Idle and usefull curiosity from Peter Damiani to Dante

Oleg Voskoboynikov ()
Additional contact information
Oleg Voskoboynikov: National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia); Department of History

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: The twelfth century is a period of intense search in all fields of culture and religion, a period of great curiosity. But the curiosity, an ambiguous term and psychological attitude, was for centuries, since Augustin, banished as a dangerous sin. This ascetic perception of goals and methods of human knowledge, not a mere agnosticism, came to compete with a new mundana sapientia, an appeal to philosophical inquiry, to reception of scientific texts from Arabs and Ancients, represented by some «innovators» (Abaelard, Hermann of Carinthia, Thierry of Chartres etc.). In this article, ideas promoted by them are sequentially compared to the voices of some «retrogrades», like Peter Damiani or Bernard of Clairvaux. This comparison leads us to a better understanding of the age of «sic et non», an epoch of constant dialogue and dispute

Keywords: Curiosity; sin; medieval theology; Bernard of Clairvaux; Peter Damiani; William of Conches; Dante; Frederick II; scholasticism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in WP BRP Series: Humanities / HUM, May 2013, pages 1-19

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hse.ru/data/2013/05/14/1299930189/30HUM2013.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:30hum2013

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Shamil Abdulaev () and Shamil Abdulaev ().