THE EPISTEMIC VICE OF CURIOSITY
Résumé
Curiosity is the epistemic desire, libido sciendi. It is presented in the tradition both as a good thing, a passion for learning which can become a virtue (studiositas) – without it could science exist? - and, most of the time, as a bad thing – a kind of akratic desire to know, a major vice, at best a form of intellectual and ethical illness. As the large literature on curiosity through the centuries testifies1, it is not easy to assess where the topic belongs. This is largely due to the fact that we do not know exactly what curiosity is, but also it is hard to dissociate an investigation into the nature of curiosity from an investigation about its value or disvalue for learning, and for life in general. My objective here is not to give a definition, which perhaps cannot be given without developing a full theory of knowledge, of learning, and of the ethics of intellectual research. I shall just here try to locate curiosity on a map of the mind, and on this part of the map where knowledge is located.
Domaines
Philosophie
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