polis in the panhellenic community,
and hence to gain recognition and prestige throughout the Greek
world. The panhellenic significance of the great sanctuaries is so
central that we should think of the underlying structure of much
Greek pilgrimage as a symbolic movement not so much from 'sec
ular space' to 'sacred space,' but rather from 'local space' to 'pan
hellenic space.'18
Rutherford is right to place the emphasis on "panhellenic
space": this is one of the defining features of the th?orie
event. But Rutherford is too hasty in dismissing "sacred
space": after all, it is Greek religion and its "spaces" that
provides the institutional and ideological grounding for pan hellenic gatherings. It is precisely the confluence of religion and politics which made the?ria a unique cultural practice and which invested it with such authority and legitimacy.
In the third kind of the?ria, the theoros makes a journey to foreign lands for the purpose of seeing the world. Here, the theoros is a man who travels abroad seeking knowledge and edification. This kind of the?ria differs from the other
two in that it can be completely secular, i.e., is not necessar
ily directed towards a sacred space or religious event.
Herodotus provides several examples of this kind of theoria:
32 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
i) Solon, who went abroad for ten years after making laws
for the Athenians (1.30); 2) the Scythian sage Anacharsis, whose the?ria took him on a long journey through Greece.
In one passage, Herodotus tells us that Anacharsis "was sent
to Greece by the king of Scythia to become a student of
Greek ways" and later returned home with a report about
the wisdom of different Greek peoples (4.77). Here, the sage was sent on an official "th?orie" mission by the king and
was expected to return home with a full report. Herodotus
also tells another story about Anacharsis' the?ria: on his
way home, Anacharsis put in at Cyzicus, where he attended
a foreign festival for the Mother of the Gods. In this case, his
subsequent re-entry into Scythia proved fatal since, after he
returned, he was caught performing the rituals for the for
eign goddess and immediately put to death. Clearly, Anacharsis appeared to his fellow Scythians to have been
corrupted by his foreign travels. This illustrates the danger of the?ria, especially when the theoros returns with ideas
and customs that are alien and unwelcome to the people back home.
It should be emphasized that all three kinds of the?ria can
be conducted privately, as well as in the civic context outlined
above. For a person can seek an oracular consultation, attend
a religious festival, or travel abroad in a private capacity. In
these cases, the individual theoros would not have been ap
pointed or funded by the state, nor would he be required to
return home with an official report of what he had witnessed.
Private the?ria and civic the?ria, then, differ in important
ways. For the civic theoros, unlike the private theoros, pro vides a direct link between the th?orie spectacle and his own
city and its affairs. In civic the?ria, the return home with the
official report is no less important than the journey abroad.
In fact, the return of the civic theoros to his city was viewed
as a critical event, since at this time an important news report was broadcast in the community. It was always possible for a
theoros to exploit the situation by imparting false informa
tion; and, if he brought bad news, he was liable to blame and
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 33
even punishment. Since private the?ria did not include this
public and official report, it occupies a distinct category. To sum up, the defining feature of the?ria in its traditional
forms is a journey to a region outside the boundaries of
one's own city for the purpose of seeing a spectacle or wit
nessing another kind of object or event. This activity em
phasizes "autopsy" or seeing something for oneself: the
theoros is an eyewitness whose experience is radically differ
ent from those who stay home and receive a mere report of
the news. The activity of the?ria also emphasizes an en
counter with something foreign and different. This en
counter with the unfamiliar invites the traveller to look at
the customs and practices of his own city from a new van
tage point. The journey abroad may end up confirming the
theorist in his own perspectives and prejudices, but it may also function to unsettle him and even to transform his basic
worldview. In the case of the first two kinds of the?ria?i.e.,
journeys to a religious festival or oracular center?the the
oros not only encounters foreign peoples and places but also
interacts with the god who presides over a given festival or
shrine (by participating in the sacrifices, prayers, and ritu
als). Here, the theoros encounters the ultimate and most dis
tant "other," a divine being. Though he does not literally "see" this being, he does look at sacred images and symbols of the divinity and, by way of ritual, enters into a relation
ship with a god.
3.
The fourth-century philosophers were the first to claim that
true wisdom takes the form of the?ria. As I will argue, these
philosophers defined and articulated this new conception of
knowledge by reference to the traditional forms of the?ria
that I have just outlined. By aligning themselves with a ven
erable and authoritative cultural practice, they were able to
introduce, define, and legitimize "theoretical" philosophy and its associated disciplines and activities. This appropria
34 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
tion and transformation of civic the?ria first emerges in
Plato's middle dialogues?the dialogues in which he begins to set forth his metaphysical system. The dialogues of the
early period make no mention of the?ria: they depict a
philosopher who focuses almost exclusively on ethical and
political questions and claims to possess no true knowledge or system. Socrates in the early dialogues is a consummate
performer of wisdom who is firmly embedded in his native
city of Athens.
In the dialogues of the middle period, Plato introduces a
new kind of philosopher, a sage whose ultimate goal is to de
tach from the human and terrestrial world and to "see be
ing." In the Symposium, for example, we are told that, as he
was walking to a drinking party, Socrates wandered off to a
stranger's porch to enjoy a period of silent contemplation and that, in the midst of a military campaign, he stood up all
night long "inspecting" a philosophical problem.^ Here, Socrates plays a novel role?that of a contemplative philoso
pher, lost to the world as he labors in thought. We find no
trace of this kind of activity in the early dialogues. Plato, of
course, has not given up on politics or praxis, but he has cre
ated a philosopher who journeys to a higher world in search
of true reality. The Republic contains Plato's fullest explication of philo
sophic the?ria. This dialogue begins with Socrates' descrip tion of his trip to the Peiraeus as a theoros at the festival for
the Thracian goddess Bendis (327a-b). As Socrates says in
the opening lines:
I went down yesterday with Glaucon to the Peiraeus, in order to of
fer my prayers to the goddess [Bendis] and also because I wanted to
see how they would conduct the festival, since this was the first
time they celebrated it. I thought that the procession of the citizens
was quite fine, but the procession sent by the Thracians was no less
fine. After we had offered our prayers and theorized the spectacle
(th?orisantes) we began to head back to the city. (327a)
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 35
Here, Socrates describes his the?ria at the festival of Bendis, a Thracian goddess whose worship had just been instituted
in Attica.20 The port city of Peiraeus probably attracted theoroi
from many different places; Socrates explicitly mentions a
procession "sent" by the Thracians (no doubt because Ben
dis was a Thracian goddess), thus reminding us that the fes
tival had international spectators and participants. Indeed
the fact that this was the first celebration in Attica of a Thra
cian festival gives it a peculiar status as both Athenian and
foreign: for while Athens was of course officially instituting and sponsoring the festival, the Thracians played a key role
in "introducing" it and participating in its rituals. The festi
val, then, is not simply a local Athenian gathering but a true
"th?orie event."
