The Ontology of Wonder: Why Plato Lets Thales Fall

Abstract

This paper reinterprets Plato’s anecdote of Thales’ fall into the well in the Theaetetus. In contrast to readings that view this episode as a merely comic critique of the impractical intellectual, this study situates it within the broader context of Plato’s philosophical reorientation of wonder from cosmology to ontology. Drawing on Hans Blumenberg’s intellectual–historical approach and contrasting it with Aristotle’s epistemological conception of thaumazein in the Metaphysics, this paper combines conceptual analysis with close textual readings of the Theaetetus, Symposium, and Phaedrus under a unitarian assumption of continuity. This comparative inquiry reveals that Plato transforms wonder from a state of aporia or perplexity into an ecstatic participation in the realm of Forms, thereby redefining the philosophical act itself. This study argues that Plato “lets Thales fall” precisely to withdraw wonder from cosmological observation, embodied in the figure of Thales, and to reclaim it as the ontological foundation of philosophical contemplation.

1. Introduction

This paper argues that Plato’s staging of Thales’ fall illustrates the transition of wonder from the cosmological to the ontological realm. By ontology, we mean a level of understanding of wonder that is neither mythological, rooted in the admiration of divine realities (as in Homer or Hesiod) [1], nor cosmological, directed toward the observation of the heavens (as in the figure of Thales), nor even epistemological, bound to aporia and ignorance (as in Plato’s Theaetetus or Aristotle’s Metaphysics). Ontologically understood, wonder is that in which the object of wonder lies, within the Platonic chorismos, the ontological hiatus between the intelligible and the sensible, in the realm of Forms, that is, in relation to to ontos on (true Being), and not in the perceptible world.

In the seventh book of the Republic (529a–b) [2]1, immediately after presenting the famous allegory of the cave, Plato turns to the theme of astronomy. His interlocutor Glaucon praises astronomy for compelling the soul to look upward. Socrates, however, corrects him, explaining that such astronomy in fact makes the soul look downward. What is truly “above”, namely, that which is being and invisible, is accessible only to the gaze of reason (noein), and not to the eyes (theorein).

In the Timaeus (39c–d; 47a–c) [3], wonder at the heavens remains within the domain of sensible multiplicity and is therefore redirected from the admiration of celestial spectacle to the contemplation of mathematical order. Many marvel (thaumazein) at the colorful motions of the planets, while true philosophy begins only when the soul turns away from such multiplicity toward the mathematical harmony that reflects the realm of Forms.

Astronomy as the observation of the stars, and the philosophical problem inherent in it, has been preserved for us also in the well-known anecdote of Thales’ fall into the well. The fact that Thales fell into the well is no mere accident; on the contrary, Thales almost cannot but fall into the well. More precisely, the fact that Plato lets the astronomer Thales fall into the well while being laughed at by the Thracian servant girl can be understood from the inner logic of the ontology of wonder. In contrast to the common interpretation, we do not read this anecdote merely as Plato’s distinction between two forms of life, the philosophical and the non-philosophical [4] (pp. 68–69), but rather seek to highlight a transition from cosmological to ontological wonder.

To clarify this transition, we take the anecdote of Thales falling into a well as our central motif and examine how Plato’s staging of the fall functions within his broader conception of wonder. The structure of our argument proceeds as follows:

First, we will offer an introduction to Thales’ thought and to the figure of Thales himself. Then, we will look more closely at the passage from the Theaetetus in which Plato describes Thales’ fall into the well. Subsequently, we will turn to Hans Blumenberg’s interpretation in order to understand how he situates this story within his intellectual–historical thesis on the disqualification of theory, which will allow us to identify three distinct levels of conflict exemplified by our anecdote. The distinctiveness of Plato’s ontological conception of wonder becomes apparent when contrasted with Aristotle’s treatment of Thales, who, unlike Plato, does not ridicule him but, on the contrary, presents him, following Herodotus, as a practically minded thinker. We will argue that this difference arises from the distinct aims that the concept of wonder serves: in Aristotle, it has an epistemological function, whereas in Plato it is not only epistemological but also ontological. Finally, we shall return to our own thesis, in which we shall argue that Plato lets Thales fall precisely because he locates the phenomenon of wonder in the realm of Forms, and not merely in the heavens. To demonstrate this, we shall look more closely at the role of wonder in three dialogs—Theaetetus, Symposium, and Phaedrus, which we shall interpret in a unitarian sense, assuming a continuity in Plato’s thinking.

2. Thales as One of the Seven Sages

To understand how Plato uses Thales’ fall to transfer wonder from the cosmological to the ontological realm, we must first recall who Thales was and what characterized his way of thinking. Thales came from Miletus, a city in the colonies of Asia Minor outside the cultural centers of Greece such as Athens and Sparta, just like his successors Anaximander and Anaximenes. This geographical position not only enabled contact with other cultures, but also created a certain cultural distance from what Mansfeld and Primavesi describe as “the more conservative motherland”, which, in their account, offered less favorable conditions for the earliest developments of philosophical thinking [5] (p. 10). A similar emphasis on Miletus’ wealth, colonial network, and “widespread foreign contacts”, as well as on the Milesians’ distinctive conception of divine agency compared to “the polytheism current in contemporary Greek society”, can already be found in Guthrie’s classic account [6] (pp. 3–4). One might recognize a literary echo of this dichotomy between the peripheral regions and the conservative motherland in the laughter of the Thracian servant girl in the Athenian Plato, where the Ionian Thales gazes into the distance, toward the stars, which in this context may be read as a gesture toward the wider horizon opened up by foreign contacts, while neglecting what lies near at hand, namely the traditional religious order shaped by polytheism (Theaetetus 174a) [7]. This antinomy reaches its culmination in the accusation of impiety against Anaxagoras, the first prominent philosopher to appear in Athens. Even more famous, of course, is the later condemnation of Socrates.

