The Epistemic Value of Curiosity

THE EPISTEMIC VALUE OF CURIOSITY

Frederick F. Schmitt

Department of Philosophy

Indiana University

Reza Lahroodi

Department of Philosophy and Religion

University of Northern Iowa

ABSTRACT. In this essay, Frederick Schmitt and Reza Lahroodi explore the value of curiosity for inquiryand knowledge. They defend an appetitive account of curiosity, viewing curiosity as a motivationallyoriginal desire to know that arises from having one’s attention drawn to the object and that in turn sus-tains one’s attention to it. Distinguishing curiosity from wonder, the authors explore several sources ofthe epistemic value of curiosity. First, curiosity is tenacious: curiosity whether a proposition is true leadsto curiosity about related issues, thereby deepening our knowledge. Second, it is to some extent biased infavor of topics in which we already have a practical or epistemic interest. Third, and most important,curiosity is largely independent of our interests: it fixes our attention on objects in which we have noantecedent interest, thereby broadening our knowledge. Schmitt and Lahroodi elucidate the value of curi-osity by outlining its role in levels of development — an approach indebted to John Dewey’s explanationof the value of curiosity. Finally, they raise some questions about the implications of their account for ed-ucational practice.

It is a commonplace that curiosity facilitates education and inquiry, and even

that frequent states of curiosity are psychologically necessary for a person’s regular

success in learning and discovery.1 That we take curiosity to be instrumental to

and even essential for education, inquiry, and knowledge is confirmed by the fact

that teachers often prefer techniques of instruction that excite curiosity — they

juxtapose topics with unexpected connections to elicit surprise, ask students to

solve puzzles, present vivid examples or make striking demonstrations to rivet

attention on the subject matter, and use the Socratic method of instruction to cul-

tivate an inclination to evocative questions. Stimulating curiosity is central to edu-

cation and learning. We seek here to explain why curiosity has instrumental value

for inquiry and knowledge.2 Our strategy will be to explore the nature of curiosity

and employ what we discover about it to explain its instrumental epistemic value.

1. Harold Blumenberg, in his book The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cam-bridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1983), argues that curiosity has been variously valued over the courseof history — valued in antiquity, disparaged in the Middle Ages, and more recently restored to value. Wewill not try to assess this sweeping historical claim.

2. Curiosity seems to have not only instrumental value for knowledge but intrinsic value as well. Peopleseek out situations in which their curiosity is elicited. We pursue and enjoy puzzles — riddles, crosswordpuzzles, Rubix cubes, logical perplexities such as the liar paradox, and so on. Certainly we do not pursueand enjoy these merely for the knowledge we gain by solving them, which often seems less importantthan the activity of solving them. We enjoy being curious in a way that we do not enjoy being hungry orthirsty, and we enjoy it even if we do not satisfy our curiosity. One might propose that all that is valuablehere, apart from the knowledge gained, is the activity of attempting to solve the puzzle. But curiosityseems to have value over and above both the activity of inquiry and the knowledge gained. But we willmake little here of curiosity’s intrinsic value.

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Part of our explanation will turn on necessary features of curiosity — features rec-

ognized in our everyday concept of curiosity — and part will turn on contingent

features of curiosity. Our explanation will parallel, in a contemporary idiom, John

Dewey’s explanation of the value of curiosity. This article is a contribution to the

burgeoning field of virtue epistemology, or the conceptual and normative study of

the epistemic value of character traits, dispositions, and abilities — a field that

may help us understand and judge the value of educational practices.3 At the close

of the article, we will raise some questions about the implications of our study of

curiosity for educational practices intended to excite curiosity.

WHAT IS CURIOSITY?

We aim first to capture our everyday concept of the state of curiosity.4 For it is

in our everyday sense that curiosity is uncontroversially valuable for knowledge,

and our everyday concept of curiosity should supply some initial clues as to its

value. We assume that there are both occurrent and dispositional states of curiosity

FREDERICK F. SCHMITT is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University, Sycamore 026, 1033 E. ThirdSt., Bloomington, IN 47401; e-mail \[email protected][. His primary areas of scholarship are epi-stemology and metaphysics.

REZA LAHROODI is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Northern Iowa, Departmentof Philosophy and Religion, 135 Baker Hall, 1227 W. 27th St., Cedar Falls, IA 50614; e-mail\[email protected][. His primary areas of scholarship are epistemology, philosophy of mind, andhistory of philosophy.

3. For a leading example of virtue epistemology, see Linda Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiryinto the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1996).

4. We are not offering an empirical psychological theory of the state of curiosity. For an extensive,insightful, and meticulously argued review of such theories, see George Loewenstein, ‘‘The Psychologyof Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation,’’ Psychological Bulletin 116 (1994): 75–98. Loewenstein dis-tinguishes several kinds of empirical theories that purport to explain curiosity and the behavior it pro-duces. These include drive theories of curiosity, which see curiosity as caused either by an internalhomeostatic mechanism like the one that causes other appetites or by the object of curiosity; incongruitytheories of curiosity, which posit that curiosity occurs when our expectations for an object are violatedby what we observe of the object, and we attempt to resolve the conflict between expectations and obser-vation; and competence theories of curiosity, which contend that curiosity results from the motive ofmastering the environment. Loewenstein also develops his own information-gap theory of curiosity(originally suggested by William James), which argues that curiosity is triggered (that is, we are moti-vated to inquire) when our informational reference point (what we want to know) exceeds what we doknow (or take ourselves to know). The information-gap theory has the advantage of being appropriatelygeneral. The theory predicts that, given a question about which we are curious, our motivation to acquirea piece of information will be greater toward those pieces of information that bring the subject closer toclosing the information gap. It also predicts that a subject is more likely to become curious about a topicthe more knowledge the subject has pertinent to the topic. These predictions of the information-gaptheory have been confirmed. Of the psychological theories of curiosity Loewenstein examines, only theinformation-gap theory includes a partial account of what curiosity is (as opposed merely to an accountof why it occurs). That account is consonant with the account of the everyday notion of curiosity wepresent in this essay. It is important to note, however, that, although Loewenstein presents the informa-tion-gap theory as a competitor of the drive, incongruity, and competence theories, this contrast is mis-leading, for the information-gap theory differs from the other theories in not attempting to explain whycuriosity occurs. But the theory is compatible with the view we take in this essay that the desire to knowinvolved in curiosity is motivationally original. Our account of curiosity is logically compatible with allthe empirical theories of curiosity we have mentioned, but the information-gap theory is the only onethat yields plausible systematic consequences for the situational causes of curiosity.

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about a topic. An occurrent state of curiosity, as we understand it, involves attend-

ing to the topic at which our curiosity is directed. A dispositional state is a dis-

position to be occurrently curious about the topic. Both of these states are to be

distinguished from the trait of curiosity, which is or involves an inclination to be

dispositionally curious about a range of topics. We will focus on the occurrent state

of curiosity, although the dispositional state will be relevant in obvious ways at

many points in the discussion. We will set aside the trait of curiosity (or the incli-

nation to be dispositionally curious) for another occasion.

The state of curiosity has traditionally been identified with an appetite for

knowledge and assimilated to the appetites of hunger and thirst as well as the

appetite for sex.5 It has also been described as a passion.6 The appetitive and pas-

sional conceptions of curiosity are compatible, and both seem accurate. Curiosity

about an object is naturally described as a hunger or thirst for knowledge of the

object. Like other appetites, curiosity may involve a feeling and surely involves a

desire. And it exhibits other earmarks of the appetites: it cannot be produced at

will; it appears unbidden; it cannot be suppressed at will; it demands to be satisfied;

and it can become obsessive. We behave impulsively to gratify curiosity. We

indulge it against our will and better judgment. Augustine famously described his

upright and self-controlled friend Alypius as morbidly curious about gladiatorial

combat, as unable to avert his eyes from the spectacle, despite his effort, and as

succumbing to the enthusiasm of the crowd.7

On one view of the appetite of hunger, hunger necessarily involves a feeling of

hunger (hunger pangs, or sensations of gurgling or rumbling), as well as a desire to

eat. This view might (though need not) be supplemented with the claim that these

feelings necessarily cause the desire to eat. On a competing view, hunger does not

necessarily involve a feeling of hunger, or any other feeling. One counts as hungry

if one has what we will call a motivationally original desire to eat — a desire that

is intrinsic (that is, not formed because its object is instrumental to any other

object, such as maintaining energy, pleasing one’s host, or perhaps even the pleas-

ure of the taste of food), not a manifestation of a standing desire to eat, and not a

desire that arises in a regular way from a standing practice of eating as part of the

5. For example, ‘‘appetite of curiosity,’’ Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation (NewYork: Macmillan, 1948), 34; ‘‘Curiosity.has an appetite,’’ Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry intothe Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 31;and ‘‘thirst for knowledge,’’ Sigmund Freud, ‘‘Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy,’’ in CollectedPapers, vol. 3 (New York: Basic Books, 1915), 153. William James distinguished a ‘‘susceptibility for beingexcited and irritated by the mere novelty of.the environment,’’ from ‘‘scientific curiosity’’ toward a spe-cific question, in The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2 (New York: Holt, 1950), 430. Susceptibility to exci-tation might be susceptibility to the triggering of an appetite, like the susceptibility to sexual desire.

