Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar

by Paul J. Griffiths

The appetite for knowledge—wanting to know things—is very strong in humans. Some will sacrifice all other goods (sex, power, food, life itself) for it. But this is not a simple appetite, and this book treats some of its complications, deformations, beauties, and intensities. Christian thinkers have traditionally distinguished between good and bad forms of the appetite for knowledge, calling the good studiousness and the bad curiosity. The former is aimed at joyful contemplation of what can be known as gift given the latter seeks ownership and control of what can be known as property for the taking. Paul J. Griffiths's Intellectual Appetite offers an extended study of the difference between the two, with special attention to the question of ownership: What is it like to think of yourself as the owner of what you know, and how might it be different to think of what you know as a gift given you? How these questions are answered has a deep impact on a number of issues in contemporary educational and legal theory. Most fundamentally, there is the question of what it means to know something at all. On that, this book offers an account of knowledge in terms of intimacy: To know something (a mathematical formula, a past event, another human being, the lineaments of a galaxy) is to become intimate with it according to its kind. There are also important and currently pressing ancillary questions: For example, that of what plagiarism is and how it should be addressed. Plagiarism is often understood in part as theft of intellectual property, and since it is essential to the argument of this book that seeking knowledge ought not to be understood as seeking ownership, the book offers a theological defense of plagiarism.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Education, Cultural, Teaching, Nonfiction, Christianity

248 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2009

Reviews

[Davis Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Augustine meets Martin Buber in this heady, difficult, idiosyncratic read. Griffiths' style is strikingly similar to that of Roger Scruton and George Steiner (two of my favorite recent philosophers) in that he brazenly flaunts academic etiquette by not directly citing anyone, tosses off dazzling periods of rhetorical prose rich with scholarly wit and penetrating observation, and rejects abstract philosophy in favor of daring, often uncomfortable but always illuminating dives into the wonders of everyday experience. He also shares with these geniuses a dislike for his own sphere of academia, and this book is in many ways intended as a riposte to the contemporary American university. As an aspiring academic who deplores what academia has become nowadays, I appreciate that. However, Griffiths is weird. He uses certain key terms that are not widely accepted (i.e. "creature" is for him equivalent to "any created object"—it will take you a while to get used to that verbiage), he returns over and over to his favorite examples, and his overall style is just very different. Nonetheless, there's lots of really good stuff for those willing to spend some time with it. It's a good set of foundational ideas for the intellectual life, perhaps best read alongside A.G. Sertillanges's eponymous book. The chapter on plagiarism is also worth reading outside of the context of the whole book within the overarching literary theory debate about "originality" and "remixes", as embodied by such writers as Jonathan Lethem in this provocative, similarly-intentioned essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/t...

[Jack Hayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intellectual Appetite by Paul Griffith is a beautiful Augustinian Neo-platonic work that investigates a grammar of the intellect. Each chapter attempts to generate a definition for a word in tandem with the book's thesis: that Christians should reject curiosity for studiousness, an idea that reaches back from Augustine to Pascal. Curiousness is a detached Weberian schema that evolves into "value-free analysis," while Christians are called to something more. Both are inculcated through catechesis.

One difference between them is their approach to the unknown and known. The curious hate the unknown because they want to make it known, while the studious love the known. The curious desire ownership of knowledge, while the studious want intimacy or participation. However, one cannot know everything, and one cannot own knowledge because it was never anyone except for God's, to begin with. The world is primarily a gift from God. "The world has been given as a knowable and beautiful gift." And even though it is shattered, its character as a gift is preserved. Therefore, because we are in the world as a gift, we really can only participate in it but not own it. Griffith gives the analogy of an iron in the furnace. As the iron becomes hotter, it does not take a way from the forge.

Here enters the intellectual appetite, the desire to seek the "presence of an absence." Yet, this is primarily a disordered appetite because we ultimately do not know what we don't know. So we seek improperly with our appetites, seeking to know the less and engage in idolatry (remember, he uses a Neo-platonist framework). But the appetites are not just bad, as we should continually seek God's presence.

If God then is the highest good and all knowledge comes from him, of course, ownership of knowledge is bad, if not evil. Here enters mathetis, which arises from curiosity and seeks ownership of knowledge. "The curious seek to own what they know." To do so, the curious seek to develop methods or, as Griffith puts it, algorithms that can envelop all understanding. We see this in the approach of seeking the perfect method by which everything can be understood. But this is based on the faulty assumption that "the world will in face yield itself to your gaze if you learn how to rightly look." Once the curious have looked right, they stake their claim and ownership, limiting entrance to the outsider. Contrarily, "the studiousness seek to act as stewards of what they know." They do not seek to own knowledge but to be intimate with God's gift.

