It should be noted that these spectacles were not just visual. Music and dance (along with theatrical performances) were essential components. And while as a matter of historical fact theoretical spectacles were usually centered around religious festivals, theoria was understood as religious in a profounder sense. The Greek thea (with the accent on the second syllable) also means goddess. The thea of theater could thus be read as the thea of theology. Ancient etymologists tended to assume that this was the root of theoria, and that a theoros was someone who performed service to, or had care for, a god (ora means "care").⁹ Modern linguists tend to dismiss these ancient readings. But if we bear in mind that accents were not introduced into the Greek language until the third century b. c., and that, when applied to such archaic terms, they may artificially differentiate between elements of meaning that were experienced as belonging together, we do better if we attempt to understand the root of theoria as being both divine and spectacular, and to understand theory as originating in a seeing that was itself a form of worship. Martin Heidegger's reading of theoria as a "reverent paying heed to the unconcealment of what presences" is an invitation to do just that.¹⁰

The ability, not simply to examine or explain, but to gaze attentively upon—to dwell with—the outward appearances in which "the core of all things, the hidden...foundation of all that is" is made visible, is what Pieper means by contemplative activity. By harboring mystery, such spectacles move us to wonder.¹¹ In Homer, the verb theaomai means "to gaze upon with wonder" or to see with wondering eyes. Both the verb thaumazein (to wonder, or marvel), and the noun thauma (a wonder, or marvel), are closely related to theaomai, and thus to theoria. If it is the mind that thinks, in Homer, it is the eyes that wonder.¹² Wonder wants a spectacle. This is the origin of theory. We may recall, in this light, how Plato's Republic begins: Socrates left the city and went down to the Pireaus to attend a religious festival. He wanted to say a prayer to the goddess as well as to behold the spectacle.¹³ Socrates is a theoros, one who goes to see and to pray. The opening scene of the Republic preserves the unity of these moments. To see, in the ancient sense of theoria, is to pray. The philosopher's vision is, or was, a participatory and prayerful one. Eidos—the word that is used for what we call a Platonic Form or "idea"—is rooted in the Greek words for (and concrete experience of) seeing and being seen. This is a link that our association of ideas with concepts has severed. Eidos still draws its meaning from its original source in Socrates' characterization of a philosopher as a philotheamonas—one who loves the spectacle (the sights and sounds) of truth.¹⁴

III.

Theoria is contemplative seeing—an activity where one participates in what one sees. How, then, are we to understand the sense in which contemplation is or involves practice? It might help to recall that, in Homer, one "sees with wondering eyes" when a spectacle reveals a divine presence, or, as McEwen notes, "when the sight beheld is of something particularly well made."¹⁵ A phrase that appears often in the Iliad and the Odyssey is thauma idesthai, "a wonder to behold." As McEwen points out, on every occasion this phrase is used it describes a beautifully or divinely crafted piece of work.

The Greek word for craft (or art) is techne. Here again, the recollection of origins enables us to see theoria and techne (theory and practical skill) as more intimately related than we would otherwise take them to be. If theoria takes root in the reverent seeing of, and wondering at, a beautifully made thing that is in some way an intimation of the divine, techne was, as McEwen puts it, "the very revelation of the divine in experience."¹⁶ While the technological has come to be understood in purely instrumental terms, as (in Heidegger's words) "a man-made means to an end established by man," ancient sources suggest that techne was understood, more fundamentally, as a "making visible."¹⁷ The craftsman's activity (according to this understanding) does not simply involve the imposition of form on matter, or the practical application of a body of knowledge. What the craftsman does is let kosmos—order, form, arrangement—appear through the making of the artifact. Craft is a revelation of kosmos, which is simultaneously discovered (known or seen), and allowed to appear, through the craftsman's activity.¹⁸

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