6. For example, ‘‘innate love of learning and knowledge,’’ ‘‘the passion of learning,’’ Cicero, De FinibusBonorum et Malorum, trans. Harris Rackham (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,1914), 448; ‘‘the love of truth,’’ ‘‘the love of knowledge,’’ ‘‘an insatiable desire for knowing,’’ Hume, ATreatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Brigge, revised by P.H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1978), bk. 2, pt. 3, sec. 10, 448, 453.

7. Augustine, The Confessions, in The Confessions, the City of God, and On Christian Doctrine (Chicago:Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), bk. VI, sec. 13, 39.

SCHMITT AND LAHROODI The Epistemic Value of Curiosity 127

exercise of that practice (as with many overeaters). This second view of the appe-

tite of hunger is of course compatible with the claim that a feeling of hunger as a

matter of psychological law generally accompanies the required motivationally

original desire to eat; it merely denies that hunger necessarily involves such a feel-

ing. It is natural to supplement this second view with the remark that pangs of

hunger and sensations of gurgling count as sensations of hunger simply because as

a matter of psychological law they accompany hunger. We need not decide

between these two competing views of hunger. It is enough to remark that the sec-

ond view seems the more suitable model for curiosity.

It is commonly thought that there is a feeling associated with curiosity, natu-

rally described as the feeling of being drawn, or the feeling of having one‘s atten-

tion drawn, to the topic of one’s curiosity (where the topic is an object, a subject

matter, or the question whether p).8 But this feeling, if it really differs from hav-

ing one’s attention drawn to the topic, seems inessential to curiosity. It is essen-

tial rather that one’s attention is actually drawn to the topic, in the sense that

one attends to it involuntarily. Curiosity does not seem to require that one’s

attention is initially drawn to the topic in any particular way. It does, however,

require that the drawing of attention is accompanied by a motivationally original

desire to know the topic.9 A startlingly loud noise might draw one’s attention to

the object that produces it, and one might come to know the cause of the noise as

a result of one’s attention being so drawn. But there is no curiosity here unless

the drawing of attention causes one to desire to know — something not typically

so in the case of autonomic attention to a loud noise. The desire to know must be

motivationally original in the sense that it is not instrumental to any practical

desire nor to the generic desire to know for the sake of accumulating an estimable

stock of knowledge (the epistemic desire to know, as we may call it), nor is it a

desire that arises in a regular way from a practice of acquiring knowledge of

things as part of the exercise of that practice. The required desire to know is not a

desire to know the topic for the sake of knowledge in general. It is misleading

even to describe it as a desire to know the topic for the sake of knowing that topic

only. It is simply a desire to know the topic without there being anything for the

sake of which one desires to know it. The desire may be to know an object or to

know a proposition. Curiosity, then, requires that one’s attention is drawn to the

topic, and it requires a motivationally original desire to know the topic. The

8. That there is a connection between curiosity and attention is recognized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,who defines ‘‘the cultivation of curiosity and interest’’ as ‘‘the allocation of attention to things for theirown sake’’ (see his Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention [New York: Harper-Collins, 1996], 346). This suggestion is best understood as the claim that in curiosity we attend to theobject out of a desire to know the object for the sake of knowing that object rather than for any practicalor even broader epistemic interest. However, it seems to us misleading to describe the desire to know incuriosity as the desire to know the object for the sake of knowing the object. Rather it is the desire toknow without desiring to know for the sake of anything.

9. The trait of curiosity is distinguished from the trait of need for cognition by involving the desire toknow, not merely the inclination to effortful cognition. For discussion of the value of the trait of need forcognition, see Reza Lahroodi, ‘‘Evaluating Need for Cognition: A Case Study in Naturalistic EpistemicVirtue Theory,’’ Philosophical Psychology 20, no. 2 (2007): 227–245.


involuntariness of having one’s attention drawn to the topic and the motivational

originality of the desire make it appropriate to describe curiosity as a passion as

well as a state of appetite.

But curiosity requires more than this. One’s attention could be involuntarily

drawn to a topic, and one could form a motivationally original desire to know the

topic, without being curious. Curiosity requires that the drawing of attention and

the desire to know be causally related. First, the drawing of attention must give

rise to the desire to know the topic. You are not curious unless your interest in the

topic arises from being drawn to the topic before you desire to know. The fact that

in curiosity the desire arises from no practical or epistemic motivation but rather

because one is drawn to the topic is the most important fact for understanding the

power of curiosity to propel inquiry. Second, one’s attention must continue to be

drawn to the topic even after one begins to desire to know, and it must be drawn

by one’s desire to know. A startlingly loud noise might draw one’s attention and

even cause a motivationally original desire to know the source of the noise, but

there is no curiosity here unless the desire to know sustains one’s attention. Thus,

curiosity requires a mutually supportive drawing of attention and desire to know:

one desires to know because one’s attention is drawn, and one’s attention contin-

ues to be drawn because one desires to know. Pandora is curious about what is in

the box. She counts as curious because her attention is drawn to the question what

is in the box; she desires to know what is in the box; the desire results from the

attention; and the attention is sustained by the desire.

We suggest that the requirement that the attention sustains the desire to know

makes curiosity generally (other things being equal) more valuable epistemically

than other motivationally original desires to know such as the desire caused by a

startlingly loud noise. For the fact that the desire to know in curiosity sustains one’s

attention to the topic makes it more likely that the desire will be satisfied than

would be the case without this sustaining relation. The mutual support involved in

curiosity is thus a feature of curiosity that makes it generally more valuable epis-

temically than other motivationally original desires to know. This is not, however,

the most important source of the value of curiosity, which, as we argue subsequently,

lies largely in the independence of the desire from practical and epistemic interests.

Curiosity is satisfied, and ceases, when one comes to know the topic. Upon

knowledge of the topic, the desire to know ceases, and attention is no longer sus-

tained by that desire.

We employ here the common distinction between practical and epistemic

motivation to acquire knowledge. The latter is a desire to contribute to an epi-

stemically estimable distribution of knowledge, where what it is for a distribution

to be epistemically estimable is determined by cognitive and not merely by prac-

tical considerations (we drop ‘‘epistemically’’ and speak of ‘‘estimable distribution’’

from here on in). We need take no stand in this article on what knowledge is, or on

which cognitive considerations — quantity of content, coherence, explanatory

power, and the like — define an estimable distribution. We do not rule out that


what counts as an estimable distribution is constrained by the condition that the

practical value of a piece of knowledge for the subject enhances its contribution to

any estimable distribution. At the same time, we allow that knowledge lacking

practical value also counts toward an estimable distribution.10

The desire to know in curiosity is neither practically nor epistemically moti-

vated. But curiosity has epistemic value because it is instrumental to and determi-

native of an estimable distribution of knowledge. First, it is instrumental to our

acquiring knowledge that contributes to an estimable distribution of knowledge,

both because it drives us to inquire into topics of practical and epistemic interest and

because it drives us to inquire into other topics. Second, curiosity contributes indi-

rectly to an estimable distribution by adding to the determination of what counts as

an estimable distribution for us. To be specific, it motivates us to acquire knowledge

even when we have no practical or epistemic motivation to know; this knowledge in

turn partly determines what further knowledge we are motivated to acquire by shap-

ing what topics we are interested in and what our cognitive specializations are; and

this motivation to acquire further knowledge then partly determines what counts as

an estimable distribution of knowledge for us. In short, curiosity is instrumentally

valuable for, and determinative of, an estimable distribution by driving us to inquire

despite the poverty of our practical and epistemic motivation to know.

CURIOSITY AND WONDER

To understand curiosity, it helps to contrast it with wonder. Curiosity is often

accompanied by wonder, and wonder is usually accompanied by curiosity.11 Never-

theless, the two states differ.12 No doubt ‘‘I wonder about the stars’’ sometimes

simply means ‘‘I am curious about the stars.’’ And a ‘‘curious object’’ is one that is

out of the ordinary, in a way that may provoke wonder. But there is also a common

use of ‘‘wonder’’ to refer to a passion that is different from curiosity. The expres-

sion ‘‘I wonder at the stars’’ clearly does not mean ‘‘I am curious at the stars,’’

which is not even grammatical English. And it can be used to mean something dif-

ferent from ‘‘I am curious about the stars,’’ as can ‘‘I wonder about the stars.’’ Won-

der is not an appetite. It does not demand to be satisfied. Indeed, it does not seem

to be the sort of thing that can be satisfied. Wonder is more easily suppressed than

curiosity. We do not indulge wonder against our better judgment; it does not

become obsessive.