Here enters a primary point of Griffith that plagiarism is not bad (There is not a footnote in sight). First, everyone is a plagiarist. Everything you say has at some point been put down by someone else. Again, we cannot create ex-nihlo. However, the plagerist only bothers the curious because they seek to own knowledge. The greatest fear is that someone could own what you think you created and own.

On the other hand, the studious do not worry about the plagerist because they realize that all things come from God. The highest body of knowledge in Scripture cannot be owned and is given as a gift. The only way to know Scripture is to confess. Confessio then is the product of the studiousness, which is a "dual acknowledgement of its speaker's insufficiency as a speaker and of God's all-sufficiency as the giver of all speech."

The way to inculcate studiousness and curiosity is catechesis; what approach you adopt will form your appetites either towards or away from God. In this way, the curious seek novelty as spectacle while the studious seek liturgy or non-identical repetition (because no two events are the same). True novelty, in the end, does not exist because it can't. The squared circle is entirely novel but lacks reality. Novelty does not escape the greedy clutches of the curious. Examples of this are going on a vacation where no one else goes. Or the glasses episode of Seinfeld, we want to own novelty. And ultimately, this is vain; as Pascal informs us, "Curiosity is nothing but vanity. Most often, one wants to know only in order to talk about it. One does not go on a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of looking, without the hope of ever discussing it with someone."

In the end, the solution for this is contemplation, a worship of God that moves back and forth from silence to praise. Inviting discussion and desiring to teach from a place of intimacy with God's gift of knowledge we only participate in.

I'm so thankful to have run into this book before starting my Ph.D. Intellectual Appetite should be required reading for Christian scholars who have let many bad habits enter the academy. In the end, I need to guard my heart against the desire to own over the desire to contemplate God. Pray that I may studious and not curious, which is my tendency.

A (98%-read this book now.)

[David Goetz · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book for a variety of reasons.

First, Griffiths doesn't engage at all with secondary literature beyond a quotations at the head of each chapter (one from Pascal, the rest from Augustine), so the entire book is constructive. This makes the book read more like a conversation with an intelligent friend than like a scholarly monograph, which I appreciated.

Second, the subject itself is interesting. Is intellectual appetite good without qualification? If not, why not?

Third, Griffiths's answers to the above questions are profound and occasionally memorably stated. He distinguishes, in line with Augustine and the broad classical tradition, between curiositas and studiositas, the former identifying those who think of knowledge as one's own possession and the latter identifying those who think of knowledge as participation in the object of knowledge and, by extension, in the Creator of whom all created realities serve as icons. Our lives and the world are given to us as gifts of God, but the world is also marked by damage; the world is "light shot through with darkness" (42). "The world has been given as knowable and beautiful gift. Its shattering does not remove its character as gift. But we, its potential knowers, are also damaged, as is a child who consistently throws the gifts of its loving parents back in their faces or, worse, hugs their gifts to itself as though they were its right and it their owner. This damages what is given, but the child who does it denies its nature as well as the nature of what is given, and thus damages itself as well as the gifts it refuses" (74). All gifts, Griffiths says, must be received and acknowledged as gifts if we are not to "damage" them. He rightly emphasizes, using the relationship of a lover and a beloved as an example, that each thing known must be recognized as an icon, as a discrete thing that, when functioning rightly, points beyond itself to the One in whom it participates. To seek to know a thing exhaustively, without reference to its Maker, is to inhibit your knowledge and to close off the inner reality of the thing you seek to know. "Your beloved escapes your gesture of intimacy, and that this is so is no contingent fact about either you or her. This is true not only off all human beloveds but of all creatures for whose presence you might have an appetite. What they never are is exhausted by their presence to you, and the extent to which you seek to exhaust them by being intimate with them is the extent to which you fail to become intimate with them" (118). Knowledge is therefore open to God, open to further or alternative knowledge of the thing known, and epistemically humble. Knowledge is meant to be shared, not privatized: "Public things have not been forcibly abstracted from their proper participation in God, while private things have, and have thereby been corrupted" (140).

Fourth, Griffiths argues for some interesting positions as implications of his argument. He presents a theological defense of plagiarism, for example, which squares nicely with Bruce Ellis Benson's understanding of all life as improvisation. Griffiths also notes decries our fascination with novelty, which he simultaneously presents as a disingenuous fascination (i.e., we really seek repetition, as a child does in requesting the same book for the hundredth time, but we seek it under the guise of novelty). And, finally, he notes poignantly that the sharing of knowledge, though formally similar in the case of the studious and the case of the curious, differs materially quite a bit: the studious present the knowledge in which they've come to share as an invitation, whereas the curious declares his knowledge and himself as knower. I think this has profound implications for classroom teaching (the text should be at the top of the hierarchy, the teacher merely a guide as the student engages herself with the text) and for preaching (the preacher invites those who hear into the massive and inexhaustible world of the biblical text in the confidence that "faith comes ... through the word of Christ").