There is also a the?ria at the very end of the Republic, for
the famous "myth of Er" is depicted as a journey to a reli
gious festival. In this eschatological tale, a man named Er
plays the role of an official theoros. He is said to have been
slain in battle and taken for dead, but when he was brought home and placed on the funeral pyre he woke up and related
to his own people the spectacle that he had seen on his visit
to the land of judgment. Socrates places great emphasis on
Er's journey and its destination: "Er said that when his soul
departed he journeyed with a great many people, and they came to some sort of divine region" (614D-C). Er, then,
makes a pilgrimage with other souls to a foreign and divine
place?the region where the souls are judged after death. As
Er relates, there he saw the souls coming down from heaven
and those coming up from hell after a period of 1,000 years; these souls "appeared to have come from a long journey and
happily went to the meadow to camp there as at a festival"
(6i4d-e). The gathering that Er witnesses, in short, is de
scribed as a panegyris or religious festival which has drawn
flocks of visitors from distant regions (panegyris is the stan
dard term for a panhellenic festival). The judges explain to Er
that "he must be the messenger to mankind to tell them of
the things here," and they bid him "to hear and to see every
36 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
thing in this region" (614a). Er, then, is given the official task
of witnessing the "sights and sounds" in this region. And he
is also required to bring this information back to the human
world, thus performing the duties of the civic theoros.
The?ria, then, is featured at the very beginning and the
very end of the Republic. This is clearly a deliberate strategy
designed to emphasize the importance of this cultural prac tice. As we will see, the?ria also plays a prominent role in
the central books of the dialogue, offering a direct model for
the philosopher's journey to the metaphysical region of the
Forms and his return "home" with a report from this region. In books 5-7 of the Republic, Socrates sets forth a detailed
description and definition of the "philosopher"; from the
very beginning of this description, Socrates identifies the
philosopher as a new kind of theoros. In book 5, Socrates
uses the example of individuals called "lovers of spectacles"
(philotheamones) to help illustrate the notion of the love of
wisdom (475d). Who and what are "lovers of spectacles"? Socrates describes them as people who "run around to all
the Dionysian festivals, never leaving a single one out, either
in the towns or in the cities" (475d). The lovers of specta
cles, then, are clearly defined as the?roi who journey abroad
to religious festivals to witness the events there. Socrates
now draws an analogy between these the?roi and the new
man called the "philosopher." Like the "lover of spectacles," the philosopher loves spectating. But the philosopher is a
"lover of the spectacle of truth" (philotheam?n tes al?theias,
475e). Whereas the "lovers of spectacles" go to festivals to
enjoy beautiful dramas and rituals, the philosopher "goes and beholds beauty itself" (476D-C). The philosopher, then, is a new kind of the?ros: a man who travels to the meta
physical realm to see the sacred sights in that region. The
goal of philosophy, as Socrates claims, is to engage in the
"the?ria o? all being" U86d). Plato depicts the philosophic journey towards the seeing
of being throughout books 6 and 7. There are many refer
ences to vision and seeing throughout these books, but the
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 37
most memorable are in the Allegory of the Cave. This story is about a journey from blindness to seeing, from darkness
to light. The narrative begins, of course, in a dark cavern,
which houses all human souls in the terrestrial realm; living in chains, these souls are condemned to watch shadowy im
ages of earthly things flickering on the back wall of the cave.
The philosophic soul is released from bondage and slowly makes his way out of the cave and into the metaphysical "realm" of the Forms (note that the Forms are regularly identified as ousia or "true being"). When the philosophic theoros enters this radiant realm, he is temporarily blinded
by the light in that region. In time, however, he is able to
look at the Forms with the eye of his soul and to contem
plate the Form of the Good. After gazing upon the Forms
and thus achieving knowledge, he goes with reluctance back
into the darkness of the cave. His eyes eventually adjust to
the darkness there, and he becomes able to see in that realm
better than the prisoners within it. If the philosopher returns
to a bad city and communicates his visions to the people
there, Socrates says, he will be mocked and reviled and pos
sibly even put to death: the return and re-entry of the philo
sophic theoros from the foreign realm of the Forms is thus
potentially dangerous. But if the philosopher lives in a good
city, the vision he brings back will provide the basis for gov ernment and politics.
In the Republic, in sum, Plato identifies the philosopher as
a new kind of theoros, an intellectual ambassador who
brings back a vision of a divine spectacle to those back at
home. Plato in fact calls the philosopher's vision of the
Forms a "divine the?ria" (5i7d). And he compares the
movement of the philosophic theoros towards the Forms to
the journey "from Hades to the gods" (521c). In Plato's mid
dle dialogues, the Forms are regularly designated as
"blessed" and "divine" essences, even though they are not
living beings. Thus to gaze upon the Forms is to see divine
being, an act that is replete with wonder and reverence. Like
the civic the?ria which took the form of a journey to a sa
38 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
cred shrine or precinct, philosophic the?ria has a religious orientation. It is for this reason that Plato takes as his pri
mary model the second kind of the?ria?where the theoros
makes a pilgrimage to a religious festival?rather than the
third kind of the?ria?where the theoros simply goes abroad
to see the world. Although the latter is associated with the
travels and researches of the sages, it is a secular form of
the?ria which focuses on the human and terrestrial world.
Plato is introducing a new sort of sage, one who must jour
ney to see "the most blessed of beings" (526e). He thus com
pares the philosopher to the theoros who journeys to a
sacred precinct to see the spectacles at a religious festival.
Like civic the?ria, philosophic the?ria also has a political dimension. For just as the civic theoros must return home to
relate the news to his fellow citizens, the philosophic theoros
in the Republic will return back to the city to impart and im
plement the truths that he has witnessed. The ideal city will
train its most gifted citizens to ascend to the contemplation of
reality but will also require and demand that the perfected
philosophers spend part of their lives in practical and political
pursuits.21 This official requirement that the philosophic theoros must return to the city to utilize and disseminate the
vision he has seen is clearly modelled on civic the?ria. The
city, in short, trains the philosophers to journey to metaphys ical regions and see the spectacles in that realm, but it also
commissions them to return back home to share their wis
dom.
The Republic offers the most detailed exposition of philo
sophic the?ria, yet the dialogue has a political orientation
that gives the text a specific bias. It is important to empha size that Plato's philosopher, even in the Republic, is not
seeking truth simply in order to best serve the city. The goal of philosophic the?ria is, first and foremost, to transform
the individual soul, conferring upon it a state of wisdom,
happiness, and blessedness. For, according to Plato, theoret
ical activity is the happiest and most blessed for an individ
ual regardless of whether he is called upon to rule a city. In
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 39
addition to being good in itself, however, the?ria provides the basis for all virtuous action on earth, be it private or po
litical; the?ria is not only the highest form of knowledge but
the precondition for all virtuous praxis. Whether the?ria is
conducted in a civic or in a private context, then, it can be
translated into ethical praxis: the philosophic spectator, who
has gazed upon the Forms, will later perform his wisdom (in
word and in deed) in the civic realm. The Platonic theorist, in sum, is both a spectator and a performer: for his meta
physical sightseeing later leads to ethical action.
