How Should We Rationally Deal

with Ignorance?

This book addresses two questions that are highly relevant for epistem-
ology and for society: What is ignorance and how should we rationally
deal with it? It proposes a new way of thinking about ignorance based on
contemporary and historical philosophical theories.
In the first part of the book, the author shows that epistemological
definitions of ignorance are quite heterogeneous and often address different
phenomena under the label “ignorance.” She then develops an integrated
conception of ignorance that recognizes doxastic, attitudinal, and struc-
tural constituents of ignorance. Based on this new conception, she carves
out suggestions for dealing with ignorance from the history of philosophy
that have largely been overlooked: virtue-​theoretic approaches based on
Aristotle and Socrates, consequentialist approaches derived from James,
and deontological approaches based on Locke, Clifford, and Kant. None
of these approaches individually provide a satisfying approach to the task
of rationally dealing with ignorance, and so the author develops an alter-
native maxim-​based answer that extends Kant’s maxims of the sensus
communis to the issue of ignorance. The last part of the book applies this
maxim-​based answer to different contexts in medicine and democracies.
How Should We Rationally Deal with Ignorance? will appeal to
scholars and advanced students working in epistemology, political phil-
osophy, feminist philosophy, and the social sciences.

Nadja El Kassar is Professor of Philosophy, with a focus on theoret-

ical philosophy, at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland. Her research
interests include social and feminist epistemology, philosophy of percep-
tion, and philosophy of mind. Recently she has published articles on ignor-
ance, epistemic injustice, and intellectual self-​trust.
Routledge Studies in Epistemology
Edited by Kevin McCain, University of Alabama at
Birmingham, USA and Scott Stapleford, St. Thomas
University, Canada

Seemings and the Foundations of Justification

A Defense of Phenomenal Conservatism
Blake McAllister

Trust Responsibly
Non-​Evidential Virtue Epistemology
Jakob Ohlhorst

Rationality in Context
Unstable Virtues in an Uncertain World
Steven Bland

Seemings
New Arguments, New Angles
Edited by Kevin McCain, Scott Stapleford, and Matthias Steup

The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism

Melanie Altanian

Misinformation, Content Moderation, and Epistemology

Protecting Knowledge
Keith Raymond Harris

How Should We Rationally Deal with Ignorance?

A Philosophical Study
Nadja El Kassar

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​Routle​dge-​Stud​ies-​

in-​Epist​emol​ogy/​book-​ser​ies/​RSIE
How Should We Rationally
Deal with Ignorance?
A Philosophical Study

Nadja El Kassar
First published 2025
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2025 Nadja El Kassar
The right of Nadja El Kassar to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​45121-​3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​45122-​0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​37550-​0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/​9781003375500
Typeset in Sabon
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents

Acknowledgments vii

1 Introduction 1

PART 1
What Is Ignorance? 27

2 The Framework I 29

3 Conceptions of Ignorance 37

4 Facets of Ignorance 68

5 Causes of Ignorance 108

PART 2
Rationally Dealing with Ignorance 119

6 The Framework II 121

7 Virtue-​Theoretical Answers 124

8 Consequentialist Answers 143

9 Deontological Answers 150

10 The Maxim-​Based Answer 173

vi Contents

PART 3
Applications 197

11 Ignorance in Democracies 199

12 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 216

Outlook 231

References 234
Index 256
Acknowledgments

Trying to make sense of ignorance and human approaches to ignorance

from a philosophical perspective is an intriguing task. It is a task that
one cannot and should not approach on one’s own, and that requires a
conducive, respectful atmosphere of genuine interest in humans and their
lives. And so it’s not enough to think for oneself; one also has to include
other perspectives into thinking and still be aware of oneself in the com-
munity of these other perspectives. Incidentally, this is my reading of the
three maxims of Kant’s sensus communis that makes up a large part of
my proposal developed in this book. I am grateful to many people for
inspiring conversations and their interest in discussing ignorance with me,
for worrying about pernicious ignorance, for laughing about our attempts
at knowing-​it-​all, for being curious about ignorance, and for taking ignor-
ance seriously without being arrogant.
I am grateful to Lutz Wingert for giving me the space to think freely
about ignorance and develop my own position and for always having a
good real-​life case and the right literature at hand. Many thanks also to
my colleagues at ETH Zürich –​in particular Rachele Delucchi, Martin
Hurni, Jérôme Léchot, Raphael Meyer, Silvan Moser, Vanessa Rampton,
and Romila Storjohann –​for always being up for discussing philosophy
and opening up new perspectives.
I was very fortunate in being able to work on my project with Philip Kitcher
at Columbia University in New York in Spring 2017, in a time when ignor-
ance suddenly became somewhat of a hot topic. The discussions with Philip
Kitcher and Andreas Ditter, Miranda Fricker, Yarran Hominh, the late Charles
Mills, Susanna Schellenberg and Katja Vogt have confirmed and shaped my
conviction that ignorance is a deeply human issue that is not a passing trend
and that needs to be examined by philosophers and human beings alike.
But it is not just philosophers who have contributed to this study –​after
all, ignorance is not just an epistemological or philosophical issue –​and so
I am grateful to these human beings (many of whom work as philosophers)
for our conversations about ignorance: Melanie Altanian, Natalie Alana
newgenprepdf

viii Acknowledgments

Ashton, Claus Beisbart, Christine Bratu, Florian Braun, Romain Büchi,

Mara-​ Daria Cojocaru, Matthew Congdon, Dina Emundts, Hannah
Fasnacht, Karen Frost-​Arnold, Sanford Goldberg, Stefan Gosepath, Josh
Habgood-​Coote, Karen Koch, Anne Kühler, Martin Kusch, David Lauer,
Kristina Lepold, David Löwenstein, Matthias Mahlmann, Anne Meylan,
Rebecca Papendieck, Elena Romano, Sebastian Schmidt, Lilja Walliser,
Eva Weber-​Guskar, Anna Wehofsits, Christian Weibel, and Monika Wulz.
I have presented different versions of chapters of this book at various
places and have benefited greatly from the discussions after my talks.
Many thanks to the members of Matthias Mahlmann’s colloquium at
the University of Zurich, the members of Anne Meylan’s colloquium at
the University of Zurich, and participants in colloquia at the Universities
of Basel, Berlin, Bern, Essen, Fribourg, Hamburg, Erlangen-​Nürnberg,
Münster, and Wuppertal as well as audiences at further events in Berlin,
Bern, Cologne, Erlangen-​Nürnberg, Freiburg, Madrid, Münster, Villanova,
and Zürich.
The original version of this monograph was part of my Habilitation at
ETH Zürich, and I am grateful to the four reviewers for taking time to
the manuscript and writing their reports. Thanks also to the faculty at D-​
GESS at ETH Zürich for their inputs when I presented the project to them.
Many thanks to two anonymous referees for Routledge and the editors
and series editors for their perceptive comments and support in pre-
paring this book. And thanks to Rosaleah Stammler for kindly guiding me
through the publication process.
I am finishing the manuscript as a fairly new professor at the Institute of
Philosophy and member of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
at the University of Lucerne. I would like to thank my colleagues for
their warm welcome and their interest in my takes on ignorance and on
philosophy.
Over the years, my friends have continually had a keen interest in
discussing philosophy and theories of ignorance with me –​thanks for that!
Finally, I am infinitely grateful to my family for approaching ignorance
and doing philosophy with me in the most valuable ways I could ever
imagine.
1 Introduction

