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A historical survey of the shifting meanings and cultural values of theory and curiosity provides a critical perspective of key premises and foundations of pedagogical practice. Highlighting the shifting significance historical eras place on the relations between the senses and the intellect, this chapter addresses primary questions regarding the production, acquisition, and transmission of knowledge. It introduces a critical reading of the history of curiosity and intellectual inquiry. The Presocratic and classical Greek cultural contexts are reviewed in the interest of presenting a framework for rethinking abiding debates about the nature and limits of inquiry, exploration, and invention. The formation and practice of theory is described in its historically and materially situated relations. Curiosity's cultural functions are considered within the dynamic of moral, pedagogic and theological traditions. It situates curiosity within the complexly ambivalent currents of the classical and Western pedagogical tradition regarding the place and limits of human knowledge. This chapter begins with a profile of the capacious inquiries into nature made by Presocratic "doctors." Aristotle's claim that all knowledge begins in wonder is pursued within the classical Greek interest in the relation between knowledge and perception. The contrasting significance of speculation, theory and sight are reviewed as guiding premises for the range and purpose of theoretical inquiries.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-2117-3_1

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