Introduction

An introduction to this blog can be found at this post.

The Logos

All the logo images were taken by myself or my fiancee. Their full versions are available on my Flickr stream.

The Title

My title comes from a quotation by T.H. Huxley: “The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.” It comes from On the Reception of the Origin of Species.

The Domain

As soon as I thought of the idea of this blog, I wanted to call it biophilia.com, after the term “biophilia“. This was coined by Erich Fromm in 1964 and meant “a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital”. E.O. Wilson made the term famous in his book of the same name (which I haven’t got to read yet). I myself came across it in his Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. As it turned out, this domain was taken a number of years ago (although it is currently “under construction” and Wayback Machine seems to indicate pretty paltry content, only present for a few years of its registration…).

So I coined (or thought I coined) the term “ontophilia”, meaning simply an attraction toward, or love of, things that are. Things around and in us can be found to be beautiful, given the proper attention and mindset. By using this term, I hope to convey an openness to an appreciation and consideration of all things in our beautiful world.