It is considered unlikely that Thales ever committed his teachings to writing [8] (p. 27). This has contributed to ongoing skepticism regarding his actual contributions and has made him something of a Janus-faced figure [9] (p. 31). For our purposes, it is important to briefly mention his practical wisdom, his work in astronomy, and his reception by Aristotle as the first philosopher.

In historical contrast to Plato’s literary mockery of Thales, expressed in the episode of his fall into the well, Herodotus in his Histories reports that Thales also offered practical advice, for instance to King Croesus when he led his army across the river Halys. By means of a clever trick involving a semicircular diversion of the river’s course, Thales enabled the army to cross it (Histories I.70–75) [10].

What probably brought him the greatest fame was his inclusion among the Seven Sages (Protagoras 343a) [11]. Alongside Thales, we also find Solon. This raises the question: why is it not Solon who falls into the well, but Thales? Here we can see to what extent Plato’s anecdote about the impractical philosopher Thales differs from the common interpretation found not only in Herodotus but, as we shall see, also in Aristotle, whose repeated references to Thales across several works make him one of our major sources for Thales’ philosophical profile [12] (pp. xvii–xx).

He is, however, best known for his prediction of a solar eclipse (Histories I.74) (DK 11 A 5) [13]. According to most modern studies, Thales did not predict the precise date or time, but at most the year in which it would occur [9] (p. 23). He probably extrapolated this prediction from Babylonian astronomical tables, that is, by calculating the year of the next eclipse on the basis of recorded solar cycles [5] (pp. 39–40). Yet even this explanation is uncertain, since Babylonian astronomy was never capable of predicting the precise location from which an eclipse would be visible [9] (pp. 23–24).

In Metaphysics, Aristotle reports that Thales declared water to be the principle (arche) of all things. However, we cannot be certain of the reliability of this statement, since we know it only through Aristotle’s interpretation within the framework of his own doctrine of the four causes (Metaphysics 983b20-30) [14]. The very notion of arche therefore has an interpretive character in Aristotle’s account of Thales’ philosophy. It functions as a material cause (hyle), which Aristotle later supplemented and “corrected” by adding three further causes. As O’Grady has argued, Aristotle’s interest in fitting the early thinkers into his causal scheme can prevent him from fully grasping the original aims of their investigations, so that his reports must be used with caution when we try to reconstruct Thales’ own position [12] (p. 40).

Furthermore, the claim that the Earth floats on water like a piece of wood (DK 11 A 14) already appears in mythological form in Homer, where Oceanus encircles the round Earth (Iliad XVIII.607-609) [15]. For this reason, as Blumenberg observes, it remains open to question whether Thales’ assertion should truly be regarded as a philosophical (that is, rational) thesis, or merely as a form of exegetical speculation [16] (p. 3). More recent commentators, however, have emphasized that even if Thales’ view draws on mythological motifs, it still marks an important step towards a philosophical and scientific account of nature: as McKirahan argues, Aristotle does not treat Thales as a mere teller of myths but as the founder of a new tradition, precisely because he “demythologizes” such imagery by turning water into a general cosmological principle [9] (p. 29).

Likewise, Blumenberg interprets Thales’ statement that “everything is full of gods” (DK 11 A 12) not metaphysically but geographically. He reads it as an allusion to the statues of gods that lined the approximately sixteen kilometers long sacred road between Miletus and the oracle of Didyma during the May procession [16] (p. 3). Thales’ name is also remembered in the field of mathematics, where he is traditionally credited with the theorem stating that triangles with one side and the two adjacent angles equal are congruent (DK 11 A 20).

The early sages, including Thales, were known for a worldly and practical kind of wisdom, expressed in terse maxims and oriented toward the conduct of life and politics rather than toward morality [5] (p. 37).

Yet in Plato’s Theaetetus Thales is presented above all as an astronomer. Plato does not mention Thales’ water doctrine, even though the well itself contains water, which might lead one to expect such an association, and he leaves aside other biographical and doxographical details. This is not surprising, since it is widely agreed that Plato should not be treated as a reliable historical witness to Thales’ life or doctrines. As McKirahan notes, Plato’s references to earlier thinkers must be used with caution: they are philosophical rather than historical and are often framed with irony and humor [9] (p. 3). Accordingly, this paper does not aim to reconstruct the historical Thales but to analyze the philosophical function of the Thales anecdote within the Theaetetus and its relation to Plato’s theory of Forms.