1.1 Studying Ignorance

Thinking and writing about the questions “What is ignorance?” and
“How should we rationally deal with ignorance?” is a transformative
experience both philosophically and existentially. I have found that ignor-
ance is everywhere, including philosophy, science and everyday life. I have
been very concerned about my own ignorance and other people’s ignor-
ance. At the same time, I have become more relaxed about the reality of
my own ignorance. I have become more relaxed about admitting my own
ignorance –​sometimes, at least. And I have learnt to expect the popular
proverbs about ignorance. When I mention my topic, almost everyone –​
philosophers and laypeople alike –​cites “ignorance is bliss” and in German-​
speaking contexts almost everyone cites the saying “Ignorance does not
protect against punishment.” And everyone is tempted to make a joke
about their own ignorance about the topic ignorance. But ignorance is
not always funny and is not always excusable. And so I have also become
impatient with some blatant instances of ignorance.
I hope that these subjective experiences do not give the impression that
you will now be reading a text by a philosopher who is tired and exasperated
by her work, her topic and other people and sets out to lecture everyone
about (their) ignorance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At the
provisional end of this study, I am still excited about ignorance and the
question about how we should deal with it because ignorance is a fascin-
ating and important topic and there are so many facets to it. One striking
facet is that ignorance can be pernicious but also valuable, ignorance is not
per se bad or per se good. Another crucial facet is our attitude, people’s atti-
tude, toward ignorance. Ignorance is something that concerns human beings
in particular and so it is vastly important to gather, include and recognize
their perspectives on ignorance, as well as their attitudes toward ignorance.
And since I think that people’s reactions to ignorance and the question
how we should deal with it matter to the topic, I continue to be surprised

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-1
2 Introduction

by how skeptical some philosophers are about the value of the project
and the two questions. It was philosophers, and never laypeople, who
would ask “Why are you even looking at this topic?” and “Why should
we examine ignorance?” And, fortunately, not all philosophers were crit-
ical of and skeptical about the value of the project. Many philosophers
were very interested in my topic. And, in virtually all cases of telling lay-
people about my project, I have met fascination, curiosity and even some-
thing that seemed to me something like relief. People seemed relieved that
I am addressing a topic that is so relevant to them, personally. Many felt
overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge and information available to
them, and their own ignorance about things that they should (maybe)
know. They wondered whether there is a right to remain ignorant. And
they were concerned about the ignorance of other people who base
sweeping claims, conclusions and actions on false beliefs and Halbwissen
(incomplete knowledge).
In fact, our intricate relation to knowledge and not knowing is one
central reason why ignorance and how we should rationally deal with it
are worthy topics for a philosophical study. We care about knowledge,
sometimes for instrumental reasons, sometimes for its own sake. But next
to our knowledge we are perpetually faced with our own ignorance and
other people’s ignorance; there is an infinite sea of ignorance, sometimes
invincible, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes surmountable, some-
times detrimental, sometimes benign. Ignorance can be harmful in various
ways; for example, it may lead us to wrong decisions; it may keep us from
reaching our aims because we work on faulty assumptions; or we may
hurt other people because we do not know that our comment addresses
a sensitive issue for them. But ignorance can also be useful and valuable.
Say, if someone does not know about their partner’s plans for a surprise
birthday party for them, they would not want to know about these plans
because such knowledge would spoil the surprise. Some psychological
research suggests that overly optimistic and, strictly speaking, false beliefs
about one’s chances of recovery are conducive to getting better after being
sick (e.g., Taylor and Brown 1988, McKay and Dennett 2009). And some
deliberate ignorance may be valuable for individuals (e.g., Hertwig and
Engel 2021). Despite these and related positive facets, ignorance often
has a persistent negative ring to it. One explanation for this association
may be the strong value that societies accord to knowledge and educa-
tion, Bildung. And people often implicitly and explicitly associate ignor-
ance and stupidity, a trait that is hardly ever valued.1 In this book, I also
argue against these simple associations in order to make room for a more
nuanced approach toward ignorance.
My hunch is that we care about ignorance because ignorance is nat-
ural to human beings and because it can be valuable and disvaluable. We
 Introduction 3

know that we are always ignorant about one thing or another, or even
many things, and we also know that ignorance is a natural feature of
human beings, human beings just are cognitively fallible. And we know
that we cannot overcome all ignorance and that (sometimes) we have more
important things to do than to worry about ignorance. So, one might be
tempted to take a relaxed perspective toward ignorance –​it is just a fact of
human lives. And yet, the effects of ignorance –​valuable and pernicious –​
in practical and theoretical lives also keep us from being too relaxed about
ignorance. Ignorance is not irrelevant; it is not, as one would say in
German, egal.

1.2 Approaching Ignorance

Since ignorance is so multifaceted and ambiguous, it calls for a nuanced
approach. In my study, I have aimed to develop and employ an adequately
nuanced approach. Readers will have to judge whether I have reached this
aim. Of course, there are different ways to realize a nuanced approach, one
option is to examine the phenomenology and layers of ignorance by looking
at related concepts such as innocence, cluelessness, naïveté. I discuss some
of these facets in Chapter 4 as symptoms of ignorance.2 Another approach
to the nuances of ignorance is via the linguistics behind ignorance. In fact,
the approach is fairly obvious for expressions of “ignorance” in German
since the layers are even intrinsic to the German terms for “ignorance.”
Unlike English, German has at least four words connected to the English
word ignorance: Unwissen, Nichtwissen, Unkenntnis, Ignoranz. In add-
ition, there is also one term designated for the state of being ignorant or
of not knowing: Unwissenheit. According to the German standard dic-
tionary, the Duden, “Unwissenheit” is “lack of knowledge of a thing;
lack of (scientific) education.” This additional expression for the state
of being ignorant is an advantage of German morphology. Nichtwissen
is the most neutral of the four terms, it primarily denotes not knowing
something. Unwissen with its prefix Un-​ that may imply a pejorative
meaning and a negative evaluation denotes a negatively evaluated form
of not knowing.3 But note also that the Duden just gives Nichtwissen as
the meaning of Unwissen (Duden). Unwissen may be ambiguous. The
extension of Unkenntnis is similar to that of Unwissen. Ignoranz, how-
ever, is very different from the other terms, it refers to not knowing and
not wanting to know, being close-​minded. And the term Ignoranz implies
that this state is criticized and reprimanded. The term ignorance cannot
mirror these distinctions, but I think we can agree that ignorance generally
is akin to something like Nichtwissen and Unwissen. At the same time, it
can also denote Ignoranz but is not by itself limited to Ignoranz. In this
study, I want to keep ignorance as a neutral term and use specifications
4 Introduction

