Introduction

Contemporary research in the humanities lies at the intersection of classical humanistic disciplines such as philosophy and history and new inputs from the natural and the social sciences. The "Explorations in the Humanities" lecture series seeks to introduce the audience to problems and debates in the humanities with a focus on current research. Each talk will have a two tiered format. A written version of the lecture will be circulated a week before the talk. On the day of the talk, the speaker will deliver her lecture followed by a detailed response from a discussant, after which the discussion will thrown open to the audience. Our goal is to spark a serious evaluation of ongoing research in the humanities, both at NIAS and elsewhere.

• 13 March 2009
  First Talk of the Series
  Speaker: Prof. Sundar Sarukkai
  Topic: "Science and the Ethics of Curiosity"
  Abstract: What does ethics have to do with science? Science as a specific kind of activity (and discourse) is often seen to be independent of ethics. In this paper I will consider one essential catalyst for this distinction. While disinterestedness and other such characteristics are markers of pure science, they are all based on a human capacity, the capacity for curiosity. Many influential narratives on science by scientists describing why they do science identify the nature of curiosity as a primal characteristic of the scientific attitude. Curiosity is a special faculty of the mind. Curiosity is what is common to the child and to the scientist, leading psychologists and philosophers to find parallels between a scientist and being a child.This is a position that finds strong resonance among practicing scientists and contributes to the distance between ethics and science for children can be excused from ethical excesses. Science uses the notion of curiosity to build a wall against ethical criticisms. Therefore, I believe that a proper ethical foundation for science can be developed only if we first understand the ethics of curiosity.