The Critique of Curiosity

“All persons desire to know,” Aristotle declared in his Metaphysics.  But given that not all desires are good ones, the question naturally arises whether curiosity is.  In the era of modern science and education, we tend to take this for granted.  But for centuries – also well before Aristotle – people have concluded just the opposite. Their reasons have been various: religious, psychological, philosophical, pragmatic.  In this junior seminar we will examine select thinkers in the stream of Western thought that has questioned the value of curiosity and, more fundamentally, of knowledge itself.