by adjectives to capture variants such as Ignoranz, for example, “close-​

minded ignorance” or “willful ignorance”. So, “being ignorant” is not in
and of itself a negative or pejorative statement about someone’s state.
Addressing ignorance by way of examining knowledge may be another
nuanced approach to ignorance. If ignorance is the negation of knowledge,
then all the facets of knowledge will be reflected in ignorance, only in
the negated form. For example, if knowledge is justified, true belief, then
ignorance is determined by a lack of justification, lack of true belief and
lack of belief. But I think that this approach restricts ignorance because it
reduces ignorance to being the negation of knowledge and it, thus, does
not receive the scrutiny and attention that it deserves. If one wants to
examine the relation between ignorance and knowledge, this is certainly
one part of the right approach, but not for examining ignorance.
My worry about privative approaches is similar to the worries
surrounding biographies and studies of works of famous artists who have
famous partners or siblings. Fanny Hensel can be approached as the com-
poser who is the sister of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy or as Fanny Hensel,
the composer. Of course, her composer brother will be mentioned in her
biography and in approaches to her work, but he is not primary. The
case of composer and pianist Clara Schumann and her composer husband
Robert Schumann is very similar. One can approach her work as the work
of Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann’s wife, or as the work of Clara
Schumann, composer and pianist. Robert Schumann will almost certainly
appear in a study of her work, but he is not primary. In the same way, in
a study of ignorance, ignorance should be primary and not another related
concept, even if the concept is a central concept such as knowledge. If one
regards ignorance as secondary, one is in danger of saying too much about
the related concepts rather than look at ignorance.
Let me emphasize that these remarks do not mean that studies of
ignorance cannot learn from knowledge. Or that one must not say that
ignorance is lack of knowledge. Quite to the contrary, sophisticated
conceptions of knowledge that go beyond traditional justified true belief
accounts and that take seriously the epistemic agent as well as the (social)
situatedness of the epistemic agent and the impact of context promise
to provide insights about ignorance. But I am worried that simplistic
conceptions of knowledge will skew our conception of ignorance. And
most authors who argue that ignorance is lack of knowledge work with
such simplistic conceptions (see for example, Le Morvan and Peels 2016).
Haas and Vogt are an important exception because their conception of
knowledge includes “the cognizer” (2015) and I do work with some of
their claims about knowledge to understand ignorance. Nevertheless,
I am generally cautious about approaches to ignorance that derive it from
looking at knowledge.
 Introduction 5

You will see that there is no chapter on truth in this study. And my
reasons for this decision are related to the considerations concerning
knowledge. Discussions about truth would side-​track the study of ignor-
ance. In addition, contrary to some, I hold that one can be ignorant of
truths and falsehoods. So, ignorance does not just appear with truth but
can also appear with falsehood (see also Chapter 4). And, of course, error
as a form of ignorance is closely connected to falsehood. Examining the
relation between ignorance and truth and falsehood has to remain for
another occasion.
Let me also note that I do not discuss stupidity in much detail, I think
that stupidity deserves its own study –​for example, as presented by Ronell
(2002), Geisenhanslüke (2011) and van Treeck (2015). And ignorance
deserves its own study independently from stupidity and any history and
connotations that come with this term.
My experiences while working on the project and people’s views of the
two main questions have also shaped my approach to the questions and my
main claims. First, my conception of ignorance is geared to fit real-​world
ignorance, that is, ignorance as a phenomenon that human beings –​we –​
encounter in our epistemic lives, as opposed to ignorance as some abstract
logical state of an ideal reasoner or ignorance merely as some S not knowing
that p. This shapes Part 1 of the book: What is ignorance? I argue that

ignorance is a disposition of an epistemic agent that is constituted by

(1) beliefs, (2) epistemic attitudes, (3) epistemic character traits, (4) con-
duct and (5) socio-​political structures.

Second, my suggestion for how we should rationally deal with ignorance is

supposed to be applicable for all human epistemic lives and addresses real-​
world epistemic concerns. This shapes Part 2 of the study: How should
we rationally deal with ignorance? Ultimately, a Kantian Maxim-​based
Answer will turn out to provide the best approach. Third, my concep-
tion and suggestion must not be unrealistically intellectualized by positing
intellectual expectations and norms that finite, non-​ideal, rational agents
such as human beings cannot ever meet. That is why I put my conception
to the test in two applied cases from politics and medicine.

1.3 What Cases of Ignorance?

My study is concerned with being ignorant or not knowing rather than
with the unknown.4 I am interested in the subjects of ignorance rather
than the objects of ignorance. This also entails that I have asked what it
means to be ignorant and what are manifestations of being ignorant or of
not knowing. The subject is at the center of my study. It is, thus, inevitably
6 Introduction

related to virtue epistemology that also focuses on the epistemic agent

(Battaly 2008, 640). But unlike virtue epistemology it does not necessarily
argue that “intellectual virtues and vices … are the fundamental concepts
and properties” (Battaly 2008, 640). I do not want to subscribe to any
such commitments because I do not want to buy into the virtue ontology
that comes with its particular historical backdrop. And not everything
about ignorance is reducible to virtues and vices.
This is also why I do not discuss Donald Rumsfeld’s famous statement
about “known unknowns” in more detail. Rumsfeld explained at a press
conference on February 12, 2002, before the start of the Iraq war that

there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also
know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are
some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns –​
the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

Rumsfeld’s taxonomy –​which, it has to be noted, is not as ridiculous as

commentators have made it seem –​is a taxonomy of objects of ignorance
and does not address the ignorant subject. Daniel DeNicola contextualizes
Rumsfeld’s statement helpfully and he notes that there are actually four
forms of knowns and unknowns, not just the three forms that Rumsfeld
mentions –​Rumsfeld does not mention number 4:

1 known knowns: what I know I know

2 known unknowns: what I know I don’t know
3 unknown unknowns: what I don’t know I don’t know
4 unknown knowns: what I don’t know I know.
(DeNicola 2017, 40)

Rumsfeld’s conjecture has made the distinction well known beyond

the borders of philosophy. Errol Morris has even directed a documen-
tary, The Unknown Known (2013), about Rumsfeld’s political career that
centers on his statement at the press conference.5 But DeNicola points out
that the distinction has been familiar in epistemology before Rumsfeld’s
press conference; for example, it has been noted by Ann Kerwin in an
article on medical ignorance, published in 1993. My study is interested
in understanding the state a subject, say, Rumsfeld, is in when they don’t
know that they don’t know, or when they know that they don’t know.
But what are examples of being ignorant, of not knowing, of not knowing
that one does not know, etc.? This is a crucial question for knowing what
this book is about. Not knowing that Bern is the federal city (Bundesstadt)
of Switzerland is a case of ignorance, as is not knowing that Ottawa is the
capital of Canada. Not knowing that cruise ships produce high emissions
 Introduction 7

of carbon and sulfur dioxides is another case of ignorance. Here are some
more ­examples –​and more context to some of the examples, because, as
we will see, context matters for ignorance, too:

a A scientist’s ignorance about an as of yet undiscovered method for

treating Parkinson’s disease.
b The ignorance of someone who does not know that they left their keys
to the office at home (until they find out).
c The ignorance of smokers in the 1970s who did not know that smoking
causes lung cancer because tobacco companies fabricated a veil of
doubt and kept people ignorant.
d The ignorance of someone who has not heard of the North Atlantic
Oscillation (NAO) before she hears this term for the first time, and the
ignorance of that same person after she has heard the term but still does
not know what it is.
e The ignorance of someone who does not want to know a relevant
fact. For example, Hannah does not know that cruise ships have high
emissions of carbon and sulfur dioxides that are bad for the environ-
ment. When her friend Monika tells her about a documentary that
says that cruise ships are bad for the environment, Hannah stops her
mid-​sentence and says that she does not want to hear anything about
this documentary. She does not want to know because she does not
want Monika to spoil the fun of the cruise trip. Yet, knowing that these
emissions of carbon and sulfur dioxides are bad for the environment is
important for being able to take the right action against climate change.
Note that Hannah may still go on the cruise trip even if she knows
about the bad effects the ship’s emissions will have. She may know that
useful measures against climate change are not restricted to individual
actions, but also about systematic and structural actions.
f The ignorance of someone who does not want to know the end of the
novel she is currently reading or the series she is watching and therefore
avoids all articles and conversations about the novel or the series she
has not finished yet. She is deliberately ignorant.
g The ignorance of someone who is curious and wants to know. Kate does
not know that cruise ships have high emissions of carbon and sulfur
dioxides that are bad for the environment. When her friend Monika
tells her about a documentary that says that cruise ships are bad for
the environment, Kate is interested in the impact of cruise ships on the
environment and asks Monika for more details.

Of course, the list could be much longer. After all, ignorance can
be epistemically good, epistemically bad, practically consequential,
innocuous, existential and so on. There are myriads of types of ignorance.
8 Introduction

This list gives you an idea what types of ignorance are discussed in this
study, and it introduces examples that will return in this study. In add-
ition, it serves as a first clue that ignorance is not a purely epistemological
issue, which will be reflected in the conception of ignorance developed
later (Part 1).
My main focus lies on propositional ignorance, ignorance of some
proposition, some fact or a set of facts, one may say. Such propositional
ignorance can also have a very real existential significance, for example, a
patient may not know and may not want to know whether she will survice
her cancer or not. One may not want to know whether one’s unborn child
has a genetic disorder, and one has a right not to know whether one’s
unborn child has a genetic disorder. We do not know when we are going
to die6 and we do not know what is going to happen tomorrow –​we may
guess, but we cannot know for sure. Some doctors do not know that the
level for blood sugar for patients with diabetes who are more than 60 years
old is not the standard 6.0 but is calculated by dividing the patient’s age
by 10 –​a new rule that was introduced a few years ago. The doctors’
ignorance is a simple instance of propositional ignorance –​as are the other
examples in this paragraph–​, but it has direct and indirect consequences
for the patient’s well-​being and her life. They are all instances of propos-
itional ignorance with existential impact. I return to discussing medical
ignorance in the shape of medical uncertainty in Part 3.
Ignorance is also prevalent and central in the sciences and in research.
For example, is Big Bang theory the right explanation of how the universe
began? Is String theory the right theory for understanding black holes?
How does evolution work? What are the causes of this-​and-​that form of
cancer? What are the best ways for treating cancer? What is the mech-
anism that tells cells to stop growing in organ growth? Scientists and non-​
scientists have experienced ignorance in science and research manifested
and discussed on a daily level during the COVID-​19 pandemic. How is
COVID-​ 19 transmitted? What’s the best medical treatment for severe
cases of COIVD-​19 infections? And the list goes on.
These topics and questions motivate and drive scientific research and
researchers. Ignorance, thus, is an engine of science (cf. Firestein 2012).
But science is also all about actually dealing with ignorance, for example,
in working around ignorance in one’s research.7 In Paleoclimatology,
scientists use sediment cores, ice cores, tree rings, cave deposits, etc. to
determine CO2 concentrations, temperatures, precipitation rates, wind
speed/​direction in previous times, some ten thousand years ago. The
sediment cores etc. are proxies for the conditions that one cannot access
directly.8 And in other fields, too, we find proxies as building blocks for
research and as ways of dealing with ignorance.
 Introduction 9