10. For discussion of the value of information gathering in organizations apart from its contribution todecision making, see Martha S. Feldman and James G. March, ‘‘Information in Organizations as Signaland Symbol,’’ Administrative Science Quarterly 26, no. 2 (1981): 171–186. For discussion of the non-practical value of information gathering in medicine, see David A. Asch, James P. Patton, and John C.Hershey, ‘‘Knowing for the Sake of Knowing,’’Medical Decision Making 10, no. 1 (1990): 47–57.

11. Fascination with a topic may entail both curiosity and wonder about it.

12. Dewey distinguished the two in his book How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflec-tive Thinking to the Educative Process (1910 and 1931; repr. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1971), 52. But hewent on to say that wonder ‘‘is the same as curiosity when the latter reaches the intellectual plane.’’Dewey’s ‘‘curiosity’’ includes an innate disposition to handle objects and thereby learn, and only his‘‘curiosity’’ on ‘‘the intellectual plane’’ is what we call curiosity here. So probably Dewey meant by‘‘wonder’’ simply what we mean by ‘‘curiosity.’’ Dewey’s How We Think will be cited as HWT in the textfor all subsequent references.


Wonder differs from curiosity in five respects. First, unlike curiosity, it is clearly

associated with a unique characteristic feeling. It is associated with being impressed

by, standing in some degree of awe of, its object.13 (The Latin for ‘‘wonder’’ is admir-

atio.) Moreover, wonder necessarily and always involves this feeling.

Second, wonder differs from curiosity in not entailing having one’s attention

drawn to the object. Wonder does, however, entail considering its object.

Third, wonder differs from curiosity in typically or perhaps even necessarily

arising from a cognitive conflict. Wonder at or about an object typically, if not nec-

essarily, arises from surprise at or puzzlement about the object. As Rene Descartes

said, ‘‘When our first encounter with some object surprises us and we find it novel,

or very different from what we formerly knew or from what we supposed it ought

to be, this causes us to wonder and to be astonished about it.’’14 In surprise, we are

confronted with an inconsistency between the features we expect the object to

have and those we observe it to have. Why do we wonder at the heavens? Perhaps

in part because we expect what we observe on earth to hold for the heavens, and

this expectation is in some respects disappointed. Wonder at the stars arises from

the surprise that comes from comparing the majesty, distance, size, or composition

of the stars with that of familiar objects on earth. In puzzlement, we are confronted

with an inconsistency between some features that we attribute to the object itself,

rather than between expected features and observed features of the object. Puzzle-

ment too sometimes gives rise to wonder. Curiosity differs from wonder in that it

need not arise from surprise or puzzlement. It does not require an object that viola-

tes expectations, nor does it require an apparent inconsistency. It can arise when

we have no expectations for the object. In this sense, curiosity arises in a larger

range of psychological conditions than wonder does. We add that typically, if not

always, wonder endures as long as the cognitive conflict that gives rise to it

endures: we wonder as long as the stars seem strange. And wonder typically, if not

always, ceases when the conflict ceases: we cease wondering when the stars seem

familiar. By contrast, curiosity about the stars can wane even though they continue

to seem strange, and it can continue after they seem familiar.

Fourth, wonder differs from curiosity in its relation to desires for cognition.

Wonder is not necessarily or typically accompanied by a desire to know, as

13. There is a superb portrayal of this aspect of wonder, and its deflation, in the character of Wanda inFederico Fellini’s The White Sheik (Italian: Lo sceicco bianco, 1952).

14. Rene Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, pt. II, article 53, in The Philosophical Writings of Des-cartes, vol. 1, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1985), 350. A Cartesian account of wonder is worked out in splendid detail by NicolasMalebranche, The Search After Truth, trans. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp (Columbus: OhioState University Press, 1980), bk. V, secs. 7–8, 373–389. Benedict de Spinoza gave a rather different defi-nition of wonder as ‘‘an imagination of a thing in which the Mind remains fixed because this singularimagination has no connection with the others’’ (see Ethics in Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, ed. andtrans. Edwin Curley [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985], pt. III, ‘‘Definitions of the Affects,’’532; see also P52 Schol., 524). Wonder becomes consternation when the subject fears the object. WilliamJames’s opposition between curiosity and fear echoes Spinoza’s opposition between positive wonder andconsternation (The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, 523). One of Dewey’s remarks on wonder is in linewith Cartesian thinking: ‘‘Surprise, the unexpected, novelty, stimulate it [that is, wonder]’’ (HWT, 52).


curiosity is. It is not clear whether it is typically accompanied by a desire to relieve

the cognitive conflict that gives rise to it. But if this desire is present in instances

of wonder, it does not usually lead to an attempt to relieve the cognitive conflict.

We do not usually have an overriding desire to terminate the state of wonder. Our

overriding desire is usually to remain in the state, either because we find it pleas-

urable or because we regard it as instrumental to understanding or because we

desire it for its own sake. Many religions attempt to induce or prolong wonder at

certain objects (for example, the heavens) as a means to understanding the divine,

or at least they attempt to induce or prolong the sort of cognitive conflict that fre-

quently produces wonder. They may do so because inducing a cognitive conflict

makes available for reflection an inconsistency about the heavens, and reflection

on such an inconsistency is thought to give insight into the divine. In all this, won-

der contrasts with curiosity, which is accompanied by a desire that tends to impel

us to terminate the state of curiosity. To be sure, we often desire to be in a state of

curiosity, as evidenced by our enthusiasm for puzzles. We may desire a state of

curiosity because we find curiosity or the satisfaction of curiosity pleasurable, as

in the case of puzzles, or because curiosity is instrumental to inquiry. We may

even desire a state of curiosity because we find it to be intrinsically valuable. But

we do not desire to be in a state of curiosity without also desiring to be in a state

we would desire to terminate were we in that state. In other words, we do not

desire a prolonged state of curiosity. This is a key difference in the import of curi-

osity and wonder for inquiry. Prolonging cognitive conflict of the sort that gives

rise to wonder is thought useful for appreciating contradiction and mystery; curios-

ity drives us to eliminate cognitive conflict. In wonder we are not overridingly

motivated to resolve cognitive conflict, while curiosity motivates us to inquire.

Curiosity is therefore the more useful state for most epistemic purposes.

Fifth, wonder tends to decay rapidly. If our wonder about the stars stems from

comparing their majesty with the common character of objects on earth, we prolong

wonder only by attending to the comparison and reminding ourselves of how striking

it is. Prolonging wonder depends on prolonging the surprise or puzzlement that pro-

duces it. By contrast, curiosity tends to persist on its own until satisfied (unless our

attention is distracted from the object). We do not need to make an effort to attend

to the topic or remind ourselves of its interest. This is another difference between

curiosity and wonder that makes curiosity epistemically more useful than wonder.

Descartes regarded astonishment as pathological — ‘‘an excess of wonder’’ that

stymies action.15 Nicolas Malebranche observed that wonder can ‘‘become exces-

sive to the point of stupefaction,’’ in which case it leaves ‘‘rational curiosity’’

behind.16 Stupefaction results when surprise overwhelms our management of the

conflict between our expectations and what we find or when puzzlement prevents

us from resolving the conflict in our thinking about the object. The stupefaction of

astonishment seems to prevent not only further inquiry but even curiosity about

15. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, pt. II, article 73, 354.

16. Malebranche, The Search After Truth, 386.


the object: the subject is too flummoxed to desire to know about the object.17 Nor

is it possible for curiosity to stupefy us.

Descartes made wonder ‘‘the first of all the passions’’: wonder fixes our first

attention on an object. The value of wonder is to make us persist in attending to a

novel object when we would not otherwise do so, and to attend to it long enough

to judge whether it has utility for us or not, and finally, if it does have utility, to

assess whether it is harmful or beneficial. Descartes’s account of the value of won-

der omits the epistemic value of wonder recognized by religions, of enhancing our

understanding of the divine. And it appears to assume that wonder leads to or

motivates an inquiry into the utility of an object when in fact it does not. But even

though the account is inaccurate in regard to the value of wonder, a similar

account of the value of curiosity is accurate. Curiosity has the value of fixing our

desire to know topics into which we would not otherwise be motivated to inquire,

thereby making us attend to them more closely than we would otherwise. How-

ever, curiosity does not fix our first attention on an object: curiosity emerges from

attention rather than the other way around.