Griffiths is an ardent member and doctor of the Church of Rome, which you probably already knew or guessed, so he assumes the analogia entis, which of course is a matter of some debate. That said, I really appreciated this book, and I recommend it to anyone who teaches for a living or even only occasionally.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Building an extended meditation on the old distinction between the curious and the studious, Griffiths provides 13 reflections. But first the distinction:

Studious - those who know and therefore want to know more. These love knowledge.
- Well-formed intellectual appetite
- These have a knowledge that they love and want to grow that knowledge because of that love.
- This is ordered and marked by a discipline of the affections.
- It wants intimacy with the gift to be known and received.

Curious - those who want to know the unknown. They do not love knowledge.
- It aims to control, dominate, and take possession of this knowledge.
- They want to know the unknown – the desire for the unknown is the driving force.

The World, Damage (Fall and sin), Gift, Participation, Appetite, Wonder, owning, Kidnapping (plagiarism), Spectacle (God is not a spectacle), Novelty and Loquacity (knowing so we can talk).

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief primer on classical metaphysics which ends up talking about knowledge and what it means to best know something. Surprisingly Protestant whenever talking about grace, but Catholic weirdness abounds in the latter part of the book.

The best part of the book comes at the end where the author describes how warped intellectual appetites basically desire novelty for its own sake and constantly seek experiences that are not emotionally satisfying in the moment. It reminds me of An Experiment in Criticism where the "users" of books try to reach the "event" or in more popular lingo, the type of movie where the person just wants to get to the battle at the end and doesn't even enjoy the battle that much. The author connects it nicely with a metaphysics of finitude: we cannot know exhaustively like God and therefore we wonder or relax in our desires rather than hurry or rush desire to get to the best part. The thesis is more powerful when stated than when described, and the prose felt needlessly formal, but still there are a lot of applications: don't wolf food or work up an appetite for it, relax in it; don't watch movies or read novels for a narrative "excitement" alone, but for how good the story is; don't listen to music on spotify merely for a strain that is really good, but relax in just what the author does in it; don't look at a painting or landscape for a quick view, but drink in the colors, lines, and shadows. In other words, slow down.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a carefully written exploration of two kinds of intellectual appetite: curiositas (curiosity) and studiositas (studiousness). The author, largely booting off Augustine, contrasts curiosity, an “appetite for the ownership of new knowledge,” with studiousness, an “appetite for closer reflexive intimacy with the gift.”

As these definitions indicate, the curious and the studious approach the world with very different postures. The studious view the world and everything in it as gifts of God to be received, participated in, wondered at, and given again to others (in whatever ways are appropriate to the nature of the particular goods given). The curious, in contrast, view the world and everything in it, as objects to be sequestered, mastered, possessed, and owned. “Curiosity wants possession, studiousness seeks participation.”

But where do these postures come from? What is the catechesis that forms each one? What are their characteristic habits? This book explores these questions and much more, first by setting curiosity and studiousness in contrast to one another (chapters 1 and 2), and then by backing up to systematically construct an understanding of the nature of the world and its objects (ch 3), which damaged by the fall (ch 4), yet given to us by God (ch 5), and inviting our participation (ch 6). The author then explores the nature of intellectual appetite (ch 7) and the contrasting features of curiosity and studiousness (chs 8-13).

Here are a few key quotes:

“The world appears as gift. Or, more exactly, the world, being light shot through with darkness, appears in part as gift and in part as its opposite. To the extent that light is obscured, the world appears not as delightful gift, but as constrictively repetitive burden whose days and nights pass with the rapidity and numbing sameness of the weaver’s shuttle, a region of desolation and hunger composed in equal measure of pain and boredom. But the world of light, harmony, and liberating order, the real world, that is, rather than its negative image, its dark twin, appears as gift that delights when it is welcomed and embraced.” (p. 51)

“the cosmos and everything in it participates intimately with its giver: it is, from beginning to end, saturated with God’s glory, radiant with God’s light, made beautiful by God’s caress, given to its gives with entreaty to see it and to rejoice in it for what it is” (p. 73)

“This fact of damage, and its depth, means that the image of God in the cosmos has been shattered. It is now the vestige, the trace, hard to discern, insubstantial: the fabric of being from which God wove the cosmos is now tattered, almost shredded, by the threads of nonbeing woven into it.” (p. 74)

“The appetite for knowledge, proper as it is to all ordinarily-equipped human beings, can work well or badly, and whether it does the former or the latter depends very largely upon how potential knowables are construed, and how, correspondingly, the appetite for knowing them is formed and ordered. If you learn to construe every knowable as a beautiful but damaged gift; the cosmos as an ordered ensemble of such gifts shot through with chaos; and the knowledge of any particular, and of the chaotically-ordered whole, as possibly only when a potential knower seeks intimacy with the gift and thereby with its giver; - then, your appetite for knowledge will be provoked, moved toward a horizon it can never reach, and thereby intensified.” (pp. 137-138)