Errors and false belief are two crucial forms of ignorance in science
that have shaped and haunted the sciences and they continue to do so. For
example, from the 17th to the 19th centuries “Phlogiston” was thought
to be the name of a tasteless, colorless gas that escapes when material
is burned. It took till the end of the 19th century for researchers to find
that there is no such gas. There are numerous additional examples. For
example, in medicine, medical practitioners for a long time ignored and
rejected evidence that childbed fever is caused by lack of hygiene and can
be countered by simple hygienic measures such as hand washing. First
studies linking childbed fever and lack of hygiene were presented by
the surgeon and obstetrician Alexander Gordon at the end of the 18th
century. But it took until the mid-​19th century and Ignaz Semmelweis’
observation that doctors unknowingly infected women giving birth in
hospitals for the findings to be accepted slowly and turned into measures
in hospitals (cf. e.g., Carter and Carter 2005, Kricheldorf 2016, O’Connor
and Weatherall 2018). According to Hans Kricheldorf’s reconstruction,
Pasteur’s germ theory of infectious diseases was a crucial building block
that allowed other practitioners to accept contagion as a cause of childbed
fever (Kricheldorf 2016, 116).
Medical practitioners long thought that stomach acid is the cause of
stomach ulcers and it took a self-​experiment in 1982 by Barry J. Marshall –​
and the related theory by Marshall and his colleague Robin Warren –​to
convince the scientific community that bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, are
the cause of stomach ulcers. The community had thought that bacteria
cannot survive in the acidic environment of the stomach and, therefore,
dismissed the bacteria explanation.
In astronomy, for roughly 2,000 years scientists have been claiming that
the Ptolemaic, geocentric system is correct when, in fact, the heliocentric
system is correct. The list of errors and false beliefs is much longer, and it
is likely to gain more entries as time progresses.9
There are also mistakes and errors in topics studied in the human-
ities. For example, in her book on homosexuality in 19th-​century Britain,
Naomi Wolf misinterpreted the legal term “death recorded” in court
documents and was led to suppose that homosexuals in the 19th century
were executed for sodomy. But in fact, “death recorded” as a legal term
does not mean that the person is executed but that they were pardoned
(Lea 2019).10
In my study, I explain in more detail why error and false beliefs are
forms of ignorance and I subsume them under the term ignorance (Section
4.5). Suffice it to say for now that false beliefs also co-​appear with a lack of
relevant true beliefs and knowledge and, in this respect, they are just like
“standard” ignorance that is co-​constituted by a lack of knowledge –​and,
10 Introduction

on my conception, epistemic attitudes like open-​mindedness and close-​

mindedness; I will say more about this later.
As I have noted at the beginning of the introduction, the motivation for
also discussing false belief and ignorance as error is not just philosophical
but also quotidian. If I had limited ignorance to lack of knowledge and
had excluded false belief and error, a large number of instances of epi-
stemic subjects being ignorant, of not knowing, could not be included in
my study, namely, those instances in which a subject does not know some
fact p and in its place has a false belief that they take to be true. In order
to address real-​world, quotidian ignorance, one must include false belief
and error in one’s discussion.
My focus is on factual ignorance, and I do not discuss moral ignor-
ance, normative ignorance or practical ignorance. Moral ignorance is
ignorance of moral beliefs or principles (cf. e.g., Rosen 2004, Zimmerman
1997, Harman 2011, Mason 2015, Baron 2016); it is mostly relevant for
discussions of blame, blameworthiness and culpability. I have decided to
bracket moral ignorance because it would multiply and exceed the scope
of the study; the issues related to moral ignorance and dealing with it,
are different from those of propositional ignorance. This is for another
occasion.
Practical ignorance as “ignorance constituted by a lack of know-​how”
(Nottelmann 2016, 33) is often contrasted with propositional ignorance.
Especially when propositional ignorance is equated with lack of know-​
that. I do not discuss practical ignorance in this book because one would
need to inquire into the relation between the practical and the propos-
itional and because practical ignorance (just like propositional ignorance)
does deserve its own study.11

1.4 Methodological Assumptions

My study is influenced by socio-​epistemological assumptions, questions
and topics. I regard ignorance as a social epistemological phenomenon and
study the social dimensions of ignorance. And therefore, I assume that we
cannot understand ignorance and reactions to ignorance by only looking at
the mind of the agent. Instead, ignorance can also be co-​constituted by social
and institutional structures. That is why studying ignorance, and how one
should rationally deal with it must also include the subject’s surroundings,
their communities, their social conditions. The epistemic subject is, thus,
a social agent, situated in social communities (cf. Goldberg 2017a). Like
other authors in social epistemology, my work is open to input from other
disciplines, such as sociology and psychology (cf. Kusch 2010).
My approach to ignorance also belongs with revisionary epistemology
because I have found standard conceptions of ignorance to be ill-​equipped
 Introduction 11

for ignorance as a real-​world phenomenon in the lives of real, non-​ideal,

epistemic agents and for addressing the question of rationally dealing with
ignorance. Revisionary epistemology criticizes existing conceptions of epis-
temological concepts and proposes an alternative conception. For example,
for knowledge, “a revisionary project starts by arguing that what know-
ledge should be differs from what knowledge is. It then proposes that we
revise our account of knowledge accordingly” (Fassio and McKenna 2015,
755–​756).12 I criticize existing conceptions of ignorance, for example,
ignorance as lack of knowledge or ignorance as lack of true belief, and
argue that ignorance should be understood as composed of a doxastic com-
ponent, an agential component and structural components. This alterna-
tive conception of ignorance is what I call an Integrated Conception of
Ignorance because it brings together what is correct in existing conceptions
of ignorance and at the same time avoids their shortcomings.
Because it aims to develop a suggestion for how human beings can
improve how they address ignorance, my approach to how we should
rationally deal with ignorance also belongs with ameliorative epistem-
ology (cf., e.g., Ahlstrom-​Vij 2013a, 1–​5). I will focus on addressing one’s
own ignorance, in particular.
In addition, I employ empirically informed conceptual analysis.13 My
discussion of the “standard” conceptions of ignorance shows that a mere
conceptual analysis of the term does not get at the real-​world phenomenon
“ignorance” –​one needs to include and acknowledge that ignorance is a
social phenomenon and a disposition of epistemic agents who are socially
embedded. In the process of proposing a conception of ignorance, I con-
sider studies on ignorance and related phenomena, for example, in psych-
ology and medicine, as well as ignorance as a phenomenon manifested in
reality and experiences of ignorance.
In addressing the question of how one should rationally deal with
ignorance in Part 2, I have found it fruitful to dig into historical answers
to the question –​and, despite initial appearances, there are a number of
implicit and explicit suggestions for rationally dealing with ignorance. We
can learn from this history. I have focused on answers by Aristotle, Plato/​
Socrates, William Clifford, John Locke, William James and Immanuel
Kant. But the list of authors who have also put forward implicit or
explicit proposals for the second question is much longer and includes
René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, St Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Francis
Bacon, Friedrich Nietzsche. I hope that in reading this introduction and
Part 2 of the study that develops my answer to the “how to deal with
ignorance” question, it becomes clear how the authors that I have chosen
come together to pave the way to an appropriate answer for ration-
ally dealing with ignorance. –​In my work I have not come across any
suggestions regarding ignorance by historical female philosophers; I am
12 Introduction