4
Plato was the first philosopher to forge the link between
civic the?ria and philosophic contemplation. Let me empha
size, however, that there were a number of different concep tions of the?ria set forth by the philosophers of this period: our modern and postmodern contestations of ancient
the?ria overlook the fact that this idea was contested from
the very beginning. Rather than grouping these theories to
gether under the heading of "ocularcentrism" or "the spec tator theory of knowledge"?as twentieth-century theorists
have tended to do?we need to grasp the variety of ancient
concepts of the?ria and the precise points at which they di
verge.22 These divergences present us with different modes
of seeing, different ways of wondering. I do not have time to analyze the fascinating but com
pletely ignored Epinomis, a dialogue ascribed to Philip of
Opus (a member of Plato's Academy). In brief, Philip argues that the?ria is achieved by the activity of astronomy, where
one gazes upon divinity in a visible form, i.e., in the move
ments of the heavenly bodies. The contemplation of the "vis
ible gods" in the heavens, Philip suggests, is a superior form
of knowledge that combines intellectual (especially mathe
matical) expertise with the dispositions of wonder and rev
erence. Nor can I discuss fourth-century thinkers who
opposed the turn towards the?ria and allied themselves with
40 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
more traditional modes of wisdom. Isocrates, in particular,
championed praxis and performance over the "useless" ac
tivities of the theoretically-inclined philosophers. I will turn,
instead, to Aristotle, whose conception of the?ria differs
from that of Plato in several crucial ways. Like Plato, Aristotle turns to traditional the?ria in his at
tempt to explicate his own philosophic program. In a dia
logue called the Protrepticus (which survives only in fragments), Aristotle says:
wisdom is not useful or advantageous ... it should be chosen not
for the sake of any other thing, but for itself. For just as we travel to
the Olympian festival for the sake of the spectacle ... and just as we
go as spectators (the?roi) to the Festival of Dionysus [simply to see
the spectacle]... so too the the?ria of the universe must be honored
above all things that are considered to be useful, (frag. 58 Rose3)
Here, Aristotle compares the activity of philosophic contem
plation with that of going as a theoros to the Olympian and
Dionysian festivals. What kind of the?ria is he referring to in
this passage? Certainly not the the?ria in which a city sends
official ambassadors to visit a religious festival and return
home to report on the spectacle. For Aristotle is quite clear
that viewing the spectacle is an end in itself, and that there is
absolutely nothing "useful" in this activity. Rather, he is
thinking of the private form of the?ria that I outlined earlier
(i.e., the second kind of the?ria?the journey to a religious festival?in the private mode). In this kind of the?ria, as we
have seen, an individual attends a festival on his own, simply to see the sights; he is not sent by the city, and is not required to return and report on his findings. This is quite different
from the model of civic the?ria that Plato adopted in the Re
public, where the theoros is required to return to the city with an official report on what he has seen.
Note also Aristotle's repeated claim that the?ria is not
"useful." This discourse of "uselessness" pervades almost all
of Aristotle's discussions of the?ria. Indeed, he regularly em
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 41
ploys a stark dichotomy between activities that are "useful"
and "necessary," which he considers "illiberal" and "banau
sic," and activities that are "useless" and "noble," which are
associated with leisure and freedom. Clearly, the Greek word
for "useless"?achr?ston?is not used in the sense of worth
less or unimportant (as the English word is used); quite the
contrary. For Aristotle, an activity is "useless" precisely be
cause it is chosen for its own sake and does not produce any effect or byproduct in the world. The?ria is a pure intellec
tual activity that has as its objects beings that are eternal, im
mutable, or divine: by definition, it does not deal with objects or events that can be produced, deliberated over, or
changed.23 As Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics 10,
"[the activity of theoria] is the only one which is loved for its
own sake; for nothing comes into being from it beyond the
activity of contemplating, but from practical activities we
produce something, be it great or small, beyond the actions
themselves."24 The?ria, then, is "useless" knowledge which,
paradoxically, is the most important ingredient in the happi est human life. 25
This conception of wisdom as useless and nonproductive is
radically new. There is no evidence that, before Aristotle, Greeks valued "useless" pursuits over useful ones. Indeed, the Greeks expected wisdom to be useful and beneficial. In
the late fifth and fourth centuries, in fact, there were numer
ous attacks on sophists and philosophers on the grounds of
"uselessness." The public demanded that intellectuals be use
ful and beneficial to the city; if they did not prove useful, they were denounced as fraudulent. Even Plato insisted that theo
retical knowledge is beneficial to society, vociferously reject
ing the popular charges that philosophers are "useless."26 So
far as one can tell from extant texts, it was Aristotle who first
responded to such attacks by claiming that, yes, theoretical
activity is useless and that this is part of what makes it
supremely valuable. 27 Theoretical knowledge, he claims, can
not be enacted or performed in the human world. It is an ac
tivity of the "divine part of man," which Aristotle calls
42 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
"nous." In the theoretical activity of nous, the human mind
engages in the divine activity of the gods. Aristotelian the?ria
is thus a noetic activity that is an end in itself, fully detached
from human affairs and terrestrial events.28
Plato and Aristotle, then, had very different conceptions of
the?ria. Plato, as we have seen, explicitly links theoretical and
practical activities. For Aristotle, by contrast, the?ria is a pure act of "sight-seeing" which is done only for its own sake:
the?ria employs a mode of reasoning that is separate and dis
tinct from practical reasoning and, in fact, cannot lead to
praxis. It is for this reason that theoretical knowledge is "use
less" and fully detached from the political and practical sphere. Is theoretical philosophy, as Aristotle suggests, completely
"useless" and disinterested? Or does it have a direct bearing on practical and political activity, as Plato tried to argue? These issues, articulated for the first time in the fourth cen
tury bce, are still vital in modern and postmodern thinking.
Consider, for example, the problem of the relation of aes
thetics to ethics?the question whether art occupies a disin
terested sphere, independent of social and political norms, or
whether it can or should be productive of specific values and
ideologies (note the recent debate between Alexander Ne
hamas and Elaine Scarry over the nature of beauty and the
question whether the perception of beauty leads to ethical
action). The same sort of questions have also been raised
about the goals of "liberal education." Does this kind of ed
ucation aim at the disinterested pursuit of knowledge and
understanding, or do the "liberal arts" necessarily reflect
and even promote ethical and political values? In our own
examination of these questions, we should attend to the
Greek constructions of the very categories of "useless" and
"useful" activities, "disinterested" and "interested" pur suits. These dichotomies?as well as the strict separation of
theoretical and practical reasoning?need to be subjected to
careful scrutiny.
