What Is All This?

The basic drive behind real philosophy is curiosity about the world, not interest in the writings of philosophers.  Each of us emerges from the preconsciousness of babyhood and simply finds himself here, in it, in the world.  That experience alone astonishes some people.  What is all this -- what is the world?  And what are we?  From the beginning of humanity some have been under a compulsion to ask these questions, and have felt a craving for the answers.  This is what is really meant by any such phrase as "mankind's need for metaphysics."

-- Bryan Magee (1930-), British politician, broadcaster, and author, Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western Philosophy (1997), p. 232