sure that I am just currently ignorant about relevant works by historical

female philosophers and hope to be informed by more knowledgeable
readers. Recent years and advances in feminist philosophy and critical
race theory have seen many new significant philosophical contributions
on ignorance by women, for example, Lorraine Code (2004, 2014a,
2014b), Linda Alcoff (2007), Cynthia Townley (2011), Gaile Pohlhaus
(2012), Katja Vogt (Haas and Vogt 2015), Elinor Mason (2015), and so
this is not an all-​male study.14
My study may also be grouped with what is called non-​ideal epistem-
ology (cf. McKenna 2023). Non-​ideal epistemology is a form of non-​ideal
theory, and the term non-​ideal theory is mainly used in political philosophy
(cf. Valentini 2012, Mills 2017). But non-​ideal theory also applies to a cer­­
tain kind of epistemology, epistemology that engages with human beings
as non-​ideal, fallible rational agents. A text on ignorance –​in virtue of its
topic –​is an instance of non-​ideal epistemology because it addresses a non-​
ideal aspect of human beings. But my text is also a case of non-​ideal theory
because I acknowledge that human beings are fallible and not rational
but often irrational. And, most importantly, I do not ignore the effects of
injustice on ignorance from this study; that is another way of using a non-​
ideal approach (El Kassar fthc). I adopt Quassim Cassam’s justification of
vice epistemology for my study of ignorance, too: Cassam points out that
“a failure to engage with the intellectual vices by which our cognitive lives
are blighted represents a failure to engage with the human epistemological
predicament” (Cassam 2016, 176). Instead philosophy should address the
“day-​to-​day cognitive lives of most members of the species homo sapiens”
(Cassam 2016, 159).
I have found that my approach to ignorance is somewhat similar to
what Kathryn Norlock (2019) calls non-​ideal pessimism, the view that
there will never be ultimate improvement in the actions and behavior of
human beings; there is development, but no improvement. Yet, this does
not mean that we have to give up doing anything about (epistemic) evil
and all the bad things in the world, it just means that one must not think
that things are going to get better or be solved at some point in time or by
just one measure. In the end, I do not want to call my position pessimist, as
does Norlock, I suggest calling it reflective optimism in Part 2, but I agree
with her on the significance of taking a non-​ideal, realist approach.

1.5 “Ignorance” in the History of Philosophy

Etymologically and historically, it would seem that philosophy and
philosophers are much concerned with and about ignorance. The ety-
mology of philosophy –​philos and sophia, lover of wisdom –​and the fact
that, due to Socrates, wisdom has been closely connected to recognizing
 Introduction 13

one’s own ignorance might lead one to expect that ignorance is a central
topic in philosophy. But this is not the case. Ignorance has been and con-
tinues to be a somewhat neglected topic in epistemology and philosophy.
In this section, I want to give a brief, necessarily incomplete overview of
the history of ignorance in philosophy. For another, complementary his-
tory of ignorance in philosophy, see Peels (2023).
Socrates surmises that he is the wisest of all people –​Pythia had said
so –​because he is aware of his cognitive limitations, because he knows that
he does not know. And philosophers traditionally aim at being wise –​or
at least they are said to do so –​so they would have to engage with their
own ignorance. Socrates does engage with ignorance –​his own and other
people’s ignorance –​, for example, in Philebus he introduces the following
distinction of three forms of ignorance:

Now, ignorance is a vice, and so is what we call stupidity … Are there

not necessarily three ways in which it is possible not to know one-
self? … The first way concerns money, if someone thinks himself richer
than in fact he is. … Even more consider themselves taller and hand-
somer than in fact they are, and believe that they have other such phys-
ical advantages. … But an overwhelming number are mistaken about
the third kind, which belongs to the soul, namely virtue, and believe
that they are superior in virtue, although they are not. … And again,
among virtues, is it not especially to wisdom that the largest number of
people lay claim, puffing themselves up with quarrels and pretensions
to would-​be knowledge?
(Plato, Philebus, 1993, 48d–​49a)

But such inquiries into forms of ignorance are rare in classic texts. One
may also interpret the Socratic method as a way of dealing with people’s
(interlocutors’) ignorance, for example, as in Socrates’ dialogue about
geometry with the slave in Meno (Plato 2010, 82b–86b). But the dialogues
mostly address ignorance only in passing (cf. Vogt 2015, ch. 1).
Stephan Meier-​ Oeser in his entry on ignorance in Historisches
Wörterbuch der Philosophie (2001) notes that the term for a long time was
used without any conceptual specifications. Rather, ignorance is mainly
discussed in connection with the will, blame and culpability, for example,
in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, book 3. With the advent and rise of
Christianity the scope of inquiries into ignorance changed significantly: it
became narrower. Mainly, ignorance was discussed in connection with
human inability to know that God exists. And ignorance was introduced
as a result of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve by eating from
the Tree of Knowledge.15 Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise and
their descendants, that is, all human beings were also punished by being
14 Introduction

ignorant. In particular, they are ignorant by believing that something that is

false is right. Ignorance, thus, is a punishment for the original sin. I cannot
adequately address the relation to ignorance as inherited by original sin in
this context. Let me just point out that the snake promises that by eating
from the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve will be able to recognize good
and evil, which is a particular form of knowledge. And indeed, they do
acquire moral knowledge, and not just factual knowledge.16
St Augustine is explicit about the causal connection between the ori-
ginal sin and ignorance und describes it as the most just punishment, for
example, in his On Free Choice of the Will (1993):

And it is no wonder that because of our ignorance we lack the free

choice of the will to choose to act rightly, or that even when we do see
what is right and will to do it, we cannot do it because of the resistance
of carnal habit, which develops almost naturally because of the unruli-
ness of our mortal inheritance. It is indeed the most just penalty for sin
that we should lose what we were unwilling to use well, since we could
have used it well without the slightest difficulty if only we had willed
to do so; thus we who knew what was right but did not do it lost the
knowledge of what is right, and we who had the power but not the will
to act rightly lost the power even when we have the will.
Indeed, all sinful souls have been afflicted with these two punishments:
ignorance and difficulty. Because of ignorance, error warps our actions;
because of difficulty, our lives are a torment and an affliction. But to
accept falsehoods as truths, thus erring unwillingly; to struggle against
the pain of carnal bondage and not be able to refrain from acts of inor-
dinate desire: these do not belong to the nature that human beings were
created with; they are the penalty of a condemned prisoner.
(St Augustine 1993, III, §52)