There are of course differences between the value of wonder on the Cartesian

account and the value we ascribe to curiosity. For Descartes, wonder concerns

novel objects while curiosity may arise about any topic, novel or familiar. And,

according to Descartes, the value of wonder is entirely practical: it leads us to

judge the utility of objects and thereby treat objects according to their utility;

whereas curiosity does not necessarily concern the utility of objects. Descartes’s

account of the value of wonder does not recognize any role for the resolution of

surprise or puzzlement in the value of wonder. And curiosity that results from sur-

prise or puzzlement does have the value of motivating the resolution of the puzzle-

ment. But again, the value of curiosity goes beyond the resolution of surprise and

puzzlement, since it occurs without surprise. The upshot of our discussion is that

curiosity has more epistemic value than wonder does because it stimulates inquiry

more generally and more powerfully than wonder does.

CURIOSITY AND THE DESIRE TO KNOW

We have said that curiosity involves the desire to know.18 Have we fastened on

the right target of desire? David Hume defined curiosity as the ‘‘love of truth.’’19

But we can see that the desire for truth is too weak for curiosity, at least for

17. This is not to deny that stupefaction and paralysis of curiosity and inquiry can be an appropriatereaction to an awesome object — for example, the cosmos.

18. It is worth noting that there is no distinction between being curious whether p and being curious toknow whether p. We observe that being curious about an object cannot be defined as curiosity whetherpropositions are true — just what we would expect if curiosity requires knowledge, since knowledge ofan object cannot be defined as knowledge of propositions. Can one be curious to learn whether p? Thismay be just a way of saying that one is curious whether p. It is interesting that we do not say that some-one is curious to know how to play the piano, though we say that someone is curious to know how oneplays the piano and curious to experience learning how to play the piano.

19. But he defined curiosity as the love of knowledge in David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, bk.2, pt. 3, sec. 10, 453, and in Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Lib-erty Classics, 1987), 113.


curiosity about objects or propositions of a sort we think we are capable of know-

ing. The person who is curious whether Goldbach’s Conjecture is true would not

be fully satisfied by a mere true belief as to whether it is true. If offered a choice

between a device that would, upon pressing a button, implant a true belief as to

whether the Conjecture is true and a device that would implant knowledge, the

subject would prefer the latter device and would do so to satisfy curiosity. Indeed,

the requirement of knowledge is not merely for a justified true belief. If Smith is

curious whether Jones has ten coins in his pocket, he will not be fully satisfied by a

true belief to this effect that arises in the manner described by Edmund Gettier in

his famous examples of justified true belief without knowledge.20 It will not be

enough for him to arrive at the justified true belief that the man who will get the

job has ten coins in his pocket by reasoning from the justified false beliefs that

Jones is the man who will get the job and that Jones has ten coins in his pocket. It

will not satisfy him to arrive luckily at a true conclusion. Curiosity requires the

desire for knowledge in the full sense of ‘‘knowledge’’ recognized in recent epis-

temology, in which justified true belief is not enough for knowledge. Evidently,

curiosity requires that the subject bear the right relation to the truth of the

belief — believing it because it is true. More exactly, this is so for curiosity about

objects and propositions of a sort that we think we are capable of knowing. We

might satisfy our curiosity with less when we do not think we are capable of know-

ing the object or proposition. Such curiosity would presumably require only desir-

ing that we have a justified true belief about the object or a justified true belief in

the proposition rather than requiring knowing the object or proposition.21

Does curiosity require a desire for more than knowledge? If Pandora is curious

what is in the box, must she desire anything more than knowing what is in the

box? Must she desire, not merely to know what is in the box, but to know this as a

result of inquiring what is in the box? Would it satisfy her curiosity merely to find

out what is in the box accidentally, without inquiry — for instance, if the lid of the

box accidentally opens to reveal its contents or if someone tells her what is in it

without her inquiring? If her curiosity can be satisfied only by her own inquiry,

must the inquiry be firsthand, or is it enough to receive testimony as a result of

inquiry? Would her curiosity be satisfied only by having the experience of opening

the box? One might say that any of the scenarios would satisfy Pandora if she is

merely curious what is in the box, as opposed to being curious to learn or inquire

what is in the box or to experience opening the box. We do not, then, have a clear

case that curiosity as to what is in the box requires desiring inquiry, firsthand

inquiry, or the experience of opening the box in addition to desiring to know what

is in the box.

However, our discussion of the example of Pandora does show that some curi-

osity requires more than desiring to know. Pandora might be, not merely curious

20. Edmund Gettier, ‘‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’’ Analysis 23 (1963): 121–123.

21. The point that curiosity must be defined in terms of the desire for knowledge, hence in terms ofknowledge, entails that the trait of curiosity must also be defined in these terms. Consequently knowl-edge cannot be defined by a list of virtues that includes curiosity, on pain of circularity.


what is in the box, but curious to see for herself what is in the box or to experience

opening the box. More generally, one can be curious not just about an object and

as to whether p (or as to what is the case, or when, where, why, or how something

is the case). One can also be curious to see for oneself or to experience. Ulysses was

curious to hear the song of the Sirens. No doubt such curiosity involves a desire to

know what the song of the Sirens is like, but it involves more than this. Ulysses’

curiosity would not be satisfied merely by being informed of what the song of the

Sirens is like. A description of the song might inform him of this, but it would not

fully satisfy his curiosity. His curiosity involves a desire to experience aurally the

song of the Sirens. (It might be that Ulysses is curious not merely to hear the song

of the Sirens, for which a recording might do, but to hear the Sirens sing, for which

auditing a live performance is required.) The desire involved in curiosity to experi-

ence an object is not captured by a desire to know what it is like to experience the

object. Perhaps curiosity whether p and curiosity to experience an object have in

common entailing a desire for cognitive contact with reality (to borrow a term

from Linda Zagzebski) or for acquaintance.22 On this view, the desire to know

whether p and the desire to experience an object are instances of the same general

type of desire, for cognitive contact with reality, and all cases of curiosity have in

common entailing a desire of this type. Whether desire to experience an object is

aptly described this way depends on whether it reduces to a mere desire for novel

sensations (what psychologists call ‘‘diversive curiosity’’) or instead involves a

desire to relate cognitively to objects in the environment.23 It seems likely that it

involves the latter.

Perhaps more important than the state of curiosity to experience an object is

the trait of being curious to experience a variety of things — for example, being

curious to experience a variety of foods. If it is kept within limits — the subject is

not curious to experience every sort of thing — and it does not degenerate into

mere sensationalism (a desire for a variety of sensations, without the prompting of

attention to the object), this sort of curiosity is regarded as valuable.24

Curiosity does not entail a generic desire for knowledge.25 One can be curious as

to whether p without having a desire to know a great deal or to know a great variety

of things, and without having a desire always to avoid believing what one does not

22. Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind, 45, 167. Dewey ascribed curiosity to a desire for acquaintance(‘‘some direct contact’’), and we find this ascription plausible. But he then traced the desire for acquaint-ance to a ‘‘Desire for expansion, for ‘self-realization’.The interest is sympathetic, socially and aestheti-cally sympathetic, rather than cognitive’’ (HWT, 248). We see no reason to suppose that curiosity has abasis in a desire for self-realization or in sympathy, though it may enhance a sense of self.

23. See Loewenstein, ‘‘The Psychology of Curiosity,’’ 77–78.

24. Dewey suggested that sensationalism is a pathological degeneration of curiosity (HWT, 40). Butaccording to recent work in the psychology of curiosity, a desire for novel or diverse sensations is morelikely due to a tendency that is distinct from curiosity — the tendency psychologists call diversive curi-osity, or the tendency to seek diverse experiences and activities (instrumental to relieving boredom).

25. How does the trait of curiosity relate to that of inquisitiveness? The trait of curiosity is manifestedby states of curiosity while inquisitiveness is manifested by inquiring as a result of a nonpractical desireto inquire (either an intrinsic desire to inquire on that occasion or a desire to inquire for the sake of inqui-ry or knowledge). Curiosity generally causes inquisitiveness, and conversely.


know. The desire for knowledge entailed by a state of curiosity is specific to the

topic of curiosity. In cases of curiosity whether p, it is a desire to know whether p. It

is worth noting that there is no such thing as generic curiosity. Curiosity is always

specific in two ways. First, there is no such thing as a state of curiosity satisfied by

the knowledge of just any object or proposition. It is not a state of curiosity if it

would be satisfied by coming to know just anything. Curiosity is always satisfied

only by knowledge of an object or proposition, either specific or of a type — indeed,

an object or proposition designated in advance of satisfaction. In this, curiosity dif-

fers from hunger, which is satisfied by any food, provided there is enough of it.26 Sec-

ond, in curiosity the designated object or proposition is itself less than fully general.

