Phenomenon
A phenomenon (Greek: φαινόμενoν, from the Greek word ‘phainomenon’, from the verb ‘phanein’, to show, shine, appear, to be manifest (or manifest itself)), plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'. These are themselves sometimes understood as involving qualia.
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Famous quotes containing the word phenomenon:
“When the ice is covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet; that there is as good as a mine under me wherever I go. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain! The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. At length the sun and wind brush aside their curtain, and they see the heavens again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Since everything in nature answers to a moral power, if any phenomenon remains brute and dark, it is that the corresponding faculty in the observer is not yet active.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active, influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity and of absolute respect for the phenomenon which she wishes to observe. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)