From Curiosity to Studiousness: Catechizing the Appetite for Knowledge
Paul GriffithsDuke Divinity School
It’s a good thing, almost everyone would say, to want to know things; that view is certainly bone-deep in our universities and colleges, as well as in the church. But there are different ways of coming to want to know things, different ways of training and forming the appetite for knowledge. It has been traditional in Catholic Christianity to identify two such ways under the labels curiositas (curiosity) and studiositas (studiousness). This talk will explore the difference between the two, and offer a sketch of what a well-formed appetite for knowledge is like.
Paul Griffiths is Warren Professor of Catholic Theology at Duke Divinity School. His main intellectual interests include post-1950 Catholic philosophical theology, the philosophical and political questions arising from religious diversity, and Gupta-period Indian Buddhist thought (especially Yogacara). He has published Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar, Reason and the Reasons of Faith with Reinhard Hütter, and Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity.
