Abstract

This study takes up the Socratic claim that wonder is the origin of all philosophy, and analyzes how wonder operates in key Socratic dialogues as what makes certain types of inquiry possible. In Chapters One this study takes the position that Socratic wonder requires the deconstruction of knowledge as much as it involves a philosophical search for knowledge. Chapter Two claims that Socratic wonder is complemented by the desire for knowledge described in the Symposium as eros. Thus, the Socratic model of philosophical inquiry is characterized as one beginning both pathe of wonder and eros. ;In Chapters Three and Four, this study turns to the figures of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Lacan. Chapter Three analyzes Heidegger's understanding of wonder as central to our relation to Being, and Chapter Four analyzes Lacan's understanding of desire as similarly fundamental. This study criticizes both thinkers for their emphasis on one pathos at the expense of the other, and contrasted to the Socratic model which successfully synthesizes wonder and desire. ;Finally, in Chapter Five, this study uses the tragic figure of Oedipus as a paradigm of existential inquiry within the operations of wonder and desire, and how an Oedipal impulse to know---and to avoid knowledge---relate to the fundamental pathe as understood by these three thinkers in their competing models