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 43
5
I want to turn, in closing, to one final aspect of the?ria,
namely its connection with wonder. Wonder plays an essen
tial role in the pursuit and practice of the?ria, yet is it rarely
analyzed in scholarly literature. Consider the following fa
mous passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics (982b):
It is through wonder that men originally began, and still begin, to
philosophize, wondering at first about obvious perplexities, and
then . . . experiencing perplexity about greater matters. . . . Now
the man who is perplexed and wonders thinks himself ignorant. . .
therefore, if it was to escape ignorance that men practiced philoso
phy, it is clear that they pursued knowledge for the sake of know
ing, and not for the sake of anything useful.
Here, Aristotle inaugurates what will prove to be a long tra
dition of linking philosophy to wonder. The Greek word for
"wonder" is, in the verbal form, thaumazein or, as a noun,
thauma. In this passage, Aristotle yokes wonder together with perplexity: to wonder is to experience aporia, i.e., to be
"perplexed" or, more literally, "without a path." But the
Aristotelian philosopher generally does find the path that
leads him from aporia to certainty. As Aristotle indicates, the
philosopher "escapes" from perplexity and ignorance by ac
quiring knowledge or, to put it in his words, by "theorizing the causes" (983a!4-15). To "theorize" or "see" the cause
of something perplexing is to move from a state of wonder
to a state of certainty. Philosophy, then, begins in wonder
and ends in the?ria. As Aristotle concludes, the philosopher
begins by wondering why certain perplexing things are as
they are; but when he attains theoretical knowledge, he
ceases to wonder (since he now has the answers) and "he
would be surprised if things were not as they are."2?
This conception of wonder and its relation to philosophy is
accepted as almost a truism in western thinking up through the eighteenth century. To cite a few examples: First, take Al
44 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
bertus Magnus, who claims that "the man who is puzzled and wonders apparently does not know; hence wonder is the
movement of the man who does not know on his way to
finding out, in order to know the cause of that thing at which
he wonders. . . . Such is the origin of philosophy."3? Similarly, Descartes says that wonder is the "attention to unusual and
extraordinary objects" which is beneficial insofar as it leads
to knowledge.31 Descartes adds, however, that it is possible to wonder too much and thus to "pervert the use of reason."
We must, he says, try to "free ourselves" from wonder as
much as possible by achieving knowledge and certainty.
Otherwise, we may end in a state that Descartes calls "blind
curiosity," which characterizes "men who seek out things that are rare solely to wonder at them and not for the pur
pose of knowing them." Note in particular the explicit link
here between wonder and curiosity, and the suggestion that
knowledge brings wonder to an end. Francis Bacon argued
along the same lines when he called wonder "broken knowl
edge" that must be repaired by the achievement of cer
tainty. 3* Finally, consider Adam Smith, who claims that
philosophy begins in wonder but, "when we answer the
questions . . . our wonder is entirely at an end."33
This Aristotelian path from wonder to certainty, from
aporia to the?ria is, I think, clear enough. Let me turn now
to a different conception of wonder?Platonic wonder?
which occurs at the end, rather than the beginning, of the
philosophic quest. This kind of wonder has its roots in the
very earliest Greek texts.34 In Homer and archaic literature, the word for "wonder" (thauma; thaumazein) is very rarely used in the sense of puzzlement, perplexity, or curiosity. In
fact, it is never confined to merely cognitive experiences: ar
chaic wonder is both cognitive and affective, intellectual and
emotional, ranging from the feelings of reverence and awe to
admiration and amazement. In this period, wonder is closely connected with the faculty of vision (note the frequent oc
currence of the formulaic phrase thauma idesthai?"a won
der to look upon"). One quite complex form of archaic
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 45
wonder is characterized by the feeling of reverence for some
thing that is perceived as both divine and yet also kindred to
the human viewer. Here, a person "looks with wonder" at
something that is both similar and different, both kindred
and strange. An example of this kind of wonder occurs in the famous
scene near the end of the Iliad where the aged Priam visits
his enemy Achilles to offer gifts for the ransoming of his
dead son Hector. When Priam first arrives, Achilles and his
companions "look with wonder" at him and, though they know who he is, pronounce him to be "godlike" (theoei
dea)J5 Priam then appeals to Achilles as a grieving father,
entreating him to be mindful of his own father in his sor
rowful old age (24.486-506). Amazingly, as these two ene
mies look at each other, each is "reminded" of his own
beloved kin. This memory causes both men to weep, Achil
les for his absent father and Priam for his dead son
(24.509-12). When the scene comes to an end, the two men
are still gazing at each other in wonderment: "And Dardan
ian Priam looked with wonder (thaumaz') at Achilles / . . .
for he was like the gods to behold face-to-face. / And
Achilles looked with wonder (thaumazen) at Dardanian
Priam / as he gazed upon his visage" (24.629-32). Here, both Priam and Achilles perceive each other as "godlike" and yet each sees the other as kindred. It is the combination
of the perceptions of kinship and difference that creates this
complex form of wonder. Each knows that the other is a hu
man being and, in fact, an enemy. Yet each sees in the other
both the superhuman strangeness of divinity and the famil
iarity of his nearest kin. The very same object "resembles"
divinity at the same time as it "reminds" the viewer of his
own son or father. This simultaneous experience of strange ness and kinship produces a unique kind of wonder. This is
a wonder that persists from beginning to end?it does not
cease when the perceiver has achieved certainty or solved a
puzzle. It is more like awe or reverence than perplexity or
curiosity. But it is a reverence that does not bow down be
46 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
fore the alien presence and power of god. This kind of won
der looks upon what is godlike and alien and finds some
sense of kinship with it.36
As we have seen, in Aristotle philosophy begins in wonder; when the philosopher is able to "see" or "theorize" the
causes, the wonder comes to an end. Plato articulated a sim
ilar idea in the Theaetetus, of course, claiming that wonder
and perplexity are the origin of philosophy.37 (Aristotle no
doubt got this idea from Plato). The Theaetetus, however, does not deal with the?ria. In the Platonic texts that discuss
the?ria, one finds a quite different kind of wonder. Here, the
philosophic journey ends?or, better, culminates?in wonder
(since, strictly speaking, philosophy never comes to an end). For the activity of the?ria?which is the goal of the philo
sophic journey?is characterized by the experience of won
der. Platonic the?ria is not simply a cognitive activity; it has
erotic and affective components that take it beyond a merely intellectual form of "seeing." The?ria leads the philosopher into a state of knowledge, but it also leaves him with a pro found sense of wonder.