3. Thales’ Fall into the Well—Anecdote

In a well-established line of interpretation, already articulated in the classic account by Kirk and Raven, the anecdote has been read as a caricature of the philosopher, often framed through the “absent minded professor” motif [17] (pp. 78–79). It has also been taken more generally to illustrate Thales’ unworldliness and, in later reception, the alleged uselessness of pagan learning [18] (p. 4). This tension between theory and practice is introduced into the history of philosophy by Plato in the Theaetetus (173d–174d). For a long time, this passage was the most frequently cited part of the dialog, even though Socrates presents it merely as a secondary discussion. In the scholarly literature, it is therefore often referred to simply as the digression, that is, as an excursus or thematic detour [19] (p. 296).

The anecdote that Plato attributes to Thales has a close parallel in Aesop. There, however, it appears merely as a story about an astronomer and a passer-by [20] (p. 49). As Buddensiek notes, however, we do not know whether the Aesopic version is earlier than Plato’s, and even if it were, this would not establish direct dependence [21] (p. 16). This nevertheless raises a question: Why, then, does Plato name his astronomer as Thales? To answer this question, we must recall that in the Greek tradition, Thales was regarded as the early thinker about nature and as a symbol of concentrated observation of the stars. In the Theaetetus, Socrates recounts the story as follows:

Soc. Why, take the case of Thales, Theodorus. While he was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit, and a neat, witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, they say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there before him at his very feet. The same jest applies to all who pass their lives in philosophy. For really such a man pays no attention to his next door neighbor; he is not only ignorant of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a human being or some other kind of a creature; but what a human being is and what is proper for such a nature to do or bear different from any other, this he inquires and exerts himself to find out. Do you understand, Theodorus, or not?

(174a–174b)

The passage, when closely read, reveals a conflict between everyday life and the philosophical way of life, a case of mutual ridicule. The image of the philosopher functions as a caricature and points to the servant girl’s misunderstanding. The servant girl does not understand what the philosopher is doing, while the philosopher, as we read, appears ignorant of ordinary matters.

That this is indeed a caricature becomes evident from the fact that the character of the philosopher described in the preceding passage (173c–173d) is said not to know the way to the agora, to be ignorant of the laws, and to neglect familial affairs.

All this is nothing but a misunderstanding, considering that it is precisely Socrates who knows the marketplace, converses in the agora, is familiar with the laws. The scene therefore reflects not the philosopher’s ignorance, but the servant girl’s limited perspective. Thus, it is the servant girl who fails to understand the philosopher. Plato uses her laughter to dramatize the tension between philosophy and everyday life. Thrace, known in antiquity for its slave trade [22] (p. 489) and often mentioned in Greek sources as a region associated with servitude (Histories I.134), serves here as a symbolic contrast: while the Thracian maid embodies servitude and the unreflective life, Socrates represents freedom [19] (p. 298).

How the Greeks caricatured the intellectual can be seen in Aristophanes’ comedy Clouds. Aristophanes takes the forty-six-year-old Socrates and portrays him satirically as a charlatan [23]. Not only does Socrates himself address this matter in the Apology, but we may also say that this satirical portrayal is, in a sense, repaid in Plato’s Symposium, where Aristophanes delivers his famous “comic” speech on Eros and the doubled bodies. Nevertheless, as Dover points out, the popular image of the intellectual at that time was still associated with astronomy, cosmology, physics, and geology. The caricature would therefore have concerned this image, even though philosophical development had already shifted. Socrates was no longer the type of the early thinker about nature: “the popular conceptions of the intellectual are usually a generation out of date.” [24] (p. 54) In this sense, following Dover’s argument, Plato appears philosophically more precise than Aristophanes: instead of portraying Socrates as an early thinker about nature, he assigns the caricature to Thales.

4. Blumenberg and the Three Levels of Conflict

While the traditional reading tends to portray the anecdote as illustrating the philosopher’s unworldliness and impracticality, more recent interpretations have challenged this view. Buddensiek, for example, building on the work of Landmann and Fleckenstein, distinguishes between a “traditional” and a “non-traditional” interpretation. He argues that the anecdote is primarily about the servant’s misinterpretation of Thales’ astronomical activity rather than an objective report of his behavior [21] (pp. 16–20). Priou, for his part, reads the digression in the Theaetetus in the wider context of Milesian thought and Hesiod. He takes Thales’ fall as highlighting a tension between his cosmic ambitions and human practical limits, as a potentially hubristic overreaching of human wisdom [25] (pp. 13–14).

Against this background, Blumenberg’s metaphorological approach is particularly helpful for our own question. It should not be treated as a historical reconstruction, but as a suggestive way of reading the anecdote: not as a biographical episode but as a metaphor for what we interpret as the threefold conflict of philosophy. The conflict between the philosophical and the everyday is not the only dimension of tension revealed in this anecdote. A further, more internal conflict within philosophical thought itself explains why Plato names the astronomer Thales. Blumenberg observes that Socrates no longer belongs to the natural thinkers. The Socrates turns away from the philosophy of the first eminent Athenian philosopher, Anaxagoras, because he is disappointed in the expectation that Anaxagoras’ nous would prove to be the cause of all things, the common good of everything, while in fact it offers only a mechanistic explanation (Phaedo 98b) [26,27] (p. 253).

With Socrates, philosophy thus undergoes an anthropological turn toward human and practical concerns. Alongside the first opposition between everyday life and theoretical contemplation, a second conflict emerges, one of a more internal and reflective nature. Blumenberg here refers to Cicero, who, much like the Cyrenaic school, credits Socrates with the achievement of having brought philosophy down from heaven back to humankind [28] (p. 247). In the Tusculan Disputations we read: “Socrates autem primus philosophiam devocavit e caelo et in urbibus conlocavit et in domus etiam introduxit et coegit de vita et moribus rebusque bonis et malis quaerere.” (Socrates, however, was the first who called philosophy down from the heavens, and placed it in cities, and introduced it even into homes, and forced it to inquire about life and morals and things good and evil.) (Tusculan Disputations V, 4, 10–11) [29] In Cicero’s text, the verb devocavit bears a vivid metaphorical sense: Socrates “called philosophy down from heaven to earth,” turning it away from the cosmological and the metaphysical speculation toward the concerns of human life.

Wonder, as we shall later see in the Theaetetus (154d–155d), no longer belongs to the cosmos but to human ignorance. And as we further develop this within the Platonic context (Phaedrus 249d–252c [26] and Symposium 210a–212a [30]), it is beauty and its Form, that emerge as what truly deserves wonder and admiration.

In this sense, Blumenberg further argues that in Hellenism this Socratic conflict of interests is transformed into a defining tension between the political urgency of practice and the contemplative leisure (schole or otium). Ultimately, this opposition is later taken over by patristic thought, in which the turn toward the political is replaced by the concern for salvation [28] (p. 26).

Evidence of this can be found in Tertullian’s reception of the anecdote of Thales’ fall into the well. In this context, Tertullian even uses the expression stupida curiositas (Ad Nat. II, 4, 18–19) [31] (p. 217). Here, the focus is no longer on the impracticality of theory but, rather, on what Tertullian, in his well-known denigration of Greek philosophy (quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? quid Academiae et Ecclesiae? (De Praescriptione Haereticorum 7.9) [32] (p. 244)), considers problematic: philosophy itself, or science as such. For him, it is vain and empty (vacuum).

In The Trail of Theoretical Curiosity (the middle section of The Legitimacy of the Modern Age), Blumenberg shows in what sense Thales’ fall into the well serves as an exemplary field of conflict connected with philosophy, or more precisely, with the theoretical attitude itself. We have seen that we are already dealing with two kinds of conflict. The first concerns the mutual misunderstanding between everyday life, the natural world, and the theoretical attitude. The opposite of wonder here is laughter, the Thracian servant girl laughs at Thales. Yet this laughter is not merely a weapon of subjugation, aimed at eliminating schole, or otium (leisure), it is at the same time an expression of a conflict within philosophy itself. In this sense, Blumenberg’s reading supports our own argument: Thales’ fall is not merely a satire but fulfills a philosophical function, revealing the inner conflict that belongs to philosophy itself.

The anthropological turn in philosophy is a turn from the stars toward the human being. In this sense, it is no accident that Plato chooses Thales as the one to be ridiculed. The kind of wonder at issue for Plato is no longer to arise spontaneously from the object itself in its immediacy [28] (p. 25), but must instead be almost “reserved” for the contemplation of the Forms, as described in the Symposium and the Phaedrus. We can see that in this contemplation of the Forms, another turn is implied—an ontological one.

This becomes clear when we consider a third, more external level of conflict, one that Blumenberg also mentions, connected with this second, inner one, namely the tension between the philosopher’s alleged impiety arising from his “secularization” of the object of theoretical inquiry and the mythological mode of vision [16] (pp. 11–12). The sun is no longer a goddess, but celestial phenomena are regarded theoretically, a view that, as we read in Plutarch, brought Anaxagoras before the court (DK 59 A 17). It is therefore no coincidence, as we have already noted in the context of the dichotomy between periphery and center, that this first philosopher to appear in Athens was accused of blasphemy.

Thus, to connect the dots, Plato’s ontological turn of wonder can be seen as arising not only from the conflict resolved in the anthropological turn, but also from the Presocratic process of “desacralization,” which it may in part seek to compensate. The realm of Forms and the concepts of chorismos and to ontos on are not only opposed to natural philosophy but also, as we know, constitute a distinctive feature of Plato’s philosophy in contrast to the anthropological focus of Socrates [33] (p. 48).

5. Aristotle and the Question of Why Thales Does Not Fall

With the help of Blumenberg’s interpretation, we can see that Thales’ fall into the well expresses a rich field of conflicts on which philosophical thinking comes into being. From this context, it is therefore important for our argument to ask why Aristotle does not stage this conflict, and why he therefore has no reason to ridicule Thales. While genre differences certainly play a role, Aristotle does not avoid anecdotal material altogether. In Politics (1.11.1259a5-19) [34], he recounts the well-known anecdote of Thales and the olive presses.

In this section we argue that Aristotle has no reason to ridicule Thales in the Platonic manner, even though he explicitly characterizes sophia as pursued for its own sake rather than for utility. This divergence can be explained first for ethical reasons, and second from the perspective of how the concept of thaumazein functions in the Metaphysics. It is precisely this second aspect that, for our argument concerning the “ontological urgency” of Thales’ fall in Plato, serves as a contrasting example showing how the anecdote, or rather its absence or counterexample, fulfills a function within philosophical thought.

As we have said, Aristotle does not explicitly mention Thales’ fall into the well. However, as the anecdote preserved in the Politics shows, Thales’ observation of the heavens was not useless for the practical life of the philosopher. The story concerns Thales and the knowledge that enabled him to make a profit. In Plutarch, a similar story about the trading of oil is ascribed to Plato as a way of financing his journey to Egypt, thus serving as an example of practical wisdom2.

In the first book of the Politics (1.11.1259a5–19), we read the anecdote about the olive presses, which illustrates the practicality of Thales’ observation of the stars and the possibility for a philosopher to enrich himself by it if he so wished:

All these methods are serviceable for those who value wealth-getting, for example the plan of Thales of Miletus, which is a device for the business of getting wealth, but which, though it is attributed to him because of his wisdom, is really of universal application. Thales, so the story goes, because of his poverty was taunted with the uselessness of philosophy; but from his knowledge of astronomy he had observed while it was still winter that there was going to be a large crop of olives, so he raised a small sum of money and paid round deposits for the whole of the olive-presses in Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a low rent as nobody was running him up; and when the season arrived, there was a sudden demand for a number of presses at the same time, and by letting them out on what terms he liked he realized a large sum of money, so proving that it is easy for philosophers to be rich if they choose, but this is not what they care about.

Let us begin with the first ethical reason why Thales is not ridiculed but, on the contrary, his theoretical observation brings him fortune. In the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between three ways of life. The first, the bios apolaustikos (1095b15-20) [36], is the life devoted to pleasure; the many and the ordinary people, he says, pursue this way of life, which he calls slavish and resembling that of grazing animals. The second is the political life, but this too is imperfect, since it depends on fortune, and it may happen that a person who appears happy may still encounter great misfortune. If ethics, therefore, deals with happiness (eudaimonia) as the highest good, it must avoid the fate of Croesus, who, as both Herodotus (Histories I, 29–30) and Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 1100a) report, was not judged by Solon to be truly happy and in the end met a miserable end.

In the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics (1177b18–1178a8), Aristotle privileges the theoretical life over the political one, since it allows for the greatest degree of self-sufficiency (autarkeia). However, one should not assume that Aristotle envisions a purely theoretical existence, which, as we shall see, supports our argument. In Nicomachean Ethics (1179a9-11), we read that the theoretician requires only a moderate amount of external goods, from which it follows that he is not completely self-sufficient. Aristotle is therefore not as strict or totalizing as Plato in his tripartite model of the Republic. This shows that the different forms of life are not determined by fate but can be freely chosen [37] (p. 274).

The Aristotelian anecdote not only supports this fluidity among the Aristotelian forms of life but also shows that if the theoretical life is to remain self-sufficient, it must nevertheless be sustained by the practical. Within Aristotle’s framework, the philosopher cannot be portrayed as an impractical figure. Aristotle scholar J. L. Ackrill supports this view, arguing that when Aristotle speaks of eudaimonia, he does not imply that it consists solely in one kind of activity (theoria), but that certain good actions “contribute” to it [38] (p. 57). Moreover, as Ackrill notes, “Aristotle does not then commit himself to the thesis that actions are valuable only insofar as they promote theoria” [38] (p. 59). Thus, theoria is not the only and exclusive form of life, but rather one that remains intertwined with the practical dimension of human existence.

Yet even this Aristotelian reconciliation between theory and practice, as A. MacIntyre observes, still bears a certain resemblance to Plato’s ideal. The ultimate goal remains the metaphysical contemplation of truth. It is precisely this autarkeia understood as self-sufficiency that reveals, according to MacIntyre, an elitist and anti-Socratic tendency, an “extraordinarily parochial form of human existence” [39] (p. 80). Thus, although Aristotle does not explicitly ridicule Thales, a subtle conflict nevertheless remains, echoing the first one that we encountered in the story of Thales’ fall into the well, between the theoretical and the practical life.

Even though the “contemplation of the gods” is regarded as the highest form of life, we read in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics (1177b) that such a life would in fact be superior to the human level. Nevertheless, Aristotle advises that we should still strive toward such a life: not to think only as mortals because we are mortal, but to aspire toward what is, in a sense, pro-immortal.

To sum up our argument: Aristotle has no reason to ridicule Thales, since the theoretical is not strictly separated from the practical. Moreover, in order to secure his self-sufficiency and his striving toward metaphysical contemplation, the philosopher may make use of his wisdom whenever he wishes.

However, if we follow MacIntyre in viewing the contemplative vision of the divine as something shared by both Plato and Aristotle, then this cannot be the only reason for the ridicule of Thales. Another aspect must be added—one that is its contrary and at the same time marks the distinction between Plato and Aristotle. We argue that it is precisely the differing conception of wonder that constitutes conditio sine qua non for Thales’ fall into the well.

Let us thus turn to the second aspect. Both Plato and Aristotle use the concept of thaumazein as the initial impulse or driving force of philosophy. When these passages are placed side by side in isolation, one gains the impression of a certain coherence regarding the origin of philosophy. Yet, as is well known in the scholarly literature [40] (p. 9), when considered in their respective contexts, a conceptual divergence emerges: while in Plato, as we shall see, wonder is linked to the vision of the highest Form, in Aristotle’s Metaphysics it is primarily understood as an expression of ignorance concerning the causes of phenomena, a form of wonder that can and should ultimately be overcome in the process of knowledge. It is thus the telos—the fulfillment or end—of the philosophical movement initiated by wonder that marks the difference between the two.

For Aristotle, to philosophize means to flee from ignorance. Since philosophy is not a productive science (poietike episteme), but a theoretical one, it must derive its initial impulse from something other than practical or productive activity. Aristotle locates this impulse in wonder. People begin to wonder about strange and unfamiliar things, first about what lies close at hand and later about the whole (Metaphysics 982b). What is crucial here is that for Aristotle, to wonder already implies ignorance, and philosophy is therefore the flight from it. Once divine knowledge, that is, knowledge of aitia and arche, has been attained, Aristotle concludes: “The acquisition of this knowledge, however, must in a sense result in something which is the reverse of the outlook with which we first approached the inquiry” (Metaphysics 983a10-15).

Thus, the goal of philosophy can be described as a kind of athaumastia3, a state in which the initial wonder has been overcome. As he himself adds, it must end “in the opposite” (to enantion) and “in the better” (to ameinon) (Metaphysics 983a15-20). Our argument here is straightforward. Since Aristotle’s goal is the divine knowledge of aitia and arche, that is, knowledge free from ignorance, his sophia, as contemplative vision, no longer rests in wonder as a lasting attitude, even if wonder remains its originating impulse. This is compatible with Aristotle’s own insistence that philosophy begins from wonder and is pursued not for utility but for its own sake (Metaphysics 982a1–5). Therefore, there is little reason from Aristotle’s point of view to ridicule Thales. In contrast to Plato, for Aristotle, wonder is not a lasting philosophical attitude, but rather the motivating beginning of philosophical inquiry. In order to complete our argument, it now remains to show in what sense Plato uses wonder for his philosophical goal, the contemplation of the Forms, and why he consequently feels the need to ridicule cosmological wonder in the figure of Thales.

6. Wonder and Beauty: Theaetetus, Symposium, and Phaedrus

Aristotle’s conception of thaumazein is genuinely epistemological. The same applies, according to the usual interpretations, to Plato’s passage in the Theaetetus. The German Christian philosopher Josef Pieper, when reflecting on wonder [41] (p. 66), refers to Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy and their relation to the Socratic method. Hegel regards confusion (Verwirrung) as the beginning of philosophy, illustrating this with the well-known passage from the Meno [11], where Socrates presents one of the sophistic aporia concerning the impossibility of inquiry: as it is said there, one does not inquire into what one already knows, and one cannot inquire into what one does not know, since one does not know what to look for (80e). The result, Hegel observes, is unsatisfactory [42] (p. 466). The confusion thus generated is intended to stimulate reflection.

Similarly, we can read the Theaetetus on this epistemological level of confusion, when Theaetetus is confronted with the puzzle that Socrates can, within the space of a year, be both larger than a young man like him now and smaller later on, not because Socrates has lost any of his size, but because Theaetetus has grown. In fact, these puzzles are rather trivial, as commentators agree [43] (pp. 133–134); it is sufficient to add the word “than” for the contradiction to disappear. Nevertheless, Theaetetus becomes dizzy from this experience, and it is precisely in this context of epistemological confusion that Plato speaks of thaumazein as the beginning of philosophy (154d).

If we considered only this passage in the Theaetetus, it would be rather difficult to discern the significance of wonder for ontology. We might then, with Poetsch [44] (p. 120), have to argue that thaumazein represents a specific reaction to sophist-alike aporia.

As is well known, this later dialog ends in aporia. The epistemological problems it raises are not resolved by recourse to the theory of Forms, as is the case in the Meno with the doctrine of anamnesis (recollection). This omission allows for two possible interpretations. On the one hand, it might indicate that Plato is revising the theory of Forms that dominated his early and middle dialogs. On the other hand, it could be understood as a deliberate, pedagogical demonstration ex negatione, a proof through failure, that any epistemology must collapse in the absence of the Forms [45]. This latter reading preserves the continuity of the Platonic doctrine of Forms. In our interpretation, which emphasizes the ontological dimension of wonder, we implicitly adopt this unitarian perspective.

For the epistemological kind of wonder in the Theaetetus, understood in its negative function as a shaking or rupture, as the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka calls it in his Heretical Essays [46] (pp. 39–40), it would be inadequate to speak of ontology. Yet this rupture of meaning is, for Patočka, a necessary condition for the new, free movement of truth. In a similar way, when Plato declares that philosophy begins in this wonder bound to aporia, he immediately adds a genealogical remark. He refers to Hesiod’s Theogony (265) [47], where Iris is described as the daughter of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra and the sister of the Harpies. From Homer’s Iliad (XV, 144) we know that Iris, the divine messenger, is a winged being who can move freely through all three spheres of the cosmos. What, then, does Plato suggest by this reference? Here too, the negative aspect of wonder can be discerned. As Poetsch has rightly observed, in Hesiod Iris is sent by Zeus in moments of conflict (Theogony 780–787) in order to establish binding reconciliation through the oath sworn by the waters of Styx between the quarreling gods. This, according to the usual interpretation, symbolizes in Plato the transformation of eristic dispute, argument for its own sake, into genuine dialegesthai, authentic philosophical dialog [44] (pp. 123–124). Yet this interpretation remains confined to the epistemological horizon.

