50 Examples of Wonder, Doubt and Limit Situations

According to the German philosopher Karl Jasper, there are three circumstances that originate the act of philosophizing, also known as the origin of philosophy: the astonishment, the doubt and the limit situations.

From astonishment arises the question and the knowledge; of doubt about what is known, critical examination and certainty; and, finally, of the limit situation (commotion of the man), the question of his own being.

Wonder, doubt and limit situations as the origin of philosophy

These three elements have also been developed by other thinkers in history:

• Astonishment. First, there is the astonishment that, for Aristotle and Plato, is the origin of philosophy, since it involves being surprised, facing an unexpected event, becoming aware of the phenomena that happen every day; finding something new in the world that drives us to see reality and wonder about it, wanting to know more about the events that impact human beings. Astonishment produces admiration towards something about which one wants to know more, because it causes curiosity and is a principle of thought. For example:
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  when you arrive in an unknown city and feel the need to learn more about its history, its customs, to acquire knowledge about what this new place provokes.
• Doubt. Secondly, there is the doubt, which follows the astonishment and indicates that, once the curiosity about which causes admiration, the person begins to wonder if what he knows, or what he thinks he knows, is really true. Doubt is an intellectual function that involves critically questioning whether knowledge can be trusted and how to acquire it. For example: a person gets up in the morning, looks out the window and is amazed to see a rabbit walking through the garden; a couple of minutes later, he thinks back to the scene and may doubt if it was really a rabbit, because there was not so much light or because he wasn't awake enough, or because he was watching a movie about rabbits the night before and, in his doze, he thought he saw one. So, that doubt gives rise to the activity of thinking and questioning reality, that is, philosophizing.
  There are two ways of conceiving doubt that have endured in philosophy:
  • first line of thought. It is the proposal by the Greek philosopher Pyrrho, founder of Skepticism and who says that the human senses, which are the means of knowing the world, are not entirely reliable and, therefore, what is believed must be doubted. knows. For example: a person can ensure that the sky is blue, but for another person who is colorblind, that is, who has difficulty recognizing colors, it may be that he sees the green sky, therefore, the color of the sky is questioned because for several subjects the reality they see is different, then we cannot trust one hundred percent in the view.
  • Second line of thought. It is attributed to the French philosopher Descartes, who made the phrase "I think, therefore I am" famous, which means that the senses can be doubted, as in the previous case, but when you are doubting, or when you are thinking what is true or false, the act of thinking is taking place, therefore, there is a existence. Doubt proves that something happens and that is real and undeniable, because the human being is executing an action that he can disbelieve of the world that surrounds him, but not of his own capacity to be a thinking being and, therefore, something true and universal.
• limit situations. Thirdly, there are extreme situations, which refer to the facts of life that cannot be manipulated, escaped or changed. For example: when a person walks from home to his work and a strong storm begins. These situations are considered as the origin of philosophy because they make the person conceive as part of an environment and react to the world that surrounds it, to reason about chance and the way each person lives day. It is a step from the inside (thinking about oneself) to the outside (the world) and, therefore, new ideas and paths of action appear.

examples of wonder

1. Arriving in a city for the first time.
2. Find an unknown animal or insect.
3. Surprised by a beautiful painting.
4. Smell a new perfume.
5. Walking down a street that has never been traveled.
6. Discover the texture of a snake's skin.
7. See a photograph taken from space.
8. Go to a museum where they exhibit life-size dinosaurs.
9. Savor an exotic meal.
10. Float in the Dead Sea.
11. Study about a historical event that was not known to have happened.
12. Watching the snow fall for the first time.
13. Tour the Chinese Wall.
14. Meet a movie star.
15. Visit NASA facilities.
16. Jump out of a parachute.

examples of doubt

1. Not remembering what you had for lunch the day before.
2. To think that what happened in a dream happened in reality.
3. Not being sure if it's going to snow.
4. Not remembering if the house was locked.
5. Ask yourself about the advantages of technology.
6. Wonder about the existence of God.
7. Hesitate about the origin of organic fruits.
8. Reason about whether a president was good for the country.
9. Try to decide if you really want to have children.
10. Think about which pet to get.
11. Decide what career to study.

Examples of borderline situations

1. Being in an elevator and it stops working.
2. experience an earthquake
3. Get lost in the middle of the forest.
4. Being diagnosed with an unknown medical condition.
5. Losing all the money you have due to the closure of a bank.
6. Being a victim of a scam.
7. Living in a country in a state of war.
8. become unemployed
9. Finding out about the death of a loved one.
10. Being at the airport and the flight being canceled due to bad weather.
11. Losing a trial in court.
12. Witnessing a robbery in a supermarket.
13. Not having resources to feed.
14. Go to the parking lot and not find the car.
15. Puncture a bicycle tire.
16. Receive a call because a family member has been taken to the hospital in an emergency.
17. Being in a building and a fire starts.
18. Slip down the stairs.
19. Being called in for questioning by the police.
20. Getting stuck in traffic due to a street demonstration.
21. Forget the password of the bank account.
22. To be working on the computer and it gets damaged.
23. Leaving the house and having left the keys inside.

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