Consider the conversation of Diotima and Socrates in the
Symposium, which precedes the description of the vision of
the Form of Beauty. In the course of this discussion, there are
several passages that take a specific and very marked form:
Socrates says that he is "wondering" about something, and
Diotima tells him "Do not wonder" and proceeds to explain the truth of the matter.38 In both of these passages, Diotima
indicates that Socrates need not tarry in a state of wonder, since she can provide the correct answers to his questions. Plato's repeated use of the word thaumazein, and the con
trast he sets up between Socrates' wonder and Diotima's cer
tainty (lack of wonder), alerts the reader to the importance of this theme. The theme recurs at the close of their discus
sion, where Diotima offers a brief description of the end of
the philosophic journey, which culminates in the vision of
the Form of Beauty. At this point, we assume that the appre hension of the truth will banish all wonder. But in fact there
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 47
is a new wonder to come: "When [the philosopher] views
beautiful things, one after another in the correct way, he will
suddenly see, at the end, a wondrous (thaumaston) vision,
beautiful in nature, which is the final object of all his previ ous toils" (210e). Here, the activity of beholding the Form
of Beauty?which is the activity of the?ria?is described as a
"wondrous" vision of "divine beauty" (to theion kalon, 21 ie). This experience of wonder accompanies the vision of
the Form. It includes awe, reverence, and astonishment and
is thus quite different from the perplexed form of wonder.
It should come as no surprise that seeing the divine would
evoke wonder?this is the natural response to the sight of
the superhuman. But the Platonic philosopher is not simply
seeing something divine and different from himself: he is
also seeing something that is intimately related to him. For, in many of the middle dialogues, Plato describes the rational
part of the human soul as divine in nature and "akin" to the
Forms.39 Plato regularly uses the language of kinship and
family ties to describe the relation of human reason to the
Forms. There are, of course, essential differences between
the mind and the Forms. Nevertheless, in spite of these dif
ferences, reason and the Forms are said to be kindred (sun
genn?s). Indeed, it is precisely because reason has this
kinship with the Forms that it can apprehend and associate
with them at all. This does not mean that the Forms are
commonplace and familiar. Rather, the Forms are, at the
same time, superhumanly strange and yet akin to the human
viewer. In Platonic the?ria, then, the philosopher achieves a
vision of the Forms and experiences a wonder or reverence
that does not abate.4?
The central speech in the Phaedrus describes the experi ence of falling in love with a beautiful person and the con
frontation with the Form of Beauty that this love affair
brings about. Socrates describes the pathology of this torrid
event in minute detail. When the lover gazes upon the beauty of his beloved, he suddenly remembers that he has seen true
beauty somewhere before. In fact, he has seen the Form of
48 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
Beauty in an early period of his psychic history, before he be
came incarnate on earth. For, like all human souls, he en
gaged in the the?ria of the Forms before he was born (even the gods in this text engage in the?ria). The trauma of incar
nation, however, has driven this experience almost clean out
of his mind. It is only the encounter with the beauty of his
beloved that brings the vision back. And, when he begins to
recollect that preincarnate vision, the lover is struck with as
tonishments1 Henceforth the sight of physical beauty trig
gers the philosopher's memory of the Forms and he is thus
led back into the the?ria of Beauty and the experience of
reverence and wonder that accompanies the?ria. As a result, the lover begins to revere his beloved as a sort of divine be
ing who instantiates the Form of Beauty on earth
(25ia-254a). What drives the lover here is not intellectual
curiosity or puzzlement but rather a desire for true beauty as
well as a deep and abiding reverence for its presence. We are
often told that Plato despises and denigrates the physical world: in the Phaedrus, however, the reverence for meta
physical beauty leads the philosopher to revere the embodi
ment of the Form of beauty and to tend to the beloved
person who possesses this beautiful body. Socrates' speech in the Phaedrus returns, again and again,
to the wonder and reverence that the philosopher experi ences at the sight of beauty. 42- This kind of reverence is not
unthinking or dogmatic piety. Rather, it is an experience of
wonderment that accompanies the activity of reason as it en
gages in the?ria. In the activity of the?ria, rigorous philo
sophical inquiry is accompanied by an abiding sense of
wonder. Plato's foundational conception of the?ria, then, is
grounded in a peculiar paradox: when the philosophical the
orist achieves the vision of true being, he experiences both
knowledge and wonder simultaneously. This kind of wonder accompanies, rather than precedes,
the?ria. As I have suggested, this conception of wonder is not
found in Aristotle's discussions of the?ria as the activity of
"first philosophy": there is no indication that the Aristotelian
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 49
philosopher experiences wonder when he engages in "first
philosophy" and theorizes divine essence (or "being qua be
ing"). Interestingly, Aristotle does suggest that wonder at
tends the theoretical investigation of animals in the physical world. We may ask whether the Aristotelian philosopher can
in fact "theorize" animals. Although Aristotle sometimes
claims that the proper objects of the?ria are beings that are
"divine" and "eternal," and do not "come into being or per
ish" (NE 6.1, ii39a6-8, 1139^8-24), he offers a more ex
pansive account of theoretical activity in the Metaphysics 6
(1026a). Here, he states that there are three branches of "the
oretical philosophy" (philosophiai the?r?tikai): mathematics,
physics, and theology.43 To be sure, Aristotle identifies "the
ology"?the contemplation of divine and unchanging be
ings?as the highest and the "first" philosophy, but he
nonetheless allows for the?ria in the physical sciences. In the
Parts of Animals?a treatise that examines the material, for
mal, and final causes of the organisms of animals?Aristotle
offers a powerful protreptic for the practice of the?ria in one
realm of physics, namely, that which deals with animals (1.5,
644b-645a). I want to examine this passage in detail, as it in
dicates that this theoretical enterprise includes the experience of wonder. As I will claim, the wonder that Aristotle refers to
here is aesthetic rather than reverential, though it does have
some similarities to Platonic wonder.
Aristotle begins this passage by separating beings which
"are generated and perish" from those that are "eternal"
and "divine." Although the pleasure we experience in com
ing to know divine essences is far greater than that which at
tends the apprehension of animals, we are nonetheless able
to obtain more and better information about the latter be
cause they are "nearer to us and more akin to our nature"
(645a). Aristotle remarks that he has already treated the
subject of "divine things" elsewhere and will now turn his
attention to the nature of animals. He emphatically pro claims that he will not leave out any animals, even those that
are lowly and unlovely. For, as he claims, "even in the case
50 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
of animals that are not pleasing to the senses, nevertheless, when viewed theoretically (kata ten the?rian), the Nature
which fashioned these things (d?miourg?sasa physis) fur
nishes incredible pleasures to the man who is able to discern
the causes (tas aitias gn?rizein) and who is philosophical by nature" (645a). By apprehending causal structures and
properties with the eyes of the?ria (so to speak), that which
is ugly to the physical eye becomes beautiful and pleasing.
