Ignorance

Everything You Need to Know about Not Knowing

Robert Graef

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781633883222
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Logic in Philosophy

Sums up the many fields of study where ignorance can undermine our understanding, while showing how an awareness of ignorance can lead to exploration and the discovery of new knowledge. The flip side of knowledge is ignorance. This book explores the vast scope of ignorance, even in an age when we think we know more than ever before. By marking off this ocean of ignorance into manageable categories, the author provides a kind of navigational chart to the unknown, and a series of red flags to all those who claim certitude. The book first lays out the many branches of ignorance—in education, the media, politics, religion, science, and other major institutions. It then assesses the costs and consequences of that ignorance. World conflicts, endemic poverty, environmental damage, waste, racism, and the manipulative forces of industry and politics that use propaganda to manipulate the public may all be seen as rooted in ignorance. But there are positive aspects of ignorance as well. Scientists and artists, by recognizing what they don't know, are spurred on to new creative approaches and discoveries, which would never be found by those too comfortable with the tried and true. The author cites Socrates, whom the Delphic Oracle declared to be the wisest of all people simply because he realized how much he didn't know. This book gives you ways to follow in the path that Socrates forged, to counter the closed minds whose false sense of certainty cannot help but distort reality, and to be better prepared to take on even the most serious challenges of today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. What Is Ignorance?
• Chapter 2. The Size of Personal Universes
• Chapter 3. Who Controls Knowledge?
• Chapter 4. The Scope of Ignorance
• Chapter 5. The Many Branches of Ignorance
• Chapter 6. Ignorors and Ignorees
• Chapter 7. Anti-Intellectualism
• Chapter 8. Ignorance in Education
• Chapter 9. Ignorance in the Media
• Chapter 10. Ignorance in Politics
• Chapter 11. Institutional Ignorance
• Chapter 12. Faith, Science, and Ignorance
• Chapter 13. Propaganda
• Chapter 14. Costs and Consequences of Ignorance
• Chapter 15. Working from and with Ignorance
• Conclusions
• Appendix. Explanation of Terms
• Notes
• References
• Index