Greek Origins. The Etymology of Curiosity For the Greek forefathers of the Western philosophical tradition, xxxxxx was one of the key philosophical orientations—profoundly esteemed as crucial for arriving at the greatest truths. Though curiosity would eventually take on some of wonder’s positive, philosophical associations, as we will see later in this chapter, it first carried with it a whole different set of meanings in ancient Greece, many of which were not so praiseworthy.17 In his book From Polypragmon to Curiosus: Ancient Concepts of Curious and Meddlesome Behaviour, Xxxxxxx Xxxxx identifies three roughly synonymous18 Greek terms for curiosity: polypragmosyne, philopragmosyne, and periergia. I will quote here Xxxxx’s etymology of these terms, since the 16 Xxxxx, The Uses of Curiosity, 11. Cf. 2, where he also clarifies that although no consensus emerged in early modern discourse, this does not indicate that curiosity could mean absolutely anything, or that no history can be written about it; early modern writers often tried to give it a clear, universal, and definitive shape, though these shapes were not impervious to contestation over time.
Greek Origins. Wonder In addition to the family of historical meanings that accompany early Greek terms for curiosity, another central figure in curiosity’s story is wonder. Since Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx’s famous statements that all of philosophy begins in wonder,28 wonder has had a special place amongst the philosophical passions. With little exception, it has been regularly praised as the vehicle through which we come to knowledge and science, and to an appreciation of nature, God, and beauty. Xxxxxxxxx esteemed wonder for its ability to lead to our proper contemplation of the glory of God. Sixteen centuries later, Xxxxxxxxx saw wonder as the “authentic attunement” for philosophy. Both of these philosophers valorized wonder as distinct from curiosity—as related, but opposed phenomena. Despite these assertions of difference, the two concepts became linked in the early modern era when curiosity took on many meanings traditionally associated with wonder, including the philosophically significant “desire to know.” In the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-centuries, “curiosity was often displacing wonder […]. Whereas admiratio had long been considered in the Aristotelian tradition to be the beginning of all philosophy, some university texts now attributed that role to curiosity.”29 If some of what we mean by “curiosity” today is what was meant by “wonder” in preceding ages, then our understanding of curiosity will be helped along by an exploration of wonder and of the tangled history between them.
