Philosophical Adventures in the Lands of Oz and Ev

by Gareth B. Matthews

Charles Dodgson, using the pen name "Lewis Carroll," was the first author in English to write philosophical fantasy for children. In naming his first Alice book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll may have been inspired by the famous saying of Aristotle that philosophy begins in wonder. More exactly, what Aristotle said was this: "For it is owing to their wonder (thaumazein) that people both now begin, and first began to philosophize (philosophein)" (Metaphysics I, 1982b12-13). Plato expresses a similar idea in his dialogue Theatetus: "This is an experience characteristic of philosophy," Plato has Socrates say, "this wondering: this is where philosophy begins and nowhere else" (155d).