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Starting from the “moving image” of a tableau-mécanique or clock-painting, this concluding chapter raises the question to what extent painting invites us to true thinking. Starting with Plato’s claim that wonder is the only possible beginning of philosophy, it is shown how the visual arts, historically, were meant to trigger thought, in particular when seen in the context of cabinet collections, in Germany literally called rooms of wonder, or Wunderkammern. The wonder that artworks may evoke is compared to various concepts of wonder, from Plato, Kant, Hegel and Heidegger. The chapter concludes by stating that, as the book has demonstrated, pensive images, through their inconclusiveness and inexpressiveness, provoke wonder in us and, as such, set us off on a mental trajectory of true thinking that, ultimately, leads us to our philosophical home.

This chapter explores a different experience of afterness: the mode of thinking that differentiates between subtle and crude analysis. During the time of afterness, when so much has come and gone, has been assumed and left behind, at a time when so little still seems capable of really surprising us, it is perhaps not superfluous to recall that at the origin of all philosophy, all love of wisdom, lies the moment of thaumazein, the feeling of astonishment and wonder that gives rise to questioning and reflection. Taking its cue from Bertolt Brecht’s concept of “crude thinking” (plumpes Denken) and Walter Benjamin’s theoretical commentary on it, the chapter considers the afterness of a specific modality of thinking as a test case for modernity’s political investments. What plumpes Denken ultimately would require of us in the uncontainable Greek event of thaumazein and its afterness would also be to remain faithful to its opposite, subtlety and refined thinking, without simply betraying crude thinking.

Using Pierre Hadot’s idea of “philosophy as a way of life,” Bruce Ellis Benson argues that Christian philosophy of religion is ultimately about the practical task of living our lives. But he contends that this task is two-fold: it includes both theory and also practice. While analytic philosophy of religion (APR) tends to emphasize theory and continental philosophy of religion (CPR) tends to emphasize practice (admittedly, these generalizations are only true to a certain extent), APR and CPR are both part of a two-fold task. Throughout the chapter, Benson puts into question any hard distinction between theory and practice.