There is no such thing as curiosity about everything, or curiosity as to the whole

truth about the world. Curiosity is always about a specific object or proposition, or

type of object or proposition more limited than the generic type of all objects or

propositions. (Compare wonder: it seems possible to wonder at the whole world —

perhaps by contrasting what one finds with one’s a priori expectations.)

One might object to the claim that curiosity entails a desire to know on the

ground that it has the counterintuitive consequence that very young children and

nonhuman animals cannot be curious, since they lack the concept of knowledge

and so cannot desire to know. We may attribute hunger to very young children and

dogs and still view hunger as entailing a desire to eat, for very young children and

dogs may plausibly be said to have the concept of eating. But we cannot attribute

curiosity to them and still view curiosity as entailing a desire to know. A propo-

nent of the appetitive account of curiosity must either deny that desiring to know

entails that the subject has the concept of knowledge or acquiesce in the conclu-

sion that very young children and animals cannot be curious.

We do not find this a decisive objection to the appetitive account. Suppose that

desiring to know entails that the subject has the concept of knowledge and that

very young children and animals lack the concept of knowledge. The appetitive

account may still allow that very young children and animals exhibit behavior like

the behavior adult humans exhibit when curious — approaching, sensing, examin-

ing, testing, and the like. It may also allow that this behavior arises from a cogni-

tive state that resembles curiosity at least in arising from a mechanism that

triggers the behavior when the cognitive system has an information deficit relative

to a target for information. A cognitive mechanism of this sort does not require a

desire to know. The appetitive account may thus allow that very young children

exhibit behavior functionally equivalent to curiosity before they acquire the con-

ceptual means to be curious, and that this behavior arises from cognition that

resembles curiosity. The account need only concede that these children are not

genuinely curious. One might wonder what the claim that a subject is genuinely

curious adds to the claim that the subject exhibits behavior functionally equiva-

lent to curiosity, behavior that arises from curiosity-like cognition. The answer is

26. We speak of being hungry for pizza, but this would seem to mean only that we are hungry, and foradditional reasons of taste we desire that our hunger be satisfied by pizza.


that it adds what is involved in genuinely desiring knowledge. The reason to doubt

that very young children desire knowledge is a reason to think that they lack

something of value. We doubt that they desire knowledge because we do not see

them exhibit practical reasoning (which here may include reasoning that aims at

actions to satisfy epistemic goals) of the sort that adult humans engage in when

curious, in which the desire to know causes us to set a goal of knowing, which in

turn constrains plans for behavior. What is valuable in curiosity, over and above

the behavior and cognition we may attribute to very young children, is the effect

of desiring knowledge on practical reasoning and planning. So the appetitive

account may allow that very young children exhibit some of the features of curios-

ity while maintaining that they lack some features that make curiosity more val-

uable than the behavior and cognition we attribute to the children. Of course, any

ground for attributing more than this behavior and cognition to very young chil-

dren would also be a ground for finding the appetitive view consistent with attrib-

uting genuine curiosity to the children. For this reason, the objection is not

decisive against the appetitive account or the commonsense picture of curiosity as

entailing the desire to know.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE EPISTEMIC VALUE OF CURIOSITY: TENACITY

We have argued that curiosity, according to our everyday notion, is an appetite

for knowledge. This characterization relates curiosity to features it necessarily

has. The instrumental value of these features for knowledge is obvious enough:

the desire to know tends to lead to knowledge; the fact that the desire to know is

sustained by attention enhances the chance that the desire will be satisfied. We

will say more about the epistemic value of these necessary features of curiosity

subsequently. In the meantime, we embark on a discussion of the epistemic value

conferred on curiosity by its contingent and normative features.

It is a contingent fact that typical states of curiosity have what we will call

tenacity. That is, for a typical state of curiosity whether p, one has more than a

desire to know whether p; one is also disposed to be curious about issues related to

p. Of course, for any state of curiosity whether p, one will tend to desire to know q

if one thinks that knowing q is necessary for or likely to facilitate knowing p. If one

is curious whether gold dissolves in aqua regia, and one thinks that to find out it

will help to know whether silver dissolves in the same acid, then one will desire to

know the latter. This follows simply from the fact that curiosity whether p entails

desiring to know whether p (together with the fact that desiring anything tends to

make one desire what one thinks to be instrumental to it). However, this tendency

to desire instrumental knowledge, entailed by curiosity, is limited in two ways. It

is limited to a desire for knowledge of propositions q one thinks to be instrumental

to knowing p. And it is a tendency only to desire instrumental knowledge that q,

not to be curious as to whether q. By contrast, tenacity involves being disposed to

desire knowledge of q, for propositions q related to p; it is not merely a tendency to

desire knowledge instrumental to knowing p. And it involves being disposed to be

curious as to whether q, for propositions q one believes suitably related to p; it does

not merely involve being disposed to desire to know q. More exactly, it involves


being conditionally curious about matters related to whether p — that is, disposed

to be curious as to whether q, once it is settled whether p, for propositions q one

believes related to the proposition that p. We have spoken of tenacity as a dis-

position to be curious about matters related to whether p, but this could be under-

stood either as a disposition to be curious about matters one believes to be related

to p or as a disposition to be curious about matters really related to p. Perhaps one

need not go as far as to be disposed to be curious about matters really related to p,

but it is plausible that tenacity involves both a disposition to be curious about mat-

ters one believes to be related to p together with a disposition to inquire into mat-

ters because one expects them to be related to p.

In spelling out what tenacity is, it is not clear whether to say that in the typi-

cal case, curiosity whether p is satisfied by knowing p but drives us on to curiosity

about related issues, or to say instead that curiosity whether p is not quite satisfied

by knowing p but requires the satisfaction of curiosity about related issues.27 The

former proposal would treat curiosity as a state satisfied just in case the desires it

entails are satisfied, whereas the latter proposal would treat curiosity as a state the

satisfaction of which requires something more than the satisfaction of the desires

it entails. On the former proposal, curiosity as to whether p would end with the

knowledge that p even though the subject continues to be curious about related

matters, while, on the latter proposal, curiosity as to whether p would not end

until curiosity about related issues is satisfied. Whichever of these views we adopt,

tenacity seems not to be a conceptually necessary condition of curiosity but holds

for typical states of curiosity as a matter of psychology. The tenacity of curiosity

seems quite important for its instrumental value for inquiry.

According to Edmund Burke, ‘‘Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affec-

tions; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but

very easily satisfied; and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and

anxiety.’’28 Burke’s description of curiosity as perpetually changing its object is cor-

rect if we understand the description to mean that typically curiosity whether p is

replaced with curiosity about further issues once whether p has been settled. But it

is a mistake to infer from the fact that curiosity typically involves such a change in

focus that it is superficial in being very easily satisfied. On the contrary, the change

in focus is part of curiosity’s tenacity, of its not being easily satisfied.

Tenacity is a source of a valuable state Dewey called ‘‘wholeheartedness,’’ by

which he meant a species of wholeheartedness in the common sense of throwing

oneself into one’s projects. In his sense, wholeheartedness is absorption in the pur-

suit of knowledge or understanding: ‘‘When a person is absorbed, the subject car-

ries him on.the material holds and buoys his mind up and gives an onward

impetus to thinking’’ (HWT, 31–32). States of curiosity are one source of whole-

heartedness in this sense, perhaps a generally necessary cause of it, and their

27. We may ask, too, what happens when the desire to know whether p is not satisfied in a case of curi-osity whether p: do we have a disposition to become curious about other issues related to whether p?

28. Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, 31.


tenacity is one source of the impetus involved in absorption. Dewey described this

as a ‘‘genuine enthusiasm,’’ and it is plausible that curiosity is a cause of enthusi-

asm in inquiry. It would seem to be psychologically impossible to be engrossed in a

novel without being curious as to what comes next in the story. Similarly, it would

be psychologically impossible to be riveted by a question without being curious

about related matters. Curiosity is needed to sustain an intense attention to a

topic, and by its tenacity it brings with it curiosity about related matters.

One source of the epistemic value of curiosity, then, is that a tenacious state

of curiosity will eventuate in a larger body of knowledge related to the topic of

curiosity than a nontenacious state of curiosity will, other things being equal, if

our desire for knowledge is satisfied. Moreover, since the knowledge tenacity

disposes us to desire is knowledge of related propositions, a tenacious state will

frequently eventuate in the possession of more justification for and a greater

understanding of the propositions known. In short, it will lead to deeper knowl-

edge of the topics of curiosity than nontenacious states do.

