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? Contributors: Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Stephen Mulhall, Sylvana Chrysakopoulou, Derek Matravers, Michel Hulin, Alexander Rueger, Robert Fuller, David Burrell, Claude-Olivier Doron & 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 thespecial 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?

Can you imagine a God who dances with shouts of joy, laughs when you laugh, loves to play, and invites us to join the fun? In this book Christine Sine invites us to pay attention to childlike characteristics that have the power to reshape us, with fresh spiritual practices that engage all our senses and help us embrace the wonder and joy that God intends for us.

Take a journey by map through your inner landscape to discover a life of awe, enchantment, and radical aliveness • Explains how experiencing awe and wonder can transform our lives, leading us to feel more satisfied, peaceful, and open to others • Offers contemporary and time-honored practices--from mindfulness to dreamwork and working with plants--that help you reconnect with Nature and your imagination, open your heart, and find vitality and enchantment • Explores ways of examining and embracing our shadow, deepening our relationships, and creating meaningful personal rituals Where Wonder Lives invites you on a journey, an expedition through your own inner landscape to reawaken to the mystery of life. The travels are by way of an imaginary map through 9 distinct territories. In each, you explore the terrain, then are led to a rich set of contemporary and time-honored practices--from mindfulness to dreamwork, cloudscapes, and working with plants--that help you rebuild a life of vitality, connection, and enchantment. There is no prescribed order in which to explore the map. Rather, the invitation is to begin at the territory that calls to you, or perhaps that which is most challenging. Each territory reflects and amplifies the others, and you will instinctively arrive at the practices that you need most. The Jungle delves into our original deep kinship with Nature and helps you rekindle your inner wildness. The Garden takes you on a journey through your senses, and the River unfurls your imagination. The Mountaintop presents a bird’s-eye view of your life, while the Swamp delves into your inner shadow and delivers gold. The Village helps us deepen our bonds and relationships, the Lighthouse teaches us to quiet our minds, and the Fire inspires us to create meaningful ceremonies and personal rituals. The Ocean looks into the topography of the heart and offers practices to awaken the heart’s most powerful emotions: awe, joy, compassion, gratitude, and love, the mother of them all. Throughout the journey you are immersed in a world of wonder and awe, discovering new possibilities for learning and expansion in ordinary life. Face to face with the mystery of life, Where Wonder Lives makes you feel at once both infinitely small and part of a vast, unfathomable universe--all while helping you to see the world anew.

Wonder has an established link to the history and philosophy of science. However, there is little acknowledgement of the relationship between the visual arts and wonder. This book presents a new perspective on this overlooked connection, allowing a unique insight into the role of wonder in contemporary visual practice. Artists, curators and art theorists give accounts of their approach to wonder through the use of materials, objects and ways of exhibiting. These accounts not only raise issues of a particular relevance to the way in which we encounter our reality today but ask to what extent artists utilize the function of wonder purposely in their work.

Wonder has been celebrated as the quintessential passion of childhood. From the earliest stages of our intellectual history, it has been acclaimed as the driving force of inquiry and the prime passion of thought. Yet for an emotion acknowledged so widely for the multiple roles it plays in our lives, wonder has led a singularly shadowy existence in recent reflections. Philosophers have largely passed it over in silence; emotion theorists have shunned it as a case that sits awkwardly within their analytical frameworks. So what is wonder, and why does it matter? In this book, Sophia Vasalou sketches a "grammar" of wonder that pursues the complexities of wonder as an emotional experience that has carved colorful tracks through our language and our intellectual history, not only in philosophy and science but also in art and religious experience. A richer grammar of wonder and broader window into its past can give us the tools we need for thinking more insightfully about wonder, and for reflecting on the place it should occupy within our emotional lives.

The attempt to identify the emotional sources of religion goes back to antiquity. In an exploration that bridges science and spirituality, Robert Fuller makes the convincing case that a sense of wonder is a principal source of humanity's belief in the exi

This book explores how a sense of wonder and the musicality of silence can be a rehumanizing force in education, health and welfare, countering overly anthropocentric and instrumental worldviews. Wonder--in an aesthetic, philosophical, and spiritual sense--brings human beings in resonance with the world again.

This book traces the aesthetic of wonder from the romantic period through contemporary philosophy and literature, arguing for its relevance to ecological consciousness. Most ecocritical scholarship tends to overshadow discussions of wonder with the sublime, failing to treat these two aesthetic categories as distinct. As a result, contemporary scholarship has conflated wonder and the sublime and ultimately lost the nuances that these two concepts conjure for readers and thinkers. Economides illuminates important differences between these aesthetics, particularly their negotiation of issues relevant to gender-based and environmental politics. In turn, readers can utilize the concept of wonder as an open-ended, non-violent framework in contrast to the ethos of domination that often surrounds the sublime.

In Balanced Wonder: Experiential Sources of Imagination, Virtue, and Human Flourishing, Jan B. W. Pedersen digs deep into the alluring topic of wonder and argues in a scholarly yet accessible way that the experience of wonder, when balanced, serves as a strong contributor to human flourishing. Along the way, Pedersen describes seven properties of wonder and shows how wonder it is distinct from other altered states, including awe, horror, the sublime, curiosity, amazement, admiration, and astonishment. Examining the contribution of both emotion and imagination in the experience of wonder--—filtered through the Neo-Aristotelian work of philosophers Douglas Rasmussen, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Martha Nussbaum--—Pedersen also makes it clear that wonder may contribute to human flourishing in various ways, such as the widening of perception, extension of moral scope or sensitivity, a wondrous afterglow, openness, humility, an imaginative attitude, reverence, and gratitude. Importantly, for wonder to act as a strong contributor to human flourishing one needs to wonder at the right thing, in the right amount, in at the right time, in the right way, and for the right purpose.