Thomas Aquinas distinguishes invincible ignorance –​ignorance of that

which cannot be known –​from vincible ignorance –​ignorance of that
which can be known. Only the latter is a sin (Thomas Aquinas 1912–​
1936, I–​II q76 a2).
The connections between religion and philosophy, knowledge and
ignorance are also found in the history of curiosity. Hans Blumenberg
admirably traces the history of curiosity as a virtue turned vice, then
turned virtue (1985, part 3) and his study is a valuable complement of
any study on knowledge and ignorance in philosophy and religion. One
of Blumenberg’s many fascinating observations concerns curiosity’s
ambiguous status in medieval philosophy. On the one hand, curiosity as
wanting to know was a virtue on the Aristotelian framework. On the other
hand, St Augustine grouped curiosity with vices. This dilemma has shaped
 Introduction 15

much of medieval discourse on knowledge and epistemology. Nicholas of

Cusa’s De docta ignorantia (1440/​1994) can also be read as an attempt
to grapple with the two forces by combining the human natural desire to
know and the humility of human finiteness (Blumenberg 1985, 354ff.).
Cusa emphasizes how God is infinite and, therefore, finite human beings
cannot grasp his existence, but their attempts at getting at the depths of
God’s existence lead to learned ignorance (1440/​1994). Some one hundred
years later, Sebastian Castellio like Cusa, outlines how ignorance can be
acceptable. Sebastian Castellio (1563/​2015) carves out a space for doubt
and ignorance and he argues that we only have to know what is required
for knowledge of God (Gotteserkenntnis) and for fulfilling one’s duties as
a human being (Castellio 1563/​2015, 90). He submits that such an atti­
tude leads to religious tolerance.
In the Arabic philosophical tradition, Al Fārābī also discusses the import
and significance of ignorance. Al Fārābī distinguishes different forms of
ignorance and combines the perspectives on the subject and the object of
ignorance. For example, “[i]gnorance about a thing is of two kinds: one
of them is ignorance that is noticed as such, and the other is ignorance
believed to be knowledge” (Al Fārābī 1986, 79, 14; Al Fārābī et al. 2002,
619). You will see later (Chapter 4) that this distinction is also found in con­
temporary taxonomies of ignorance, for example, in Jens Haas and Katja
Vogt’s distinction between preferred ignorance and presumed knowledge
(Haas and Vogt 2015). Other distinctions of ignorance in Al Fārābī’s work,
such as the distinction between “ignorance as absence” (Al Fārābī 1986,
90, 18), “ignorance as negation” (Al Fārābī 1986, 90, 22) and “ignorance
as a state” (Al Fārābī 1986, 79, 14) are most probably related to Aristotle’s
distinction between ignorance as privation and ignorance as error.17
Al Fārābī’s remarks about ignorance are not limited to epistemological
consideration. Ignorance also figures prominently as a trait of an imper-
fect state: there are immoral, ignorant and errant states, in contrast to the
virtuous state. The citizens of the ignorant city “do not know what virtue
is” (Booth 2017, 188). Immoral cities know the virtues but do not follow
them and errant cities have the false virtues (Al Fārābī 1998, Al Fārābī
2009).18
Another crucial discussion of error in the Arabic philosophical tradition
is Al-Ghazālī’s The Rescuer from Error. In this text, Al-Ghazālī relates
how he overcame an intellectual crisis in which he doubted all belief. He
explains how God’s revelation of truths and mystic insight are crucial for
knowing God and regaining certainty (Al-Ghazālī 2005, Khalidi 2005).
Many centuries later, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and John Locke,
too, discuss God’s role in human ignorance and error. For Spinoza and
Descartes, errors and false beliefs become a problem in their theories
because of God’s close connection to human beings. Descartes needs to
16 Introduction

explain how and why human beings have false belief because it is not pos-
sible that God has equipped human beings with faulty capacities nor that
he would deceive his creations, human beings. The solution for Descartes
lies in the will of human beings: the will is infinite and it judges even when
it is not able to judge. It oversteps its boundaries, so to say (Descartes
2017, Fourth Meditation). For Spinoza, the problem of errors is particu­
larly tricky and interesting: since our mind is part of God’s intellect, having
false beliefs would imply that God also has false beliefs, but this cannot be
right. So, Spinoza must explain how human beings can have come to have
false beliefs. According to Thomas Cook’s reconstruction, the solution is
that the human mind is not identical to God’s intellect but lacks important
components of God’s intellect and that is how human beings are cogni-
tively limited and commit errors and God does not (Cook 2007, 69–​77).
Locke focuses on God having equipped human beings with the rational
capacities required to avoid error. Thus, strictly speaking, any error is a sin
against God and one has failed to meet a moral obligation toward God.
I return to Locke’s account in Part 2 to discuss it as a proposal for how one
should rationally deal with ignorance.
In the Enlightenment, ignorance has a more prominent role since it is
what Meier-​Oeser (2001) calls a contrasting concept for the Enlightenment
program. Human beings are supposed to strive for knowledge, and ignor-
ance appears to hinder this development. Stupidity (Dummheit) is a related
obstacle (cf. e.g., van Treeck 2015). I discuss Kant’s approach toward
ignorance and error in Parts 1 and 2.19
This brief history of ignorance would not be complete without James
Ferrier. Ferrier’s 1854 book Theory of Knowing and Being is an exception
in most of the history of philosophy because he is one of the few authors
who explicitly examine ignorance. In addition to epistemology, he studies
what he calls Agnoiology, theory of ignorance since, as he argues, we
cannot engage in ontology without understanding the nature of ignorance
as well as the nature of knowledge. Ferrier defines ignorance as “depriv-
ation of knowledge”; ignorance “is an intellectual defect, imperfection,
privation, or shortcoming” (Ferrier 1854, 397).20
Ferrier’s neologism leads to another field in which ignorance has since
(and more recently) become central, so-​called “agnotology”, a term delib-
erately invented to capture studies of how ignorance is manufactured and
maintained (Proctor 2008). Agnotology studies cases of manufactured
ignorance, such as the ignorance about the harmful health effects of
smoking that was manufactured by tobacco companies The companies
created journals that were intended to plant doubts about scientific
findings about the effects of smoking and employed further tools for
obfuscating relevant scientific results (Proctor 2008, 11–​18). Works in
agnotology are mainly located in history of science, maybe because most
 Introduction 17

of the scholars who use the term and work in this field are historians of
science (cf. Proctor and Schiebinger 2008). Some scholars try to relegate
work on ignorance from epistemology to agnotology, but as I will argue
in the next section, ignorance does belong with epistemology and not
with agnotology.
Friedrich Nietzsche is another author who has discussed and examined
ignorance, its nature and its value. And readers who are familiar with
Nietzsche’s work will probably wonder why Nietzsche does not take a
more prominent role in this study. Nietzsche aims to rehabilitate ignor-
ance by asking how it is that human beings aim for truth. Why do we aim
for truth? After all, sometimes it is better not to know the truth but to be
ignorant about it.

