Practices of Wonder: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

by Sophia Vasalou

Wonder has often occupied a place of unique importance across a variety of human practices and intellectual activities. At different times and historical periods, it has been hailed as the beginning of philosophy and as the end that philosophy should aspire to pursue; as the motive force of scientific quests and their fruit; as the aim of art and the means art uses to accomplish its aims; and as the religious experience par excellence and the hallmark of a deeper spiritual life. Yet despite the special relationship it has borne to many of our most highly valued intellectual and spiritual practices, wonder remains a neglected and understudied notion. This volume aims to redress this neglect, bringing together a collection of essays drawn from different disciplines to consider the sense of wonder from a number of complementary perspectives. What is wonder? What role has it historically played in philosophy, science, art and aesthetics, and the religious or spiritual life? Can wonder be dangerous? Is wonder an experience in which we should, or indeed could, aspire to dwell? Why, among human experiences, should it be prized?

“Is wonder of importance, and if so, why? This wide-ranging and thought-provoking collection of essays can be warmly recommended to anyone with an interest in this intriguing topic.”
—Jane Heal, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge

“We all recognize wonder, but we are puzzled by what exactly it is. Sophia Vasalou’s multidisciplinary team of specialists unravels the strands of our perplexity, and her own substantial contribution presents the topic with her customary imagination, learning, and originality.”
—John Marenbon, Professor of Medieval Philosophy, University of Cambridge

Sophia Vasalou is Junior Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge. She is the author of Moral Agents and Their Deserts (2008).

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 29, 2012

About the author

Sophia is a Senior Lecturer and Birmingham Fellow in Philosophical Theology at the University of Birmingham. Her books include Moral Agents and their Deserts: The Character of Mu‘tazilite Ethics (2008), which won the Albert Hourani Book Award in 2009, and Ibn Taymiyya’s Theological Ethics (2015). She has previously held research fellowships at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the Orient-Institut Beirut, and Oxford Brookes University. During her LAL fellowship, Vasalou prepared a translation of al-Ḥawāmil wa-l-Shawāmil, a question-and-answer anthology written by 4th/10th century authors al-Tawḥīdī and Miskawayh.