In this article I develop Heidegger's phenomenology of poetry, showing that it may provide grounds for rejecting claims that he lapses into linguistic idealism. Proceeding via an analysis of the three concepts of language operative in the philosopher's work, I demonstrate how poetic language challenges language's designative and world-disclosive functions. The experience with poetic language, which disrupts Dasein's absorption by emerging out of equipmentality in the mode of the broken tool, brings Dasein to wonder at the world's existence in such (...) a way that doubt about its reality cannot enter the picture. (shrink)

That wonder is educationally important will strike many people as obvious. And in a way it is obvious, because being capable of experiencing wonder implies an openness to experience and seems naturally allied to intrinsic educational motivation, an eagerness to inquire, a desire to understand, and also to a willingness to suspend judgement and bracket existing—potentially limiting—ways of thinking, seeing, and categorising. Yet wonder is not a single thing, and it is important to distinguish at least two kinds of wonder: (...) active wonder, which entails a drive to explore, to find out, to explain; and deep or contemplative wonder, which is not inherently inquisitive like active wonder and, as a response to mystery, may leave us lost for words. Claims for wonder's importance to education and science often do not distinguish between the two, but whereas for active wonder that importance seems obvious, this is much less so for deep wonder, which by its very nature rather seems to be anti-educational. Yet in this paper I explore exactly the educational importance of deep wonder. This importance is found to lie, not just in its motivational effects—real though they are—but in making us attend to the world for its own sake, and making us aware of the limits of our understanding. (shrink)

That wonder is educationally important will strike many people as obvious. And in a way it is obvious, because being capable of experiencing wonder implies an openness to experience and seems naturally allied to intrinsic educational motivation, an eagerness to inquire, a desire to understand, and also to a willingness to suspend judgement and bracket existing—potentially limiting—ways of thinking, seeing, and categorising. Yet wonder is not a single thing, and it is important to distinguish at least two kinds of wonder: (...) active wonder, which entails a drive to explore, to find out, to explain; and deep or contemplative wonder, which is not inherently inquisitive like active wonder and, as a response to mystery, may leave us lost for words. Claims for wonder's importance to education and science often do not distinguish between the two, but whereas for active wonder that importance seems obvious, this is much less so for deep wonder, which by its very nature rather seems to be anti-educational. Yet in this paper I explore exactly the educational importance of deep wonder. This importance is found to lie, not just in its motivational effects—real though they are—but in making us attend to the world for its own sake, and making us aware of the limits of our understanding. (shrink)

Curiosity, seen as a motive to do exploration within definite and generally accepted frames, is to be distinguished from wonder, where doubt about the frames themselves is the underlying factor. Granted this distinction, it will be argued that educational institutions need to build on both notions, i.e. wonder as well as curiosity.

Beginning with Rachel Carson’s small book, The Sense of Wonder, I explore the moral significance of a sense of wonder—the propensity to respond with delight, awe, or yearning to what is beautiful and mysterious in the natural world when it unexpectedly reveals itself. An antidote to the view that the elements of the natural world are commodities to be disdained or destroyed, a sense of wonder leads us to celebrate and honor the more-than-human world, to care for it, to protect (...) its thriving. If this is so, then a sense of wonder may be a virtue, perhaps a keystone virtue in our time of reckless destruction, a source of decency and hope and restraint. (shrink)

While interest in the emotion of awe has surged in psychology, philosophers have yet to devote a single self-standing article to awe’s conceptual contours and moral standing. The present article aims to rectify this imbalance and begin to make up for the unwarranted philosophical neglect. In order to do so, awe is given the standard Aristotelian treatment to uncover its conceptual contours and moral relevance. Aristotelianism typically provides the most useful entry point to ‘size up’ any emotion – more problematically (...) here, however, as Aristotle did not himself explicitly identify awe. The article critiques and proposes to improve upon existing psychological conceptual analyses of awe, probes the question why Aristotle ignored it and addresses an often-presumed link between awe and humility which bears on its moral status. (shrink)

In this paper we present a prototype approach to awe. We suggest that two appraisals are central and are present in all clear cases of awe: perceived vastness, and a need for accommodation, defined as an inability to assimilate an experience into current mental structures. Five additional appraisals account for variation in the hedonic tone of awe experiences: threat, beauty, exceptional ability, virtue, and the supernatural. We derive this perspective from a review of what has been written about awe in (...) religion, philosophy, sociology, and psychology, and then we apply this perspective to an analysis of awe and related states such as admiration, elevation, and the epiphanic experience. (shrink)