has never been any reflection on what is supposed to be determined here in its origin. Indeed, we consider ourselves relieved of such reflection, precisely because we think that the derivation of philosophy out of curiosity also determines its essence. Thus we fail to realize how decisively the reference to θαυμάζειν as the origin of philosophy indicates precisely the inexplicability of philosophy, inexplicability in the sense that here in general to explain and the will to explain are mistakes.
A principal reason for the ordinary misinterpretation of θαυμάζειν is again the usual procedure of making the common understanding of the meaning of the word θαυμάζειν a norm for interpretation. For in this word is thought, as in every essential word of every language that creates history, a common as well as a pre-eminent content and meaning—in this case a disposition and an attitude. To what extent is θαυμάζειν, wonder, a basic disposition—one that transports into the beginning of genuine thinking and thoroughly determines it? In order to have a general guideline for our reflection on θαυμάζειν as a basic disposition, we will indeed begin with the ordinary concept. But our purpose is not to distinguish lexically and count up the various meanings of the word. What we want to see instead is something of the inner multiplicity of the disposition in question.
§37. The ordinary concept of wonder as guideline for a reflection on θαυμάζειν as a basic disposition.
a) Amazement and marvelling.
We shall not begin with wonder but with the wondrous, θαυμαστόν. The wondrous is for us in the first place something that stands out and therefore is remarkable; for the most part it also has the character of the exceptional, unexpected, surprising, and therefore exciting. A better name for this would be the curious or the marvelous, something that arouses the desire for amazement, engages it, and sustains it, specifically in such a way that it makes the search for ever new things of this kind more ardent. The marvelling and the amazement always adhere to something conspicuously unusual; this is extracted from the usual and set over against it. Thus the known, the understandable,