好奇心を持つのはよいことである、と教わってきた。事実、世の中は好奇心を刺激するもので満ちている。目を引く、変わった、衝撃的なものによって他者の関心を集めようとする。事実を偽り、捏造することすら試みる人たちもいる。
そのいっぽうで好奇心を強く戒める人たちがいる。哲学者のハンナ・アーレントはそのひとりだ。
好奇心を持つのはよいことである、と教わってきた。事実、世の中は好奇心を刺激するもので満ちている。目を引く、変わった、衝撃的なものによって他者の関心を集めようとする。事実を偽り、捏造することすら試みる人たちもいる。
そのいっぽうで好奇心を強く戒める人たちがいる。哲学者のハンナ・アーレントはそのひとりだ。
好奇心について〜アーレントとモーム
by 若松英輔
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUD2772Q0X20C24A2000000/
“Thought and cognition are not the same. Thought, the source of art works, is manifest without transformation or transfiguration in all great philosophy, whereas the chief manifestation of the cognitive processes, by which we acquire and store up knowledge, is the sciences. Cognition always pursues a definite aim, which can be set by practical considerations as well as by “idle curiosity”; but once this aim is reached, the cognitive process has come to an end. Thought, on the contrary, has neither an end nor an aim outside itself, and it does not even produce results; not only the utilitarian philosophy of homo faber but also the men of action and the lovers of results in the sciences have never tired of pointing out how entirely “useless” thought is—as useless, indeed, as the works of art it inspires.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition
Love as desire looks to eternity for its fulfillment. According to Augustine the consummation occurs in the act of seeing because he understands vision as the most perfect mode of because he understands vision as the most perfect mode of possession. Only the seen object stays and remains present as it is. What I hear or smell comes and goes, and what I touch is changed or even consumed by me. In contrast, the act of beholding is pure “enjoyment” (frui) in which no change occurs as long as it lasts. In the absolute calm and stability of eternal life, the relation of man to God will be an eternally lasting, beholding “enjoyment,” and this, as it were, is the only adequate attitude of man to God. This is a far cry from Pauline Christianity. For Paul love is by no means a desire that stands in need of fulfillment. What stands [B:033 156] in need of consummation is belief, and the end of belief, not of love, is vision. It is not belief but love that puts an end to human Godforsakenness. Love is “the bond of perfection” even on earth. As such, love is not the manifestation of craving, but the manifest expression of man’s attachment to God. The reason that caritas is greater than faith and hope is precisely because caritas contains its own reward and will remain what it is in this life and the next. That is the meaning of the famous verses in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians (I Cor. 13)’ Prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, and knowledge, such as men possess it in this life, shall vanish. Only “love never fails.” We love God with the same love here on earth as in the hereafter. Love and nothing else overcomes human nature on earth and man’s being of and belonging to the “world.” This love does not seek and depend on its object but really transforms the lover-“such is each as is his love.” In Paul’s understanding love will not “increase in the future when we shall see face to face.” Nor will love cease when man has attained “happiness,” that is, when he has and beholds (“enjoys”) what he merely “loves” and desires on earth.
― Hannah Arendt, Love and Saint Augustine