Having established that some things are visibly ugly and yet
theoretically beautiful, Aristotle now turns to the visibly beautiful to elucidate the the?ria of animals: "it would be
absurd and strange if we rejoice when contemplating
(the?rountes) representations of these things?because then
we are contemplating the art that fashioned them (ten
d?miourg?sasan techn?n suntheoroumen), such as painting or sculpture?but do not rejoice all the more in the contem
plation (the?ria) of those things constructed by nature, when
we are able to see the causes" (645a). Here, Aristotle uses
the example of the the?ria of an artistic representation to il
lustrate the philosophical the?ria of the animal world. Both
artistic and philosophic the?ria involve the "viewing" of a
technical design?i.e., the techn? that has formed the artistic
or natural object. Here, Aristotle draws a direct parallel be
tween "demiourgic" nature and "demiourgic" art, and thus
encourages us to view the animal world as the design of na
ture-as-craftsman (though "nature" does not, of course, op
erate via intentions and purposes). Thus far, Aristotle has indicated that the the?ria of nature
affords a pleasure that is akin to the aesthetic pleasure de
rived from the contemplation of artistic representations. Aristotle now moves to wonder: "therefore we should not
behave like children and recoil from the investigation of the
lowliest animals, for there is something thaumaston in all
natural things" (en pasi tois physikois enesti ti thaumaston). There is, then, something "wondrous" or "to be wondered
at" in all animals and natural forms. Clearly, Aristotle is not
using the word "thaumaston" here in the sense of "puz
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 51
zling" or "perplexity-inducing": whatever the natural
philosopher's experience of wonder is, it is not the aporia that precedes the?ria (as in Metaphysics 1), but rather a dis
position that accompanies the?ria. What, then, does Aristo
tle mean when he says that there is something thaumaston in
all natural things? The passage that follows this claim must
be examined in detail:
And just as Heraclitus (it is reported) said to the strangers who,
though they wanted to meet him, came to a stop when they ap
proached and saw him warming himself by the stove?he bid them
to take heart and come in, for (he said) there are gods even here?
in like manner we ought not be ashamed to enter into the investi
gation of animals, since in all of them there is something natural
and beautiful (en hapasin ontos tinos physikou kai kalou, 645a).
This example is rather complicated. For the story of Her
aclitus suggests that what appears to be a humble and lowly scene?a kitchen with its stove?is in fact inhabited by di
vinity and, for this reason, "wondrous." We may be tempted to infer that Aristotle is saying that in the "lowly" parts of
the natural world there is also something divine and there
fore wondrous. But Aristotle does not believe that the sublu
nary sphere (including earth and its inhabitants) is divine or
in any way inhabited by divinity?indeed, as he has said
quite explicitly in the passage that precedes, he is not dealing with divine or eternal beings in this treatise. It is for this rea
son that, when Aristotle turns to explain the moral of the
story, he says that there is something "beautiful and natural
in all animals": this is very different from saying that there is
something divine in them. In the story of Heraclitus, in
short, the visitors are told that they should not hesitate to
enter, since what appears lowly is in fact divine; in Aristotle's
gloss on the story, the readers are told that they should not
hesitate to investigate animals, since what appears lowly is
in fact "natural and beautiful."
I would suggest that the theorist's experience of the animal
52 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
realm as "wondrous" is aesthetic rather than reverential. For
Aristotle has argued that the the?ria of animals is similar to
that of the techn? that constructs artistic representations. The example he uses here may seem to emphasize purely vi
sual "seeing," but as in all the?ria (civic and philosophical), the spectating is never simply visual. When one views a
painting or a drama in terms of its technical design, one is
"seeing" how the artwork has been constructed, how its
parts fit together, operate, and make up a whole. This same
sort of technical "viewing" operates in the the?ria of ani
mals, for though their bodies and parts may be ugly to the
eye, they are beautiful in their design and systematic organi zation. Aristotle reiterates this point when he goes on to say that "in the works of nature purpose and not accident is pre
dominant; and the purpose or end for the sake of which
things are put together or generated has its place among
what is beautiful" (645a24ff). He then adds that the theorist
is not primarily concerned with the matter (peri tes hyl?s) that makes up animal bodies but rather the "form as a
whole" (tes holes morph?s). Here, Aristotle emphasizes that
the final and formal causes are the true objects of the in
quiry, and these causal structures (unlike the material bodies
per se) are beautiful to those who can truly grasp them. The
natural scientist experiences the animal world as "won
drous," then, not because he is admiring the physical beauty of animals?much of Aristotle's treatise in fact deals with in
ternal organs and systems?but rather because he marvels at
the beauty and intricacy of their design. Although Aristotle
seems to be borrowing Platonic language in writing this pro
treptic to biological study, he depicts the experience of won
der in terms of beauty rather than divinity (indeed we watch
him make this substitution in his gloss on the Heraclitus
story). Plato does, of course, speak of the Forms as "beauti
ful," but for him the divine and the beautiful necessarily go
together: he sacralizes the experience of beauty and aestheti
cizes the realm of the sacred. As a result of this sacralization, Platonic wonder has an ethical orientation that is lacking in
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 53
Aristotelian the?ria. In the Parts of Animals, Aristotle sepa rates the aesthetic from the sacred and thus conceives of a
new form of wonder: an aesthetic wonderment that attends
the theoretical apprehension of the form and design of ani
mals.
6.
What do ancient notions of the?ria have to offer us in this
post-enlightened age? In the wake of the enlightenment,
many thinkers have opted to replace Aristotelian perplexity with the hermeneutics of suspicion, to abandon theoretical
certitude for constructivism or deconstruction. And many,
too, have relinquished Platonic wonder by rejecting religious belief and reverence for the sacred. We may be able to live
without certainty. But can we really do without wonder?
Nietzsche addressed this question when he discussed the op
position between a "world in which we were at home up to
now with our reverences that perhaps made it possible for us
to endure life, and another world that consists of us." Ac
cording to Nietszche, the Europeans of his era were con
fronted with these two options: a world where people live
with reverence and a world in which religion and reverence
are abolished and everything "consists of us." On the one
hand, he says, people who practice reverence are "nihilistic," since they debase life by prostrating themselves before an
other-worldly god. But, Nietzsche adds, to adopt the other
position?to inhabit a "world that consists of us"?also
leads to nihilism. For, when humans abandon reverence and
become the sole masters of an empty universe, they soon
find that the self-aggrandizing ideology of humanism is un
sustainable and lapse into pessimism and self-loathing.44 We
end up, then, in an all-too-human world that is empty and
unendurable.
