Central Essay Prompt: Your assignment in this interpretation and application essay is to demonstrate your understanding of the virtue of studiousness and the vice of curiosity, and then to apply those interpretive descriiptions to the particulars of your pursuit of knowledge at Salve Regina University.
Extra information and tips: The scope and focus of your research should be limited to the required readings listed below (you are permitted, but not required, to consult the additional supplementary materials listed below). Although the specific approach, aim, and descriiptions found in each essay varies, for the purposes of this assignment, you may assume that these texts are all aiming to describe the same thing. Because you will be articulating definitions and descriiptions (i.e., of studiousness and curiosity) that are belong to particular way of thinking about out intellectual appetite, it will be unnecessary and possibly counterproductive to consult dictionary definitions or encyclopedia entries on “studiousness” and “curiosity.” Nevertheless, if you do consult accounts of the virtue of studiousness and the vice of curiosity beyond the selections provided in our seminar, each resource consulted must be included in your bibliography and what you learned should be appropriately cited.
Tips for your process and organization:
Read the Texts Carefully, Asking Questions: Before you begin writing your essay, you will need to have a thorough understanding of the assigned texts. Read and review them slowly, focusing your attention and notes on the concepts you want to understand and any related terms, concepts, or descriiptions that may be helpful. Underline, highlight, and take notes as you read.
Identify and Organize the Defining Attributes: When you’ve completed your reading and review of the texts, begin organizing your observations into an order that makes sense to you. To do this, determine the defining attributes of each concept, keeping track of characteristics that regularly appear. These characteristics will become the critical or defining attributes of the concept. Important attributes include, for example: what it is; what it isn’t; what it includes or does not include; what it seems like; common points of confusion or misunderstanding; where it comes from, how it works, what it is for, etc.
Your essay should have two equal parts: an interpretive descriiption and a personal application.
1. A good interpretive descriiption of the virtue of studiousness and the vice of curiosity will answer the questions: What is meant by those who classify “studiousness” as a virtue and classify “curiosity” as a vice? Feel free to provide examples and illustrations to help your reader understand the descriiption you develop.
2. A good applications of those concepts will answer the question: It what ways might this distinction between studiousness and curiosity apply to the particulars of your pursuit of knowledge at Salve Regina University? Reminder: Although the descriiptions of studiousness and curiosity we’ve read have been formulated in Christian religious terms, one does not need to be a Christian to apply these concepts. (Similar to “the virtue of truth-telling and the vice of lying”; or “the virtue of peaceableness and the vice of wrath”; or “the virtue of healthy eating and the vice of unhealthy eating” — in each of these cases, the practical performance of studiousness, truth-telling, peaceableness, and healthy eating are recognized as morally good across many cultures and religious traditions, while the actions of curiosity, lying, wrath, and unhealthy eating are recognized as moral wrongs across many cultures and religious traditions.)
Required Readings:
Paul Griffiths, Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar, 1-11, 19-22.
Littlejohn, “Addicted to Novelty: The Vice of Curiosity in a Digital Age,” JSCE, 179-196.
Griffiths, “The Vice of Curiosity,” Pro Ecclesia, 47-63.3/23
Griffiths, “Studiousness: How (and What) Christians Should Want to Know,” The Vice of Curiosity, 60-79.
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