beginning of philosophy
SOCRATES: Surely you’re following, Theaetetus; it’s my impression at any rate that you’re not inexperienced in things of this sort.
THEAETETUS: Yes indeed, by the gods, Socrates, I wonder exceedingly as to why (what) in the world these things are, and sometimes in looking at them I truly get dizzy.
SOCRATES: The reason is, my dear, that, apparently, Theodorus’ guess about your nature is not a bad one, for this experience is very much a philosopher’s, that of wondering. For nothing else is the beginning (principle) of philosophy than this, and, seemingly, whoever’s genealogy it was, that Iris was the offspring of Thaumas (wonder), it’s not a bad one.
- Plato, Theaetetus, trans. Seth Bernardette (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 155c-d.
THEAETETUS: Yes indeed, by the gods, Socrates, I wonder exceedingly as to why (what) in the world these things are, and sometimes in looking at them I truly get dizzy.
SOCRATES: The reason is, my dear, that, apparently, Theodorus’ guess about your nature is not a bad one, for this experience is very much a philosopher’s, that of wondering. For nothing else is the beginning (principle) of philosophy than this, and, seemingly, whoever’s genealogy it was, that Iris was the offspring of Thaumas (wonder), it’s not a bad one.
- Plato, Theaetetus, trans. Seth Bernardette (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), 155c-d.
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