It may be the case that dwelling in a world which consists
only "of us" is an unsustainable enterprise. But does
dwelling in a world of wonder and reverence necessarily de
value human life? This is certainly not true of Platonic won
54 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
der. For the philosopher finds a kinship with the sacred even
as he marvels at its sublimity and strangeness. As we have
seen, Plato articulates the experience of wonder in theologi cal terms?since the objects of the?ria are superhuman and
divine beings. But, as I would suggest, this kind of wonder
can also be conceived in ecological terms. We can look with
wonder at the nonhuman beings in the natural world, find
ing a kinship with the strange and various life forms in the
world around us (Aristotle in fact invites us to turn our gaze towards the natural world, though his wonder is aesthetic
rather than theological or ethical). In its root sense, the word
ecology means "having a conception (logos) of the world as
an oikos or 'household.'" Ecologically conceived, the world
does not simply "consist of us," nor is it completely inhos
pitable and alien to humans: it is, rather, a household made
up of a myriad of kindred members. The contemplation of
the natural world?beholding it with reverence and wonder
rather than as mere material for human use?is at the heart
of many ecological philosophies. This need not take the
form of unthinking piety or na?ve nature worship. Rather,
ecological the?ria can be conceived as an activity in which
rigorous philosophical and scientific inquiry is accompanied
by reverence and restraint. This kind of the?ria, of course, will differ in important ways from the theoretical activities
of the Greeks. But it has its roots in the same sense of won
der.
NOTES
A much earlier and shorter version of this essay was delivered and pub
lished as an Occasional Lecture for the University Professors Program at
Boston University. I am grateful to the University Professors for their many
valuable comments on my talk. I also wish to thank Bob Gregg, Charles Gris
wold, Peter Hawkins, Rachel Jacoff, Josh Landy, Tony Long, Rush Rehm,
and Douglas Wilson for their insightful comments and criticisms on various
drafts of this essay.
i. The notion that the?ria is an activity that is in no way practical or pro ductive was set forth by Aristotle?his position, as I argue, is more extreme
than those of his contemporaries.
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 55
2. Herodotus, Histories 1.74-75, 170. Note also that Diogenes Laertius
1.25 reports that Tha?es advised the Milesians to reject the alliance offered to
them by Croesus, which ended up saving them when Croesus was at war with
Cyrus.
3. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 1.26. Cf. Aristotle, who
also reports that this story "is told" about Tha?es (Politics 1.4, 1259a). This
story about Tha?es conflicts with Aristotle's claim in the Nicomachean Ethics
(6.7, 1141b) that Tha?es was a contemplative?a claim that Aristotle makes
in his own voice (in contrast with the story mentioned in the Politics, which
he merely reports as hearsay).
4. Diogenes Laertius 1.25-6.
5. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 6.7, 1141b.
6. Richard Martin, "The Seven Sages as Performers of Wisdom," in Cul
tural Poetics of Ancient Greece, C. Dougherty and L. Kurke, eds. (Cambridge
1994), 108-28. For some useful essays on "performance culture" in classical
Greece, see S. Goldhill and R. Osborne, eds., Performance Culture and
Athenian Democracy (Cambridge 1999).
7. R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context (Cambridge 2000) esp. Introduction
and chs. 5-7, offers an excellent discussion of the performances given by in
tellectuals in the fifth century bce (especially the sophists, medical 'scientists,'
and practioners of ''historie').
8. Diogenes Laertius 9.23.
9. D-K30A3.
10. See Paul Cartledge, Democritus (Pheonix 1998), 8 and passim.
11. A. A. Long., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philoso
phy (Cambridge 1999), esp. chapters 1, 10, 11, and 16.
12. Plato, Hippias Minor 368D-C.
13. For example, Hippias' expertise included astronomy, geometry, arith
metic, musical theory, orthography, and an astonishing mnemonic art.
14. See, e.g., the Hippocratic Precepts 10 and On Joints 42; on the per formances and self-advertisement of the medical scientists/practitioners, see
G. E. R. Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom (Cambridge 1987), chs. 2-3 and
R. Thomas, Herodotus in Context (Cambridge 2000), chs. 6-7.
15. To be sure, a number of pre-Platonic thinkers discussed and speculated about the nature and reliability of physical vision; but the notion of knowl
edge as "seeing" truth (i.e., the so-called spectator theory of knowledge) is
not found in these thinkers.
16. M. Dillon, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece (New York
1997), xviii.
17. In addition, scholars tend to ignore the significance of the fact that
many foreigners came to these festivals to participate in the athletic and dra
matic competitions. Most of the athletic events at the Panathenaia were open to all Greeks, and in the dramatic productions at the Civic Dionysia, the ac
tors, fluteplayers, and even playwrights could be foreigners.
18.1. Rutherford, "Theorie Crisis: The Dangers of Pilgrimage in Greek Re
56 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
ligion and Society," Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 61 (1995), 276.
19. Symposium i74d-i75a, 220c-d.
20. Although we do not know the precise date of this inaugural festival, evidence from inscriptions indicate that it was sometime before 429 bce. The
Athenian polis had the power to include and exclude forms of worship in At
tica (which includes the Peiraius), and people who wished to introduce new
cults or festivals had to seek official sanction.
21. Republic 5i9c~52oe, 540a.
22. The modern discussions of "ocularcentrism" and the "spectator theory of knowledge" are numerous and diverse, ranging from phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty to poststructural and psycho
analytic theorists such as Derrida, Foucault, and Lacan, to feminists such as
Irigaray, to pragmatists such as Dewey and Rorty (to name only a few). For
some useful discussions of modern and postmodern attacks on ocularce
ntrism, see Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twen
tieth-Century Thought (Berkeley 1993), and David Levin, ed. Modernity and
the Hegemony of Vision (Berkeley 1993).
23. Nicomachean Ethics 6.1-8, 1139a-! 142a. Aristotle offers a broader
conception of the objects of the?ria in Metaphysics 6.1 (1026a): there,
physics and mathematics are added to "theology" as "theoretical philoso
phies."
24. Nicomachean Ethics 10.7, 1177b. This passage is famously problem
atic, since it seems to contradict Aristotle's claims elsewhere in the Nico
machean Ethics that the activities of practical virtue are chosen for their own
sakes (see, e.g., 1.7, io97b2~5; 6.5,1140b; 10.6, ii76b6~9).
25. Though Aristotle does of course praise the life of practical and politi cal virtue, which he considers second in happiness to the contemplative life.
26. See, e.g., Republic 487d, 489b.
27. This argument appears to have triggered the polemic among members
of the Academy (post-Plato) and the Lyceum over the question whether
"true" philosophy is practical or theoretical: Heraclides of Pontus (a member
of the Academy under Speusippus) and Theophrastus argued that first phi
losophy is theoretical and not practical, whereas Dicaearchus insisted that
only practical wisdom should count as philosophy. See W. Jaeger, Aristotle
2nd ed., trans. R. Robinson (Oxford 1948), appendix 2.
