Wrote about the origins of philosophy w/ help from Aristotle, Heidegger, Freud, Adam Phillips.
What is the Origin of Philosophy?, by @ZoharAtkins whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/what-is-the-…
What is the Origin of Philosophy?, by @ZoharAtkins whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/what-is-the-…
Aristotle says philosophy begins in wonder (or awe).
Abraham Joshua Heschel preserves the same sentiment when describing the innate human disposition to spiritual seeking.
Abraham Joshua Heschel preserves the same sentiment when describing the innate human disposition to spiritual seeking.
Heidegger says philosophy begins when the world fails us in some way. The origin of enquiry is crisis. Necessity is the mother of invention and necessity appears when things fall apart.
Freud maintains the crisis narrative, but locates it in the drama of the family. Philosophy is or can be a kind of defense mechanism, a holding pattern born from trauma.
One could also say that philosophy begins with curiosity and that curiosity begins—as Adam Phillips writes—with boredom. And the origin of boredom? Self-loathing?
Montaigne compares tradition to a river that begin as a dinky puddle. Don’t try to find the origins of a tradition, he cautions, because you’ll just be disappointed. What matter is not how something started, but how it continued, and where it’s going.
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