Introduction
The desire to know, or curiosity or inquisitiveness, has been for more than two millennia discussed in philosophical literature, under various, not completely synonymous, names. Curiosity is thus an old topic in classical philosophy; however, it is a new area of research in contemporary epistemology. It had almost disappeared from the twentieth-century philosophical scene, in particular from analytic debates, which have concentrated on the definition of knowledge rather than on its goals and its motivating sources. Fortunately, it is back: in the recent virtue epistemology there is a kind of upsurge of interest in it. On the descriptive epistemological side Ilhan Inan has published a book (2012) on the semantics of curiosity. There is an excellent recent (2018) edited volume on the moral psychology of curiosity, as its title goes. The present book will probably be the first book on curiosity from the strictly epistemological viewpoint, but also taking into account the recent developments in psychology of curiosity and in the research on the nature and motivation of inquiry in science.
The viewpoint taken here will be broadly the one of virtue epistemology (VE for short). In short, in the present book we want to bring curiosity where it belongs, according to our opinion, namely in the very center of epistemology. We shall treat is as the central epistemic virtue, and we shall say more about it in a moment.
The chapter you are reading is a topical introduction; the next chapter will offer a sketchy historical introduction (sketchy and short because of the demands of space, with apologies).
Let us start with terminology. We shall be using the word “curiosity” as our central term; sometimes we shall also use “inquisitiveness”, to stress its active side.1 We shall take it to be the interest in how things are, theoretically and practically, the desire for knowledge and understanding (for this meaning see, for instance, Baehr 2011); this will be the main curiosity concept to be used here. Sometimes the word “curiosity” is used in a negative sense, of meddlesomeness; this is not the sense to be used here. (For more on this, see Chap. 4.)
As we noted, not much has been written on epistemology of curiosity recently. The excellent monograph written by Inan (2012) combines semantic and epistemological approach, with a bit more stress being laid on semantics. The (2018) collection we mentioned offers an impressive range of approaches, from some of the best philosophers in the field; we shall be referring to both books in the sequel.
There is more to be found in the related areas. First, the history of curiosity and of approaches to it is quite rich; the ancient and early Christian philosophy is discussed in detail (e.g. Zuss 2012; Walsh 1988; Zurn 2019), and the further development has been masterly analyzed by Hans Blumenberg (1988; the English version appears as Part III, “The ‘Trial’ of Theoretical Curiosity”, of Hans Blumenberg (1966), The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, MIT Press). Neil Kenny (2004) offers a detailed account of the “rapprochement” between the curious and the useful in early modern times. There are also a lot of interesting studies about the role of curiosity in science, and in particular in scientific revolution (see Chap. 9 on science). Second, equally importantly, a lot of work on curiosity has been done in cognitive psychology, by authors like Berlyne, Silvia and Engel; see Chap. 8 on cognitive psychology of curiosity.
Understanding Curiosity
What is curiosity ? Let us start with delineating a conception of curiosity in the most general sense of motivation for acquiring knowledge and understanding, and by noting some important distinctions, often overlooked by friends and foes of curiosity alike. One usually distinguishes between the related disposition, sometimes called “interest”, especially by psychologists (see Silvia 2006), and the manifestation of the disposition (more like inquisitiveness, or active curiosity, perhaps), going from the less known to the better known (see Inan 2012). In fact, one should distinguish between the general interest in things, the capacity and readiness cognitively to react to features of the environment, curiosity proper and the disposition to ask questions and inquire. Psychologists are interested in the issue whether curiosity is mere desire or emotion; the latter view seems dominant (see Silvia 2006). However, here the simpler, desire-like aspect will be sufficient. When I have active curiosity in mind, I shall sometimes talk of “inquisitiveness-curiosity”, to remind the reader that we are dealing with curiosity in one of its varieties, not with some other, related phenomenon.
“All man by nature desire to know”, Aristotle famously claimed in Metaphysics, A. 1 (Ross’ translation), and, of course, the core element in knowledge is true belief. Why do we want to have true beliefs about very diverse matters that interest us in life? Because we are curious about things, inquisitive and alert, and inquisitiveness-curiosity regarding p is the wish to have true beliefs and to know whether p (and to understand why p, etc.). This sounds quite banal and uncontroversial to many. However, Ernest Sosa, who otherwise keeps stressing the importance of truth in epistemology, has argued that the wish to have answers to questions we are curious about cannot be put in terms of “desire for truths per se” (2002, 158). He takes the desire-for-truths theorist to make a fallacy, which he illustrates by the analogy with the desire for savory food. He invites us to imagine a character claiming:
andP1 I want savory food.
and then concluding from this:P2 I want that if I have savory food, it be also nutritious.
The desire-for-truths theorist allegedly makes the same mistake by arguing:C Therefore, I want nutritious food.
Next, Sosa admonishes us:F1 I want beliefs that answer my questions.F2 I want that if I have an answer to a question of mine, it be true!C Therefore, I want true beliefs. (2002: 158)
For my part, this is not how I see my own curiosity. It is not that when I ask you, say for time, I want an answer and then, in addition, I want the true one, like wanting savory food and in addition wanting it to be nutritious. I don’t want you just to say “It’s five p.m.” and then have an additional wish that your sentence come out true; I want it to be true in the first place. A sign that I am not being idiosyncratic is that in the movies, police investigators, when given an answer by the suspect, never say “O thanks that you answered, but it would be nice if your answer were also true”; they typically shout “I want the truth!” I can’t believe that they are all into committing the desire-for-truths theorist’s alleged mistake. I conclude that there is nothing abnormal about desiring only true answers if one desires any answers at all. Inquisitiveness in general is the disposition to have such desires and wishes and to pursue their fulfillment.We may want true beliefs, in this sense: that if for whatever reason. we are interested in a certain question. we would prefer to believe a correct rather than an incorrect answer to that question: but this does not mean that we want, in itself and independently of our wanting our questions answered, that we have true answers to them simply for the truth this would give us. (Ibid.)
So, why are we inquisitive? Our inquisitiveness-curiosity is either pure or practical or mixed. Sometimes, one is just curious, with no further practical goal. This can be called “intrinsic curiosity”. But one is often motivated extrinsically, by practical curiosity, searching the means for practical ends. Classics did think about the issue. La Rochefoucauld distinguishes two kinds of practical goals:
There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of. (Maxims)
Here we shall concentrate upon the pure variety. A human being devoid of curiosity would have little motivation to arrive to true belief and knowledge.2 In normal cases it is inquisitiveness-curiosity that motivates us to gain true belief and knowledge. On the usual view of motivating virtues, this would seem to make it a virtue; since it is the main spring of motivation, we should take it as the motivating epistemic virtue. After all, wanting to know whether p it gives cognizers particular instances of p (or of its negation) as particular goals and the truth as the general epistemic goal. So, we have a truth-focused motivating virtue: inquisitiveness or curiosity having as its general goal reliable arriving at truth. This is, I submit, the core motivating epistemic virtue. There is a multitude of questions of all sorts that we ask, whether, why, when and how, and inquisitiveness-curiosity caters to all of them.
I have just mentioned being curious and alert. I propose to take the notion of inquisitiveness-curiosity in the widest sense so as to encompass primitive alertness to the fe...