What is it about?
Curiositas, meaning the desire to know, was both weaponized as a scholarly vice of others and praised as a valued attribute of one’s own group in premodern European schools and universities. While speculative curiosity became a more validated quality at universities, authors like Francis Bacon still made it clear that curiosity could not be limitless. Even today, the line between a positive curiosity and one indicative of a scholarly vice has yet to be settled in any final way.
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Why is it important?
It is common today to want a child's education to foster curiosity. However, Western culture does not actually support limitless curiosity. Certain topics are still taboo, such as experiments with genes to produce new humans. My essay demonstrates how in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Early Modern period curiosity appeared as a negative quality at schools and universities.
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This page is a summary of: Tracing the Development of curiositas in Early Condemnations of the University, September 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004725058_003.
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