“The curious seek to own what they know; the studious seek to act as stewards of what they know.” (p. 140)

“the deep tendency we humans have to divinize ourselves by thinking that we can be owners as God is an owner needs constantly to be checked by recalling that our ownership is not a matter of sequestration’s power of control, but rather one of grateful receipt (and, as a matter of aspiration, stewardly use) of gift.” (p. 156)

“The novelty, once found, is immediately no longer new; therefore, it can only fail to fulfill the desire that sought it. The gaze temporarily frozen to its glittering surface will at once slide away from it toward the next new thing, the next novelty. This obvious enough in the economic sphere: the mini-orgasm of purchase prompts, often at once, desire for another purchase. It is perhaps less obvious in the cognitive sphere but just as real: there too, cognitive intimacy with the new will, as soon as achieved (or apparently achieved, for it can never really be achieved), prompt a desire for more of the same. In academia, those especially subject to this sickness are likely to be rewarded for it because the academy is the place where curiosity is taught as a virtue.” (p. 212)

As these quotes show, this is a difficult, philosophical text, with very close reasoning that is sparse on illustration (although the writing is, in places, vivid and beautiful). Almost every important word (such as those above: world, damage, gift, participation, etc.) is carefully defined, nuanced, and used in a technical way. To put it simply, this isn't easy reading. But it is a compelling book that presses into the heart of reality, as understood from a (Catholic) Christian perspective. I agreed with much of it, and found it convicting, instructive, and even in places liberating. I strongly disagree, however, with the author's distinctively Roman Catholic presuppositions (about, for example, Mary and the Eucharist) that frequently surface in the book. This limits its value as a book I'd recommend to others.

Five stars for its basic argument and careful reasoning. Two stars for its Roman Catholic presuppositions. Hence, my (cautious) four stars.

[David Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly slogged my way through this.

Classic Catholic and scholarly explication of how a person might best cultivate healthy appetite and appreciate her "object of desire".

Thank you.

Also, tucked in the middle is a startling pronouncement of a rough and ready "theory of sharing" that i think a lot of people will find truly radical. Right on.

I'll be on the lookout for more on that.

Kinda flirted with some Buddhist formulations here and there.

Here's the thing. This book is wearying! This gentleman seems weary.I think that sometimes a person should refresh himself before undertaking to teach on some topics. You know, find some rest and be satisfied and only then speak. He is then speaking gratefully and enthusiastically and confidently. Otherwise it's just to easy to mistake a well- formed appetite for one that has been merely recovered as if after a long illness or something.

I dunno, something like that.



So Distinguished Sir:

No fourth star for this one. :)

[Lyndon · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For the studious, gaining a particular intimacy with a creature, sensible or intellectual, is . . . understood as gift and as a matter of wonder. And it is a gift that cannot properly be received unless it is given away, handed on to others" (p. 217). Griffith's writes against 'curiosity' and for 'studiousness' with intensity, wit and generosity. It is a project shaped intimately by the subject it seeks to define and articulate; a project that is an act of studiousness as much as it is a book about living and receiving knowledge as a gift. It is a work that I will ponder on and with for years to come.

[Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me about a year to chip away at this one. Worth the effort. Griffiths is top of list for contemporary theologians. His distinction between catechesis and mathesis is a lovely comparison I've never encountered. His thoughts on loquacity, curiosity, the studious stammer, silence/listening, the debate, etc are all to me core on how speech is rightly ordered to God.

[Zach Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was excessively wordy, and could have been just as profound as an article or essay, my 3 stars are for the insights: I had to trudge through a lot of “stuff” to get to them, but when they came through, they came through! Definitely a timely one for me.

[Ben Smitthimedhin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Significantly catechized my understanding of the intellectual life. Surprised I've never come across Augustine's distinction between curiosity and studiousness before, but Griffiths is gifted in guiding the reader carefully through this distinction and is a master in both form and content.

[Don Mario · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting reflection on the radical difference between studious and curious intellectual appetite. The studious seeks intimacy with the known object, the curious seeks possession.
Some incredibly deep intuitions, but immersed into too detailed and technical analysis. In the end the book was too long and tiring for me.
Still I'm in debt with Griffiths: he made of me a curious reader desiring to convert to studiousness!

[David Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an excellent piece of work for any truthseeker to read. While aimed at an audience that is seeking the idea of the correct way of engaging Christian learning. I found Paul Griffiths explanation of knowledge and it's pursuits applicable to every aspect of life. Indirectly, this work seeks to show the flaws of modern thought and the treasures that are hidden in antiquity. A book to read twice, and maybe thrice.