The Eye of the Beholder

 

The Ohio Caverns in the Mid-western part of the state.  My wife and I visited this beautiful place for our first Anniversary some years back.

What is it that makes a young child, upon encountering something completely new and foreign to anything in his previous experience be filled with wonder and invariably ask of someone, anyone: “what is that!”?  The answer of course is readily supplied by Aristotle when he declares that all men desire to know.  Not surprisingly, the child is easily satisfied with a simple noun answer such as “oh, that’s an airplane,”  “that’s a chair.”  It never occurs to the child the great depth and import of the seemingly simple question he just asked; nor does it ever occur to the adult providing this simple answer that a much better answer is required to fully and accurately answer the question asked.  The child is not really looking for anything more, and the adult gives the child exactly what it needs at that moment.  Though this question may satisfy the child, Man in his nature is not satisfied with the simple answer but searches ardently for the essence of things, their quiddity, what makes them what they are.

Pieper in his essay The Philosophical Act makes frequent distinction between the necessary, analytical knowledge of the workaday world and the knowledge inspired by wonder.  The knowledge of the workaday world is similar to the answer we might give the child mentioned earlier when asked “what is that? (a chair)”: categorical, given in the language of the parents to inform the child what the commonly given name is so that communication will be possible.  The knowledge of Philosophy and by extension hope is by contrast similar to the question child who may look upon an airplane as it takes off and asks “how does it fly?”  To go into an in-depth answer of science may be beyond expertise of the parent, and is certainly beyond the comprehension of the child; nevertheless an answer is required.  Though I will not posit a suggestion as to how to answer this, the question asked here literally springs from the eye of the beholder.  The child “beholds” the airplane, marvels at it, holds it first at arms length and then close up in curiosity and wonder.

A picture of a bygone era, when I was allowed to grow a beard as I marvelled while enjoyed God's creation in beautiful NH

The question of hope, the question of “how does it fly?” is one of relation, a quest for the “capacity to relate oneself to the whole of reality, to the whole world… to have a world, to be related to the totality of existing things”.  It is the need to see the whole of reality with the mind’s eye, with the knowledge with which God sees all that we hope for as sons and daughters of Him who loves us, and Who loves to delights His children.