28. Aristotle does acknowledge that the theorist will have to engage in prac
tical activities in order to live a human life (Nicomachean Ethics 10.8,
ii77b-ii77a, 1178b). But, even though the philosopher will need to engage in some kinds of praxis in order to sustain a contemplative life, he will keep these to a minimum, since they can "obstruct" philosophic activity (NE 10.8,
1178b). Correlatively, the man who perfects his practical reasoning and
chooses a life of politics will not have the leisure to engage in contemplation
(NE 10.7, ii77bi-i5, ii78a-b). Aristotle makes it clear that the contempla tive life is superior to the political life, though both are considered good lives.
29. "All begin by wondering that things should be as they are (e.g. with re
gard to marionettes, or the solstices, or the incommensurability of the diago
Andrea Wilson Nightingale 57
nal of a square). Because it seems wonderful (thaumaston) to everyone who
has not yet theorized/contemplated (teth??r?kosi) the cause that a thing should not be measurable by the smallest unit. But we must end with the con
trary and better view ... for a geometrician would wonder at nothing so
much as if the diagonal were to become measurable." (Metaphysics 983a). See also Nicomachean Ethics 10.7 (1177326-27) on the difference between
seeking and possessing knowledge.
30. Albertus Magnus, Opera Omnia, Augustus Borgnet, ed., 20 vols.
(Paris 1890), 6.30. The translation comes from J. V. Cunningham, Woe and
Wonder (Denver 1951), 79-80.
31. Descartes, "The Passions of the Soul" part 2, 70-78, in The Philo
sophical Work of Descartes vol. 1, trans. E. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cam
bridge repr. 1978), 362-66.
32. Bacon, "Advancement of Learning," in The Works of Francis Bacon, ?d. J. Spedding et al., vol 6 (Boston 1863), ^6, and in "Valerius Terminus of
the Interpretation of Nature" (29).
33. Smith , "The History of Astronomy," in Essays on Philosophical Sub
jects, eds. W. Wightman and J. Bryce (Oxford 1980), 51. Although Smith's
philosophers, unlike Aristotle's, construct rather than discover the causal
links between phenomena, they nonetheless move from wonder to certitude.
34. R. A. Prier has analyzed the different uses of thauma and its cognates in archaic literature (as well as a number of related words that signify "won
der" in this period) in Thauma Idesthai: The Phenomenology of Sight and
Appearance in Archaic Greek (Tallahassee 1989), esp., 84-97. Prier does not
discuss the form of wonder that I am analyzing here.
35. Iliad 24.483-84. The Greek word for "wonder" here is thambos, which is used (as a noun and a verb) three times in three lines. As Prier (note
34), 87-97, has shown, thambos and thauma are often used as synonyms.
36. Another good example of this kind of wonder occurs when Odysseus sees his father Laertes returning home from the bath, when Athena has made
him appear taller and stronger: Odysseus "wonders" at him "since he looks
face-to-face like the immortal gods" (thaumaze . . . h?s iden athanatoisi
theois enalinkion ant?n, Odyssey 24.370-71).
37. Theaetetus i55C-d. There is no single passage in which he sets forth
the operations of wonder-as-reverence; this can be understood by examining the passages in the dialogues that deal with the?ria or the soul's encounter
with the Forms (or, as in the Timaeus, with the contemplation of the divine
achieved by viewing the circular motion of the heavenly bodies).
38. Symposium 205a-b; 207b; 2o8b-c.
39. For some examples of the assertion of the "kinship" of the rational
part of the soul to the Forms, see Phaedo 79a, Republic 490b, 61 ie, Phae
drus 246d-e, Timaeus 46b-e, 90, 90c-d, and Laws 897c (the word that Plato
generally uses to express kinship is sungenneia and its cognates).
40. Plato articulates this point differently in different texts. In the Repub
lic, he indicates that the philosopher who beholds the Forms will "wonder"
at them and, because he feels this wonder, will endeavor to "imitate" them by
58 ON WANDERING AND WONDERING
making himself good and divine (5ooc-d). Here, the philosopher's wonder at
what is divine and different leads him to assimilate himself to?and to find
kinship with?this higher reality. See also the Timaeus, which discusses the
contemplation of the stars, which are moved in perfect circles by the divine
reason of god. In this text, Plato says that the vision of the heavenly bodies is
in fact the origin of philosophy (46e~47b). The faculty of vision and, in turn,
the capacity to philosophize was given to human beings "in order that we
might behold the revolutions of divine reason in the heavens and use them to
aid the revolutions of reason that are in us, since these things are akin to each
other" (47D-C). Here, human and divine reason are akin (which allows us to
imitate divine reason). But divine reason is "impeturbable" and "unerring" whereas human reason is "prone to wander" (47c). Our human reason is
thus akin to that of the gods and yet vastly different from it?for human rea
son "errs" and "wanders." Again, we find the philosophic theorist discover
ing both a kinship with and a distance from the divine.
41. Phaedrus 250a. To Plato's description of the fear, awe, and wonder of
the philosopher, compare Heidegger, who at the close of "The Fundamental
Concepts of Metaphysics" calls Dasein a being that "exists, i.e., ex-sists, is
an exiting from itself in the essence of its being, yet without abandoning itself.
Man is that inability to remain and is yet unable to leave his place. . . . Man
is enraptured in this transition and therefore essentially 'absent.' Absent in a
fundamental sense?never simply at hand, but absent in his essence, in his es
sentially being away; removed into essential having been and future?essen
tially absencing and never at hand, yet existent in his essential absence.
Transposed into the possible, he must constantly be mistaken concerning what is actual. And only because he is thus mistaken and transposed can he
become seized by terror. And only where there is the perilousness of being seized by terror do we find the bliss of astonishment?being torn away in that
wakeful manner that is the breath of all philosophizing, and that which the
greats among the philosophers called ienthousiasmos\ . ." (my italics).
42. The most common word for "reverence" in this passage is sebesthai
(250e, 251a, 252a, 254c, 254e), but Plato also uses deima (251a) and its cog nate deid? (254c, 254e) and thambos (254c). As Prier shows (op. cit., 87-91,
107), thambos and sebas are closely related to thauma.
43. "For physics deals with things which are separable (i.e., exist sepa
rately) but not immovable, and some branches of mathematics deal with
things which are immovable, but probably not separable, but present in mat
ter, while the first science deals with things which are both separable and im
movable. . . . Hence there are three theoretical philosophies: mathematics,
physics, and theology" (Metaphysics io26ai3~i8). See also Metaphysics 4.3,
1005b 1-2, where Aristotle says that physics is "a kind of wisdom but not the
first kind."
44. F. Nietszche, The Gay Science, trans. Kaufmann (New York 1984),
286-87.