PATHOLOGIES OF CURIOSITY

Curiosity is subject to epistemic pathologies of obsession. These include a pas-

sion for knowledge of a specified topic to the exclusion of other knowledge and for

petty detail or complete knowledge of a topic. Malebranche gave examples of each

of these kinds of curiosity: curiosity about definitions to the exclusion of all else

(‘‘an entire library of all kinds of dictionaries’’) and ‘‘the curiosity of those who

collect coins from all countries and periods.’’29 Another example of the second

category is Uncle Toby’s obsession with the details of the Battle of Namur (in

Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman).30 These

obsessions are epistemically pathological because, given the limitations on the

effort we can expend to acquire knowledge, and the narrowness and pettiness of

their subject matter, they prevent us from inquiring into a suitably broad range of

topics or from inquiring into topics we need to know to understand the world.

These pathologies of obsession are exacerbated if not caused by an exaggeration of

the otherwise valuable tenacity of curiosity, discussed previously.

Curiosity is also subject to pathologies that are not necessarily obsessive.

There are pathological states of curiosity — nosy, unwholesome, and morbid curi-

osity. And there are pathological forms of inquiry that reflect badly on the states

or traits of curiosity that give rise to them — prying, peeping, voyeurism, and rub-

bernecking. These are certainly moral but not necessarily epistemic pathologies.

Nosy, unwholesome, and morbid curiosity are epistemically objectionable only

insofar as they draw us to petty knowledge, the pursuit of which distracts us from

knowledge of greater importance. But not all nosy and morbid curiosity is petty.

29. Malebranche, The Search After Truth, bk. V, chap. 11, 401.

30. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (New York: The ModernLibrary, 2004), bk. II, chap. 3, 68–70. For a discussion of this example, see Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind,194–197.


The epistemic objection to petty curiosity clearly does not apply to another

sort of curiosity that has been regarded as at least morally and perhaps also epi-

stemically pathological. Traditional religion routinely condemns curiosity about

(though not wonder at) the profound, sacred, or diabolical, as the stories of Eve,

Lot’s wife, Pandora, and Ulysses illustrate. One might take curiosity about these

matters to be inappropriate. Or one might think that curiosity can lead to knowl-

edge only of profane matters (as Augustine apparently did). Neither of these

grounds for condemning curiosity about the divine is epistemic. The best ground

for condemning such curiosity would seem to be that any inquiry into God should

aim not at knowledge or even understanding but at a relationship with God, and

curiosity about God is no more appropriate as a primary instrument for developing

such a relationship than curiosity about another person is appropriate as a primary

instrument for developing a friendship with that person. But, again, this would

seem to be a moral and not an epistemic criticism of curiosity about the divine.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE EPISTEMIC VALUE OF CURIOSITY: INDEPENDENCE FROM OUR INTERESTS

The example of morbid curiosity highlights an important feature of curiosity:

it does not generally depend for its choice of topics on our having prior practical or

epistemic interests in that topic. We are drawn to the morbid despite lacking any

practical or epistemic motivation to inquire into it, and even against our revulsion

at the topic. We will call this feature of curiosity its independence from practical

and epistemic interests. This independence from interests does not follow from the

fact that curiosity is motivationally original, but motivational originality makes

independence possible.

To be sure, curiosity is not wholly independent from our practical and epistemic

interests. These interests bias our curiosity: we are more apt to be curious about top-

ics related to those we already desire to know.31 Part of the value of curiosity lies in

the way it reinforces inquiry into topics that interest us. This has an effect like that

of tenacity, of deepening our knowledge of the topics of interest. We take the mecha-

nisms of tenacity and interest bias to be distinct mechanisms with similar effects.

Although curiosity about the morbid has little epistemic value for most of us,

the independence of curiosity from interests that it highlights has epistemic value.

The independence of curiosity from our practical and epistemic interests tends to

divert our attention from topics of practical and epistemic interest to topics we are

not yet interested in. Curiosity frequently gets the better of us and unexpectedly

draws us to a topic in which we have little antecedent interest.32 In this way,

31. As we have noted, the information-gap theory of curiosity entails that people are more likely to becurious about a topic on which they already know more. This is a cognitive biasing of curiosity towardtopics about which the subject knows more. However, it tends to coincide with the biasing of curiosityby interests, since we tend to know more about the things in which we are interested.

32. In addition to the value of curiosity whether p for knowing p for practical reasons, for reasons of thedistribution of knowledge, and simply for knowing p, curiosity has instrumental value for retainingknowledge that p. Daniel E. Berlyne showed that curiosity about a question reinforces learning of theanswer to the question (see ‘‘An Experimental Study of Human Curiosity,’’ British Journal of Psychology45, no. 1 (1954): 256–265).


curiosity broadens our attention and ultimately our practical and epistemic inter-

ests. This effect of curiosity is most beneficial when we lack many practical and

epistemic interests, as with children, or when our interests are weakly motivating

and so lead to little inquiry, or when our interests are narrow or petty, and we

would otherwise devote considerable effort to building a less than estimable body

of knowledge. The motivation to inquire into topics without prior interest in them

is instrumentally valuable and indeed essential for developing the stock of knowl-

edge that determines what we are interested in and thereby partly determines

what counts for us as an estimable distribution of knowledge. It is also instru-

mentally valuable for producing the knowledge that contributes to an estimable

distribution.

We add that the knowledge we obtain when curiosity drives us afield of our

interests sometimes comes to deepen our understanding of the topics in which we

have a prior interest.

CURIOSITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING

To put the epistemic value of curiosity in perspective, it will help to consider

where it enters in the development of learning. Here we follow Dewey’s stages or

levels of development in his account of the value of curiosity.33 We assume these

to be idealized descriptions of distinct forms of cognitive functioning, not descrip-

tions of actual temporally segregated stages of historical development. We differ

from Dewey on what it takes to be curious, and we do not apply the term ‘‘curi-

ous’’ to very young children, as he did; but we find his description of levels helpful

for discerning the value of curiosity.

First, Dewey’s ‘‘organic level’’ refers to those who lack any interest in inquiry

(HWT, 38). As we have conceded, very young children lack the concept of knowl-

edge. Accordingly, they lack both curiosity and practical, theoretical, and epi-

stemic interests in knowledge. These emerge only after the cognitive development

necessary for acquiring the concept of knowledge. But nature provides them with

an effective equivalent of curiosity: an innate disposition to handle and examine

novel objects in their environment — ‘‘reaching, poking, pounding, prying’’ (HWT,

37). As Dewey observed, ‘‘Objects are.experimented with until they cease to yield

new qualities’’ (HWT, 38). Children engage in these activities, as animals do,

‘‘without real reference to the business in hand’’ — indeed, in most instances, they

have no business in hand, since they have an impoverished set of practical inter-

ests, as of desires to know.34 These activities resemble the ‘‘exploring and testing’’

caused by curiosity but differ from them in not being driven by interests (HWT, 38).

Here a disposition to handle and observe novel objects until they become boring

yields knowledge in the way that curiosity does later on. The disposition resembles

33. For discussion of the role of curiosity in cognitive development, see Joachim F. Wohlwill, ‘‘Intro-duction,’’ in Curiosity, Imagination, and Play, eds. Dietmar Gorlitz and Joachim F. Wohlwill (Hillsdale,New Jersey: Erlbaum, 1987), 1–21. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues that curiosity is ‘‘the first steptoward a more creative life’’ (Creativity, 346).

34. Dewey (HWT, 37) quoted this phrase from L.T. Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution, 3d ed. (London: Mac-millan, 1926), 195.


curiosity, too, in that attention sustains the knowledge-producing behavior. In this

respect, it is unlike the desire to know caused by a startlingly loud noise, in which

attention does not sustain the desire to know. The epistemic value of the dis-

position here is to supply a diverse stock of knowledge from observation even

though interests are lacking. As Dewey pointed out, the disposition has depth in

the sense that the child tends to continue testing the object until there are dimin-

ishing returns in the observation of new qualities or until a more stimulating

object appears. This is analogous to the tenacity of curiosity. However, it differs

from tenacity in not being directed by any connection in the topics for which the

object is examined.

Second, Dewey’s ‘‘social level’’ describes those with a stock of knowledge

supplied by the effective equivalent of curiosity at the organic level (HWT, 38).

Young children soon acquire enough knowledge to ask persistent questions of

others and thereby enlarge and diversify their stock of knowledge. As Dewey sug-

gested, it is unclear whether these children yet have an interest in knowledge or

rather operate from an innate disposition simply to ask questions or from an

interest ‘‘in the mere process of asking a question’’ and provoking an answer

(HWT, 39). The repetitive and exhaustive why-questions posed by young children

have a mechanical character that suggests an innate disposition or an interest in

provoking an answer. Moreover, even if they do ask questions out of an interest

in knowledge, it is not clear that their interest exhibits the causal structure of

curiosity — attention to an object leading to a desire to know, producing further

attention. It could be that their questions result from a desire to know specific

facts that is instrumental to a generic desire to know. Whatever the explanation

for their questions, the disposition to ask questions is at least an effective equiv-

alent of curiosity. Again, their disposition to ask exhaustive questions is analo-

gous to the tenacity of curiosity. This disposition differs from that at the organic

level in driving the child to inquire into topics relevant to the starting question.

