It seems somewhat obvious that there is a direct and linear channel of communication between knowledge and ignorance—a feeling like that of a pair of tango dancers. Where the one is lacking, the other appears. When I know that I don’t know, then I rally my energies to close the gap. This is in fact what researchers and entrepreneurs do when they reach, respectively, the borders of their scientific and entrepreneurial knowledge. However, matters begin to attain both a higher level of difficulty (they become more complicated) and complexity (a greater number of components comes into play) once two causes arise, together or separately. The first cause is the ‘not knowing of not knowing’. That one may not have a mind open enough to be able to get rid of past experiences and biased reasoning, and which is not affected by and vulnerable to external criticism, as well as being ill-informed, must also all be taken into account.

It can also happen that closed-mindedness can have such an influence as to cause us to exchange one thing for another. As described in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1943), the boa constrictor mistaken for a hat is a sign of unimaginative minds for which the only possible explanation is their limited perspective. The protagonists of The Little Prince make us appreciate a child’s mind full of imagination and empty of those past experiences that are the sources of stereotypes and prejudices. Exupéry points at grown-ups as having narrow minds. What is certain is that for them the journey from knowledge to creative ignorance is a metaphorical walk on hot coals: they then come to see that knowledge has more or less relevance depending on who is its bearer. Returning to the story of The Little Prince, the Turkish astronomer who, at the International Astronomical Congress in 1909 presents with some brilliance his discovery of an asteroid, is ignored by the audience of scientists, for he was wearing the traditional clothes of his country; and this is why ‘A Turkish dictator made a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report’ (de Saint Exupéry, 1943, Chapter IV). Because fantasy and reality are mirror images of each other, the episode of the Exupéry’s Turkish scientist has been replicated in the reality of academic life a thousand times and more. We find evidence of this in academic elitism and hubris (‘unchecked intellectual arrogance’), as highlighted in all their harshness by Professor Martin Anderson (1992): two mindsets that give so much credibility to the knowledge of their bearers. In addition, we must consider the fact that knowledge is naturally inclined to search for errors with a view to removing them, making use of analysis, investigation and expertise. Creative ignorance, for its part, constantly searches for the inner nature of things through intuition.

The way of treating ignorance in early times was to separate the ignorance of the foolish from that type of a healthy Socratic, ‘self-aware’ kind of ignorance which Saint Augustine dubbed as mindful, learned ignorance. Down the centuries that followed such a concept was reaffirmed by the humanist, mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Cusanus (1401–1464) in his work De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) where, in the words of Philippe Verdoux (2009), he held that ‘ . . . ignorance and knowledge are not wholly distinct epistemic phenomena, but combine and overlap in interesting ways . . . . The more [a wise person] knows that he is unknowing, the more learned he will be. In other words, learned ignorance is not altogether ignorance, but a kind of knowledge or wisdom’; by the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), who argued that down the road towards the conquest of ‘not knowing’ is an infinite journey; and by the American educational reformer John Dewey (1859–1952) who explained that there is a type of ignorance—he called it ‘genuine’—which is ‘profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity and open-mindedness’ (Dewey, 1933).

In our lifetime, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, one of Europe’s leading writers and critical thinkers, states that the acquisition of knowledge requires gestures of refusal. In order to see something you have to give up many things to see. Ultimately, we start from a position of ignorance to create new branches of knowledge beyond, or to replace, those that already exist. Those who take this course of action are aware of the extent of their ignorance: in the words of Confucius, this awareness is their true knowledge. With existing knowledge, one keeps delving far more deeply into the same pit. In the Internet age, a shroud of mist obscures learned ignorance—that is, the creativity from which all things new emanate. Thanks to the Internet, it seems that we are all knowledgeable, confusing facts and figures (information) with cognition (knowledge) as a result. Even when information and knowledge are kept apart, the latter is the breath of our intellectual life of such force as to stifle creative ignorance.

Let us now look at the learned ignorant in their creative role. A tightrope walker in mid-air over two skyscrapers has replaced the philosopher musing on the path of cherry trees. Our funambulist has the intellectual stance of Philippe Petit, an inimitable high-wire artist who, in his own words, has ‘learned to welcome life’s surprise, cheating the impossible, disregarding the rules, and learning to un...