Practices of Wonder: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0227173953 ISBN 13: 9780227173954

Publisher: James Clarke and Co Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

A multidisciplinary collection of essays exploring the concept of wonder and its significance in religion, philosophy, the arts and the sciences. 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?

About this title

About the Authors

Sophia Vasalou completed a PhD in Islamic theology at the University of Cambridge in 2006. She has since been a research fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and taught at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin. She is the author of 'Moral Agents and Their Deserts' (2008).

Sophia Vasalou completed a PhD in Islamic theology at the University of Cambridge in 2006. She has since been a research fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and taught at the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin. She is the author of 'Moral Agents and Their Deserts' (2008).

Edition details

• Publisher: James Clarke and Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0227173953
• ISBN 13: 9780227173954
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264
• Editor: Vasalou Sophia