Evidently the choice of questions is guided by a sense of their relevance. But the

topics tend not to be as relevant to the question or as well chosen for developing

related knowledge as the topics pursued as the result of the tenacity of curiosity.

This difference is perhaps only a consequence of a difference in the amount of

knowledge the child has at the social level and later on. Knowledge of relevance

guides the choice of questions at the social level, as it does the inquiry that stems

from the tenacity of curiosity.

Third, Dewey’s ‘‘intellectual level’’ refers to those having a stock of knowledge

produced by the effective equivalents of curiosity at the organic and social levels

(HWT, 38–39). Dewey focused attention on the point that firsthand inquiry begins

in earnest at this level, though of course reliance on others for knowledge, such as

we find in formal schooling, remains an essential source of diversification and

depth in knowledge. For our purposes, what matters is that at this level the child

has sufficient concepts to form the desire for knowledge and may therefore not

only develop interests in acquiring more knowledge but also exhibit genuine curi-

osity. Curiosity then gradually replaces the effective equivalents at the organic and


social levels. Curiosity comes to provide much of the stimulus for inquiry (whether

firsthand or secondhand).

The advent of the concept of knowledge enables the child to develop practical

and epistemic interests to acquire knowledge. But there is no reason to think that

most of the child’s inquiry results from these interests. The child continues to

exhibit the driven investigation characteristic of the organic level, ‘‘without real

reference to the business in hand.’’ But now curiosity takes over the role of the

organic equivalent of curiosity. Though curiosity is supplemented by practical or

epistemic interests that favor inquiry, it accounts for most of the inquiry. It may

override practical interests not to inquire.

Curiosity differs from its earlier effective equivalents at the organic and social

levels in involving a desire to know. This is one significant reason why it has

greater value than its equivalents. The dispositions of the organic and social levels

do not engage practical reasoning. In one respect they do not differ from curiosity:

they do not result from practical reasoning. But in another respect they differ: they

neither involve nor produce inputs to practical reasoning. By contrast, curiosity

involves a desire to know, and such a desire is an input to practical reasoning. This

desire may be balanced in practical reasoning against practical and epistemic inter-

ests. A goal of knowing p produced by curiosity’s desire to know p may be

strengthened, attenuated, or rescinded in light of practical or epistemic interests.

And practical reasoning may find efficient ways to satisfy the desire to know. In

this way, curiosity commands some of the flexibility, motivational power, and effi-

ciency of practical reasoning and promises a more efficient and fruitful production

of knowledge than that of its effective equivalents at the organic and social levels.

Curiosity’s deployment of practical reasoning improves the prospect that inquiry

will contribute positively to the epistemically estimable distribution of knowledge

over the prospect offered at the organic and social levels.

The interest bias and tenacity of curiosity also make it more valuable than

its effective equivalents. At the intellectual level children begin to specialize

their inquiry. The organic and social dispositions are not biased toward practical

or epistemic interests and so do not focus the child’s examination on topics in

which the child has a practical or epistemic interest. Curiosity, by contrast, does

bias inquiry in this way. The organic and social dispositions do exhibit a sort of

tenacity — toward the object of immediate attention at the organic level and

toward the topic of the starting question at the social level. But, as we have

already noted, this does not tend to lead to an examination of topics well chosen

for the development of knowledge. By contrast, the tenacity of curiosity leads the

child to inquire into topics in which he or she is interested, to continue inquiring

as if guided by interests, and to relent in the inquiry depending on goals deter-

mined by practical and epistemic interests as well as by motivationally original

desires to know. At the same time, tenacity disposes the child to continue exam-

ining the related topics beyond the point that practical and epistemic interests

mandate, and this makes a contribution to knowledge that alters these interests

and propels cognitive development. The interest independence of curiosity has


much the same effect, enabling us to act against practical and epistemic motiva-

tion not to inquire.

The effervescent curiosity of childhood recedes with maturity. Dewey sug-

gested, plausibly, that curiosity ‘‘degenerates or evaporates’’ and is replaced by

indifference, flippancy, or dogmatism unless the child develops into a firsthand

inquirer (HWT, 39).35 Schooling is sometimes blamed for the evaporation of curi-

osity, but the mounting practical concerns that accompany maturation may take

the larger toll on curiosity, discouraging firsthand inquiry not instrumental to

those concerns. Unfortunately, curiosity is just what is needed to form a practice of

firsthand inquiry that can prevent its degeneration. For this reason, the best oppor-

tunity for mature curiosity lies in the early formation of a practice of firsthand

inquiry, relying on immature curiosity.

The fourth level described by Dewey addresses specialization of interests. All

human beings develop special interests in knowing. This is a consequence of prac-

tical interests that we inadvertently develop. It is also a consequence of our episte-

mic interest in accumulating an estimable stock of knowledge. Plausibly, an

estimable stock of knowledge exhibits an appropriate weighting of depth on some

topics against breadth of topics and respects the desirability of our contributing

original knowledge to the store of knowledge available to others through testi-

mony or collaboration. Specialization is necessary if we are to achieve estimable

depth on some topics and if we are to contribute original knowledge. Both of these

achievements require a substantial amount of firsthand inquiry. Even after special-

ization of interests has set in, curiosity continues to have epistemic value for both

the depth and breadth of knowledge in which we have a practical or epistemic

interest. It has such value because it acts independently of — often for but occa-

sionally against — practical and epistemic interests.

Let us list the valuable effects of curiosity on the specialized pursuit of

knowledge in this fourth level of development. First, as we emphasized earlier,

practical and epistemic interests bias our curiosity so that it increases our atten-

tion to the topics of our specialty.36 Second, the tenacity of curiosity about a topic

tends to increase the depth of our knowledge on the topic, in tandem with any

35. This raises the question why a failure to engage in firsthand inquiry causes curiosity to degenerate.Why isn’t inquiry from testimony enough to sustain curiosity? One possible answer is that once the dis-position to ask why-questions recedes, only observation from firsthand inquiry provides enough vivid-ness and certainty about the topic to trigger the tenacity of curiosity; yet unless tenacity is regularlytriggered, the child does not form strong enough desires to know. Psychologists have yet to offer anaccount of the development of curiosity that explains these matters.

36. These points are supported by recent work on motivation in creative enterprises such as art and sci-ence. Success in such enterprises depends on more than practical motivation: ‘‘Without curiosity, the actof pursuing success, eminence, and creativity is not enough to motivate an individual to consistentlymaintain 10-, 12-, or even 16-hour workdays at the expense of developing balance between work andother life roles.we characterize curiosity as a self-regulatory mechanism that facilitates intrinsic goaleffort, perseverance, personal growth, and, under the right conditions, creativity’’ (Todd B. Kashdan andFrank D. Fincham, ‘‘Facilitating Creativity by Regulating Curiosity,’’ American Psychologist 57, no. 5[2002]: 373–374). Intrinsic interest in a domain makes work more satisfying and enhances the sense ofself (see Richard L. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, ‘‘Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrin-sic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,’’ American Psychologist 55, no. 1 [2000]: 68–78).


practical or epistemic interest to do so and against any practical motivation not

to do so. Third, by virtue of its interest independence, curiosity brings our atten-

tion to topics within our specialty that our interests would not have led us to

consider or would have discouraged us from considering. This increases the depth

of our knowledge of the specialty. It makes us familiar with topics within our

specialty that we would not otherwise have noticed and in this way puts us in a

position to make better informed decisions about where to allocate our resources

for further inquiry within our specialty. Fourth, by virtue of its interest independ-

ence, curiosity leads us to topics outside our specialty and even overrides the

practical and epistemic interests and the motivationally original desires that

limit our inquiry to our specialty. This keeps us in touch with the wider world

and occasionally brings to our attention topics outside our specialty that bear on

inquiry within our specialty.

It is true that we would have no need of curiosity if we had practical or epis-

temic interests to inquire strong enough to override any practical interests we

may have not to inquire, and if we had the wisdom to see which topics it would

be best to examine to satisfy those interests, and, further, if all this emerged

without being initiated by motivationally original desires to know. If the organic

and social levels gave us enough practical and epistemic motivation to inquire

and made some distribution of knowledge estimable for us, we could do without

curiosity. But these conditions are wanting. For this reason, we are fortunate to

be curious creatures.

We have emphasized that by virtue of tenacity, interest bias, and interest inde-

pendence, curiosity supplements and opposes our practical and epistemic interests

in epistemically valuable ways. The tenacity and interest bias of curiosity enhance

the depth of our inquiry by focusing our attention on topics within our specialty.