We should not forget that Iris symbolizes the rainbow, the winged messenger who moves between heaven, earth, and the underworld, and thus embodies a being of the “in-between.” She must hasten either to the lord of the sea, Poseidon (Iliad XV, 158), or descend beneath the earth to fetch the dreadful water of Styx (Theogony 785) in order to bring it to the dwellers of heaven (Theogony 783).

It is this figure that leads us to the second important dialog concerning wonder in Plato, the Symposium. Here, wonder is no longer epistemological in the sense of sophistic confusion; rather, it figures as an essential element in the ascent toward the realm of Forms, where Plato establishes an ontological connection between beauty and wonder.

The Symposium is a collection of encomia devoted to Eros, among which Diotima’s speech, the only one delivered by a woman in all of Plato’s dialogs, constitutes the high point of the entire work. Winged Eros, like Iris, is understood as a being of the “in between,” a metaxy, a daimon existing between the mortal and the immortal. The priestess and teacher Diotima compares the philosopher to Eros, positioned between wisdom and ignorance, yet always striving toward what is most beautiful (204b).

What is most important for our purposes is this connection of Eros to ascent from the love of a single beautiful body to that of many beautiful bodies, then to beautiful souls, and finally to beautiful activities, customs, and laws (210a–210e). This ascent is then completed by the sudden vision of the wondrous itself, which is beautiful by its very nature. It neither comes into being nor passes away; it is beautiful for all, and above all it exists in and for itself, while all other things possess beauty only by participation (211a).

We read this passage from the Greek text exaiphnes katopsetai ti thaumaston ten physin kalon (210e) in a substantivized sense. The construction consists of a direct object plus an accusative of respect. On the one hand, ti thaumaston, “something worthy of wonder”, functions as the direct object of the verb katopsetai. On the other, kalon is predicative and is qualified by ten physin, that is, “beautiful in its nature”. Accordingly, we translate: “He suddenly beholds something worthy of wonder, beautiful in its nature.”

It is important to note, however, that in many modern translations it is beauty that appears as the object of perception, rather than ti thaumaston, so that the wondrous is taken merely as a predicate or attribute of beauty. Thus, for example, the German Reclam edition reads: “plötzlich ein seiner Natur nach wunderbar Schönes” (suddenly something wonderfully beautiful by its very nature) [48] and the English Cambridge University Press edition: “will suddenly perceive, as he now approaches the end of his study, a beauty that is marvelous in its nature—the very thing, Socrates.” [49] In many modern translations, therefore, the substantival character of ti thaumaston is lost in favor of a contextual reading as an attribute of beauty. By contrast, the Loeb Classical Library version “a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature” retains the object-status of ti thaumaston, with “vision” supplied to fit katopsetai. This reading accords with R. E. Allen’s translation, which likewise preserves the substantive force of ti thaumaston as the direct object: “suddenly, in an instant, proceeding at that point to the end of the things of love, see something marvelous, beautiful in nature” [50].

Why is this significant? If we preserve in this passage the object–character of ti thaumaston and thus favor the literal translation over the contextual one, the aspect of ontological wonder in Plato’s Symposium becomes most clearly visible. What one ascends toward is no longer the confusion described in the Theaetetus, but that which is worthy of wonder in itself, something that is by nature beautiful—that is, the Form of Beauty. Here, wonder as the telos of the ascent is ontologized through its connection with the erotic and thereby acquires a new dimension that transcends both the cosmological and the epistemological.

If we now return to our main thesis, which holds that Thales’ fall is staged because Plato requires wonder to move from the cosmological to the ontological, this becomes evident here. The wondrous, as the Beautiful itself, represents the ontological culmination of the ascent. Thus, this wondrous, as the Beautiful itself, i.e., to ontos on, is conceivable only within the Platonic chorismos, that is, within the hiatus between the sensible and the intelligible. Wonder, by its very nature, cannot but transcend the cosmological.

A second concept that reinforces this ontologization of wonder already appears in the Symposium: when one beholds beauty, one is seized or carried away. Ekplexis as this displacement is a second term for wonder in Plato [40] (p. 20). Already here the direction of this experience, that is, beauty itself, is indicated (211d), but it becomes most clearly articulated in the Phaedrus, in the context of anamnesis (recollection) (250b).

In the Theaetetus, we can observe the connection between wonder and flight in the figure of Iris; in the Symposium, it is Eros who appears as a winged daimon; and in the Phaedrus, it is the erastes, the lover of the beautiful itself, who grows wings (pteroo, 249d). As such, he is possessed by the divine (enthousiasis) and partakes (metechein) in this divine madness.

How, then, is the relation to anamnesis—that is, to the recollection of the Form—to be understood? In the vision of the beautiful here on Earth, one is reminded of true beauty. In this divine enthusiasm, one partakes in the Forms and thus mediates the ontological dimension. But why does beauty, in particular, occupy such a privileged position? What distinguishes it? And if wonder here assumes the form of ekplexis, how does it differ from the epistemological thaumazein of the Theaetetus?

