Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-7jkgd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-22T04:13:55.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultivating Curiosity in the Information Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2022

Lani Watson
Lani Watson*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the role that the intellectual virtue of curiosity can play in response to some of the most pressing challenges of the Information Age. I argue that virtuous curiosity represents a valuable characterological resource for the twenty-first century, in particular, a restricted form of curiosity, namely inquisitiveness. I argue that virtuous inquisitiveness should be trained and cultivated, via the skill of good questioning, and discuss the risks of failing to do so in relation to the design and use of novel technologies. If left unchecked, I argue, vicious forms of curiosity can emerge, with broad implications for society as a whole. Thus, we should seek to cultivate virtuous curiosity and teach the skill of good questioning to those of us (in principle, all of us) who use and rely on technology in our work and lives.

Type
Paper
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 92: Values and Virtues for a Challenging World , October 2022 , pp. 129 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Thomson, J. A. K., (London: Penguin Classics, 2004).Google Scholar
Baehr, Jason, The Inquiring Mind, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baehr, Jason, Cultivating Good Minds: A Philosophical & Practical Guide to Educating for Intellectual Virtues (2015) Accessed online via < http://intellectualvirtues.org/why-should-we-educate-for-intellectual-virtues2/>..>Google Scholar
Harrison, Peter, ‘Curiosity, Forbidden Knowledge, and the Reformation of Natural Philosophy in Early Modern England’, Isis 92 (2001), 265-290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hazlett, Allan, ‘Higher-order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility’, Episteme 9 (2012) 205-223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
İnan, Ilhan, The Philosophy of Curiosity, (New York: Routledge, 2012).Google Scholar
Kidd, Ian, ‘Educating for Epistemic Humility’. In: (ed.) Baehr, Jason, Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology (New York: Routledge, 2015).Google Scholar
Lydon-Staley, David M., Zurn, Perry, and Bassett, Danielle S., ‘Within-person variability in curiosity during daily life and associations with well-being’, Journal of Personality 88 (2020) 625–641.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynch, Michael, ‘Teaching Humility in an Age of Arrogance’, The Chronicle of Higher Education (2017).Google Scholar
Marwick, Alice E., ‘Instafame: Luxury selfies in the attention economy’, Public culture 27 (2015), 137-160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miščević, Nenad, ‘Virtue-Based Epistemology and the Centrality of Truth (Towards a Strong Virtue Epistemology)’, Acta Analytica 22 (2007) 239-266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, Duncan, ‘Intellectual humility and the epistemology of disagreement’, Synthese 198 (2021) 1711-1723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Robert and Wood, Jay, Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanesini, Alessandra, ‘Intellectual Servility and Timidity’, Journal of Philosophical Research (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanesini, Alessandra, The Mismeasure of the Self: A Study in Vice Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Lani, ‘What Is Inquisitiveness’, American Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2015), 273-288.Google Scholar
Watson, Lani, ‘Why Should We Educate for Inquisitiveness’. In: (ed.) Baehr, Jason, Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, (New York: Routledge, 2016), 38-53.Google Scholar
Watson, Lani, ‘Educating for Curiosity’. In: İnan, Ilhan, Watson, Lani, Whitcomb, Dennis, and Yigit, Safiye (eds.) The Moral Psychology of Curiosity (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018a) 293-310.Google Scholar
Watson, Lani, ‘Curiosity and Inquisitiveness’. In: (ed. Battaly, Heather) Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology, (London: Routledge, 2018b).Google Scholar
Watson, Lani, ‘Educating for Good Questioning: A Tool for Intellectual Virtues Education’, Acta Analytica 33 (2018c), 353-370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Lani, ‘Educating for Good Questioning as a Democratic Skill’. In: The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology edited by Fricker, Miranda, Graham, Peter J., Henderson, David and Pedersen, Nikolaj J.L.L. (New York: Routledge, 2019) 437-446.Google Scholar
Watson, L., ‘What is a Question’, Philosophy, RIP Supplement 89 (2021) 273-297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitcomb, Dennis, ‘Curiosity was Framed’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (2010), 664-687.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitcomb, Dennis, Battaly, Heather, Baehr, Jason, and Howard-Synder, Daniel, ‘Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (2017), 509-539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, James, Stand out of our light: freedom and resistance in the attention economy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Tim, The attention merchants: The epic scramble to get inside our heads, (Atlantic Books, 2017).Google Scholar
Zurn, Perry, ‘Curiosity and Political Resistance’. In: Zurn, Perry and Shankar, Arjun (eds.), Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge, (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2020) 227-245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zurn, Perry, Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry, (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zurn, Perry and Shankar, Arjun, Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar