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Contents
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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vii Preface ix 1. The Reach of Ignorance 1 2. Questions and Insolubilia 28 3. Cognitive Shortfall 46 4. Cognitive Finitude 57 5. On Limits to Science 67 6. Obstacles to Predictive Foreknowledge 91 7. Can Computers Mend Matters? 123 8. Implications of Ignorance 140 Notes 153 Bibliography 165 Index 169 CONTENTS rescher ign text.indd 7 12/19/08 9:45:37 AM rescher ign text.indd 8 12/19/08 9:45:37 AM [3.238.62.119] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:48 GMT) ix Ignorance, so we are told, is bliss. But that is very questionable. Were it so, the human condition would be far happier than it actually is. Yet if ignorance is not the key to happiness, is it perhaps the key to wisdom ? Some have thought so. In Plato’s dialogical Apology, the Delphic oracle held Socrates to be the wisest of men because he realized that he knew nothing.1 But perhaps the oracle was misquoted. Perhaps it actually praised Socrates not for claiming to know nothing but for not claiming to know what he actually did not. There are many different types of ignorance, prominently including that of the stupidity of one who cannot learn and that of the foolishness of one who will not learn. Neither of these is at issue here. For our present concern is specifically with the sort of unavoidable ignorance that besets man notwithstanding his best efforts and intentions . The present book is a synthesis that brings together the results of various earlier investigations to give a coherent overall picture of the ramifications and implications of human ignorance. For the limits of our own knowledge represent a theme to which I have given much PREFACE rescher ign text.indd 9 12/19/08 9:45:37 AM x Preface attention over the years, and this book is a work of synthesis. It seeks to weave together the ideas developed in various special investigations into a comprehensive tapestry that affords a systematic picture of the overall situation. Not withstanding its emphasis on the extent of our ignorance, this book is certainly no foray in scepticism. Quite the reverse! For to argue that knowledge has its limits is to hold that it has its domain as well. The sceptic has it that no secure knowledge of fact is available . And this is absurd—although this volume is not the place to set out the reason why.2 The really problematic issue is one the sceptic simply avoids with his all-out denial of knowledge—namely, that of setting out the burden between what is knowable and what is not, exploring its placement and examining its rationale. Issues of the limits of knowledge and the limits of science have preoccupied me for many years, and the present book provides a convenient occasion for bringing the various threats of these discussions together in a synoptic and systematic examination of ignorance, thus returning to some of the themes that my medieval namesake Nicholas of Cusa addressed in his classic, On Learned Ignorance. As this learned author emphasized, discussions about ignorance need not— should not—themselves betray ignorance. Ignorance prevails insofar as there are actual facts that one does not know, significant questions that one cannot cogently answer. It is a matter of defeat in regard to knowledge and is, next to outright error, the most serious form of cognitive deficiency there is. There is no alchemy by which we can transmute mere ignorance into knowledge —or indeed even into probabilities. (If we do not know what word was written on a card, we can not even be sure that a word was written there.) That which perhaps more than anything else betokens the importance of ignorance is that there is so much of it about. Realizing the limited extent of one’s knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. rescher ign text.indd 10 12/19/08 9:45:37 AM [3.238.62.119] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:48 GMT) Preface xi Indeed, Diogenes Laertius tells us that Socrates mentioned that the only thing he knew for a fact was the reality of his own ignorance.3 Ignorance exists because man is a being of limited intelligence and power. We humans are finite beings—small potatoes in nature’s grand scheme of things. And as beings of limited capacity, we cannot manage to wrap our minds adequately around the world’s vast manifold of complex and complexly interrelated...