Plato presents the scene in the context of anamnesis in such a way that every soul has already once beheld the things that truly are, yet in this world it cannot easily recall them. He even speaks here of a fall (from the verb pipto, Phaedrus 250a), using the same verb family as in Thales’ fall into the well in the Theaetetus (174a), with the difference that in the case of Thales the verb reports a single act of falling, whereas in the Phaedrus it functions as a general image of the human condition. This ontologization of the fall reinforces our argument: only through the condition of falling can the soul ascend toward the realm of Forms. Thales’ fall, combined with the phenomenological aspect of rupture, thus illustrates the “necessary” fall of this world in order that, with the wings of divine possession, the soul may rise and partake in the realm of Forms. In the Phaedrus, this divine madness consists in the erastes desire to soar upward with his gaze—yet never fully being able to do so.

Plato states explicitly that when one beholds something resembling (homoioma) the things “there” (ekei), one is seized by ekplexis, a state of astonishment or shock, which represents this second notion of wonder in his philosophy (Phaedrus 250a). What is distinctive about beauty is that, unlike other images that lack radiance (phengos), it possesses a particular brightness or luminosity (lampros). This marks a crucial passage for the ontological interpretation of beauty and wonder. Here, the difference between thaumazein in the Theaetetus and ekplexis in the Phaedrus becomes most apparent. While thaumazein in the Theaetetus can be understood epistemologically, as the moment of confusion that philosophy seeks to overcomes, the concept of ekplexis in the Phaedrus introduces an ontological dimension. Wonder has here a disquieting aspect, when encountering the divine face, Plato says that the lover “shuddered” (ephrixe, 251a). Yet this shudder already contains an ontological transformation: in such wonder, true Being (to ontos on) encounters us in the form of beauty.

Heidegger’s reading of this passage supports our argument. In Nietzsche I (chapter “The Will to Power as Art”) [51], he interprets the Phaedrus—which he calls the most perfect of Plato’s dialogs—as showing that what is essential is the least perceptible. Heidegger refers here to the Platonic essences such as justice or temperance, which withdraw from direct perception. Only beauty has a distinctive role, and Heidegger translates ekphanestaton einai kai erasimotaton (250d) hermeneutically as that which is most radiant (ek–phanestaton: that which shines forth, reveals itself, entbirgt) and at the same time most enrapturing (erasimotaton: that which is most worthy of love, and thus withdraws through its very desirability) [51] (p. 227). Beauty here most immediately “enchants” (berückt) and thus transports us into the vision of Being. In this sense, Heidegger’s interpretation reinforces our ontological argument: beauty itself is what tears us out of the forgetfulness of Being and grants the very sight of Being [51] (p. 228).

7. Conclusions

In this paper, we have examined Plato’s transposition of wonder from the cosmological to the ontological, exemplified by Thales’ fall into the well. We have argued against the traditional interpretation, represented, for example, by Kirk and Raven, that regards this fall merely as a satirical anecdote mocking the intellectual, showing instead that it contains significant philosophical implications rooted in Plato’s theory of Forms. If Plato’s philosophy claims wonder for itself, then natural philosophy, embodied by Thales, the astronomer, must inevitably fall.

To substantiate this account, we first explained why Thales represents the ideal figure for this transition and showed that the anecdote—unlike Aristophanes’ ridicule of Socrates—is philosophically more precise. Drawing on Blumenberg’s intellectual–historical approach, we examined the threefold field of conflict contained in this anecdote and demonstrated that it is insufficient merely to deepen the familiar opposition between philosophy and non-philosophy in the context of the anthropological turn embodied by Socrates. Rather, Plato introduces a further ontological turn that fundamentally transforms the nature of wonder.

To reinforce our argument, we then turned to Aristotle’s contrasting portrayal of Thales and identified his epistemological concept of wonder. Only thereafter did we turn to Plato’s own dialogues to show where the ontology of wonder is most clearly articulated. Although the famous dictum that philosophy begins in wonder in the Theaetetus can still be read on an epistemological level, as a way to resolve the sophistic aporia, it is in the Symposium and the Phaedrus that Plato, through their orientation toward the realm of Forms, reveals wonder as the very basis of his ontology.

This interpretation, however, rests on a unitarian reading of Plato, assuming continuity between the Theaetetus, the Symposium, and the Phaedrus. Were we to adopt a developmental or revisionist chronology—according to which the Theaetetus belongs to Plato’s later and more critical period—the picture would change substantially. In that case, wonder would no longer point toward the Forms but would rather approach Aristotle’s conception of wonder as a reaction to ignorance, to be resolved through knowledge. Philosophy would then no longer be bound to the contemplation of the Forms as the only life worth living for man (bioton anthropo, Symposium 211d). The limitation of our reading, therefore, lies in its tendency to regard the Symposium and the Phaedrus—and, in this respect, in agreement with Heidegger—as representing the akme, the peak, of Plato’s thought [51] (p. 222).

The anecdote is therefore not merely a jest about an impractical intellectual but carries deep philosophical implications. In the later reception of Platonic philosophy, these implications also gave rise to an influential distrust toward cosmology and natural philosophy. This tendency became particularly evident in early Christian thought, in the patristic writings of Tertullian and later Augustine, where the notion of curiositas was absorbed into the catalogue of vices. It was only in the modern era that curiosity was restored as a virtue of inquiry, perhaps allowing Thales’ fall to be seen merely as an occasion for laughter.