The interest independence of curiosity enhances the breadth and sometimes the

depth of our inquiry by diverting our attention to topics outside our specialty. But

these features of curiosity carry inherent liabilities.

First, the mechanism by which tenacity, interest bias, and interest independ-

ence produce depth and breadth is largely unintelligent. The mechanism does not

work primarily by intelligent practical reasoning about inquiry, any more than

the mechanism by which the organic and social levels lead to knowledge works

by intelligent practical reasoning. Tenacious and interest-biased curiosity chooses

its targets for inquiry on the basis of a tacit perception of the relevance of those

targets. We are somehow providentially guided by considerations of relevance in a

way that is unavailable to practical reasoning about inquiry. At the same time,

practical reasoning would choose our targets more wisely in the instances in

which the mechanism leads us astray. Similarly, interest-independent curiosity

chooses its targets in a manner frequently beneficial both to breadth and to depth

of inquiry, and practical reasoning about inquiry would not choose as well in the

beneficial instances. But practical reasoning would choose better where the mech-

anism leads us astray.


A second liability of these unintelligent mechanisms is that they do not intel-

ligently guide the ratio of tenacity and interest bias, on the one hand, and interest

independence, on the other. Tenacity and interest bias can compensate for under-

specialization by deepening our inquiry in our specialty. Interest independence can

compensate for overspecialization by broadening our inquiry. But the mechanisms

of curiosity evidently do not monitor whether we underspecialize or overspecialize

and intelligently set tenacity, interest bias, and interest independence to com-

pensate for this. It appears that the relative contribution of these features of curi-

osity is left to chance. Thus, we must concede that curiosity is vulnerable to a

further pathology, in addition to those listed previously, of exaggerating under-

specialization or overspecialization. Perhaps practical reasoning can to some

degree correct the chance setting of these features in light of information about the

difference between our actual and our ideal balance of depth and breadth. Or per-

haps there are other mechanisms (for example, satiety from overspecialization, or

social sanctions to discourage underspecialization) that reset the features of curi-

osity to improve their effect. We must leave the choice between these for further

investigation.

FOSTERING CURIOSITY

Our aim has been to examine the nature of curiosity, both its necessary and its

contingent features, and rely on our findings about it to explain the epistemic

value of curiosity — primarily, its instrumental value for knowledge. Our results

explain the commonplace that one must have considerable curiosity to develop

into a fruitfully inquiring, knowing person and to achieve an estimable distribu-

tion in a substantial body of knowledge later in life. But our results do not immedi-

ately tell us whether curiosity can be fostered or how to foster it. We noted at the

outset that teachers have accumulated techniques to excite curiosity. Dewey made

the practical issue of how to ‘‘arouse and guide curiosity’’ his focus for forming

habits of reflective thought (HWT, 56–68). We are now interested in whether there

is anything in our discussion that might help us to understand and evaluate the

effect of teaching techniques in fostering curiosity.37 We can offer only questions at

this point in our discussion.38

One set of questions is suggested by the fact that in most people curiosity

(both the frequency of episodes and the inclination to curiosity) wanes with matur-

ity. According to the story of levels of functioning we outlined previously, behavior

37. For discussion of how to stimulate curiosity in children, see H.I. Day, ‘‘Curiosity and the InterestedExplorer,’’ Performance and Instruction 21, no. 4 (1982): 19–22; and Margaret McNay, ‘‘Science: All theWonder Things,’’ Childhood Education 61, no. 5 (1985): 375–378; and Gail E. Tomkins and Eileen Tway,‘‘Adventuring with Words: Keeping Language Curiosity Alive in Elementary School Children,’’ Child-hood Education 61, no. 5 (1985): 361–365.

38. Raymond Nickerson has suggested that curiosity can be stimulated by making a practice of closeobservation of the world, that curiosity is contagious in the sense that one person’s curiosity tends tostimulate another’s, and that curiosity is self-increasing in the sense that ‘‘the more it is indulged, themore it grows’’ (see ‘‘Enhancing Creativity,’’ in Handbook of Creativity, ed. Robert J. Sternberg[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], 410–411). These are all leads worth pursuing in futurework on fostering curiosity.


that is functionally equivalent to curiosity in the first two levels is eventually

replaced by genuine curiosity. But this process of replacement involves consider-

able loss, and at levels three and four we do not exhibit curiosity with the same

frequency or stability that we exhibit its functional equivalents at levels one and

two. And in maturation through levels three and four, there is further loss of curi-

osity. This raises the question whether we can hope to increase curiosity through

teaching, or only to retain it, or perhaps only to retard its loss. If we cannot hope

to increase total curiosity, we may still hope to affect its distribution over topics.

Perhaps we can alter the distribution, from one that is diversified over topics to

one that is focused on specific topics. How sharply we wish to focus curiosity

would seem to depend on the student’s level of maturity — the more mature the

student, the more we would aim to focus curiosity. There is a question related to

these. One possible explanation for the waning of curiosity is that it is a natural,

biological effect of maturation, of a piece with the natural reduction in the inten-

sity of feelings and passions that comes with age. If this is so, then we would seek

to retard the natural reduction of curiosity. Alternatively, curiosity might erode in

the way that skills do — from disuse. Then we would seek to prevent erosion by

exercising our minds, perhaps by focusing attention in the right way.

There is a related question. Even when an individual’s curiosity remains

high, maturation increases the number and strength of practical interests against

inquiring, and although these do not prevent curiosity, they may preempt its pro-

duction of inquiry. Very powerful curiosity may prevail over these practical con-

cerns, as may curiosity supported by practical concerns that favor inquiry. How,

if at all, can teaching promote curiosity in this contest between curiosity and

practical concerns?

A second set of questions arises from our suggestion that the contingent fea-

tures of tenacity and interest independence are the primary sources of curiosity’s

epistemic value. Our account of the value of curiosity implies that to foster it in a

way that makes it valuable requires fostering its tenacity and interest independence.

We have noted that these are at odds with one another: tenacity favors depth of

inquiry and interest independence favors breadth. It is plausible enough that

directing students toward intensive study of a topic will foster tenacity, while fre-

quent changes in the subject matter taught and adventurous juxtapositions of

diverse subjects will foster interest independence. But are these strategies exclu-

sive? More generally, must fostering tenacity undermine interest independence?

Are there circumstances in which one is to be preferred to the other? Might we

look to the level of the students as a determinant in the choice between tenacity

and interest independence if these are genuinely at odds with one another: breadth

is more valuable earlier in development, depth later on?

A final set of questions arises from the reflection that teaching uncontroversial

facts and objectively testable skills must compete for classroom time and resour-

ces with exposure to controversial subject matter and creative activities. The latter

have been thought to foster curiosity more than the former do. Recent federal edu-

cation policy in the United States has tended to favor the former by making


achievement tests a primary basis for allocating resources to schools. Achievement

tests must emphasize uncontroversial facts and objective skills if they are to be

easily gradable, and thus their use tends to crowd out the teaching of controversial

subject matter and creative activities. This trend in education has broad political

support and is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. We are thus led to ask

whether teaching uncontroversial facts and objectively testable skills must be less

effective in exciting curiosity than exposure to controversy and creative activities.

If it must be, this would be a significant consideration against a role for testing

that prevents such teaching. And if achievement tests must be prominent, it

would be a significant consideration in favor of tests that allow more credit for cre-

ative activities, despite the greater costs of grading such tests.

In this article, we have characterized curiosity about a topic as attention to

the topic giving rise to, and in turn sustained by, a motivationally original desire

to know. Curiosity is biased by our practical and epistemic interests. It is tena-

cious, typically involving a disposition to inquire into topics related to the topic of

curiosity. And its motivational originality allows it to be to some degree independ-

ent of practical and epistemic interests. The value of curiosity depends on these

features. Its interest bias and tenacity together lead to deeper inquiry than is moti-

vated by practical and epistemic interests. Its interest independence leads to

broader inquiry than interests would dictate, keeping us abreast of the wider

world, sometimes to the benefit of our specialties. Curiosity leads to knowledge

that, in turn, sets up the interests in knowledge by virtue of which certain distri-

butions of knowledge count as estimable. Curiosity plays its most important role

in middle and later childhood, after the child’s innate dispositions to handle

objects and persist in questions recede. It enables children to develop topics of spe-

cial interest and at the same time allows the rounding needed for competent adult

life. Later in life curiosity continues to play a role in inquiry, both specialized and

general. These reflections explain the high epistemic value we customarily assign

to curiosity.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK Marcia Baron, Nicholas Burbules, Gary Ebbs, Harvey Siegel, Kevin Toh,and the anonymous referees of Educational Theory for helpful comments.


Documents

The Epistemic Value of Curiosity