Curiosa Virgo Semper In Periculo: Some Considerations on Curiosity in Saint Augustine
Abstract: Curiosus is the one who delights in a kind of knowledge viewed as a purpose in itself, which knowledge diverts the soul from God and from the knowledge of the eternal, and curiositas preserves in Augustine the older pejorative meaning, I cannot love in excess a good which is not summum bonum, such a thing belongs to concupiscentia and cupiditas. Augustine’s ideal is not science, his ideal is wisdom, the liberal arts must be subordinated to philosophy as they will be subordinated to theology in the case of Bonaventure, scholarly curiosity does not belong to culture. Curiosity takes the thought away from God, it takes the mind away from the knowledge of God by directing it towards the knowledge of the inferior nature in which the mind degrades, curiosity is not evil but it cannot be a purpose in itself and a disinterested one. Curiosity is not good, Augustine seems to say, but it is also not to be rejected, in the same way pleasure is not the end, pleasure is the beginning, it can lead us to the end.
Keywords: Augustine, curiosity, science, truth, studio, God.
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