The will to truth that still seduces us into taking so many risks, this
famous truthfulness that all philosophers so far have talked about with
veneration: what questions this will to truth has already laid before us!
What strange, terrible, questionable questions! … What in us really
wills the truth? In fact, we paused for a long time before the question
of the cause of this will –​until we finally came to a complete standstill
in front of an even more fundamental question. We asked about the
value of this will. Granted, we will truth: why not untruth instead? And
uncertainty? Even ignorance?
(Nietzsche 2002, 5)

Truth is not the only value that matters, according to Nietzsche. That
is how ignorance enters the picture and is recognized as a condition of
human life in general.

We do not consider the falsity of a judgment as itself an objection to

a judgment; … The question is how far the judgment promotes and
preserves life, how well it preserves, and perhaps even cultivates, the
type. And we are fundamentally inclined to claim that the falsest
judgments (which include synthetic judgments a priori) are the most
indispensable to us, and that without accepting the fictions of logic,
without measuring reality against the wholly invented world of the
unconditioned and self-​identical, without a constant falsification of the
world through numbers, people could not live –​that a renunciation of
false judgments would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. To
acknowledge untruth as a condition of life: this clearly means resisting
the usual value feelings in a dangerous manner; and a philosophy that
risks such a thing would by that gesture alone place itself beyond good
and evil.
(Nietzsche 2002, 7)
18 Introduction

I agree with Nietzsche’s observation that there are cases in which ignor-
ance is better than knowledge and also that ignorance is an ineliminable
limitation of human life. But the context of his observations does not
fit with my general approach. Nietzsche argues against Socratic and
Platonic faith in reason (cf. Geisenhanslüke 2011, 150), and, as you will
see, all of the authors and theories on which I rely value reason highly.
And I myself have put rationally dealing with ignorance in my formu-
lation of the second lead question. I am interested in finding a way for
rationally dealing with ignorance. My favored answer goes via reason
and rational capacities; it is a rational answer. This disagreement is why
I have not included Nietzsche’s work on ignorance in this study. He
disagrees with a number of background assumptions of my study and
authors that I refer to, and bringing the different views together would
require tilting my picture and translating between the opposing views. In
addition, I am not sure whether Nietzsche would be happy about being
brought together with views that he probably takes to be (hyper-​)ration-
alistic. And I cannot include a view that, on some interpretations at least,
is anti-​rationalistic.
In the 1970s Peter Unger has reminded philosophers of the connection
between skepticism and ignorance. He argues that skepticism is right and
that “no one ever knows anything about anything” (1975, 1, emphasis
in original). But this take on ignorance has hardly caught ground. Vogt
considers whether skepticism is a way of dealing with the possibility of
ignorance (2015), but she does so for classic texts. Other contemporary
works on skepticism seldom discuss ignorance.
The last two or three decades have seen increasing interest in other
aspects of ignorance. Feminist epistemology has uncovered two facets
of ignorance that have always been implicit but seldom discussed expli-
citly: ignorance as social and political. Ignorance is a feature of unjust
oppressive societies –​maintaining ignorance about the lives of the
oppressed, ignoring testimony by minorities, manufacturing ignorance
or also keeping the oppressed out of educational contexts (e.g., Bailey
2007, Dotson 2011, Medina 2013, Mills 2007, Mills 2015, Pohlhaus
2012). Philosophers addressing ignorance as political often also include
decolonial and postcolonial theories and studies from history of science
and agnotology in their work because these theories share central back-
ground beliefs and topics, for example, the intersection between ignorance
and power (Tuana 2006, 3).
At approximately the same time, but arguing quite differently, authors
rooted in traditional analytical epistemology have begun discussing the
nature of ignorance, for example, Rik Peels and Pierre Le Morvan in a
number of articles addressing the question “What is ignorance?” (Peels
2010, 2011, 2012, Le Morvan 2011b, 2012, 2013). Peels argues that what
 Introduction 19

he and Le Morvan call the “Standard View of Ignorance” –​the view that
ignorance is lack of knowledge –​is false and must be replaced by the
“New View of Ignorance” –​the view that ignorance is lack of true belief.
The view that ignorance is lack of knowledge is largely taken to be the
default conception of ignorance (e.g., Le Morvan 2011a; Zimmerman
2008). One of the aims of my book is to challenge this perception and to
argue for a different approach to ignorance (that’s the task of Part 1 in par­
ticular). Duncan Pritchard (2021) and Anne Meylan (2024) have advanced
Normative Views of ignorance that include (normative) expectations in
the conception of ignorance, for example, one is only ignorant if one
lacks awareness of a fact that one ought to know (Pritchard 2021b). Peels
argues for the New View of Ignorance in a recent monograph on ignor-
ance (2023). Since these are the most prevalent views in today’s analytical
epistemology, I will discuss them in more detail and contrast my proposed
conception with these views.21
Moral philosophy and political philosophy have also seen increasingly
more discussions of ignorance, for example, discussions of culpable ignor-
ance (Rosen 2004, Harman 2011, Zimmerman 1997, 2008, Mason 2015,
2017). But, as I have noted, I will not discuss moral ignorance further in
this study.
The feminist, critical race approach and the “traditional” approach to
ignorance –​ignorance as mere lack of true belief or mere lack of know-
ledge –​are rarely in communication with one another (cf. El Kassar 2018).
My study aims to bring the approaches into dialogue and to develop a con-
ception that respects the insights from different philosophical approaches.
Only such an integrative approach can do justice to the real-​world phe-
nomenon ignorance in our times.

1.6 Does the Study of Ignorance Belong in Epistemology?

I have alluded to philosophers who are skeptical about the value of studying
ignorance and in this section, I want to address and disarm concerns about
studying ignorance in the context of epistemology.22 By looking at such
criticism and worries we learn more about the scope, place and signifi-
cance of the topic.
In general, I have found that there are four clusters of criticism of epis-
temology of ignorance:

1 Ignorance is not an interesting topic for philosophers.

2 Epistemological studies of ignorance are a contradictio in terminis.
3 Ignorance does not belong to epistemology but to other philosophical
fields.
4 Ignorance has its own discipline, it belongs with agnotology.
20 Introduction

Let me elaborate on the criticism in turns. The first objection is rather

common in philosophy and in epistemology. The basic idea is that ignor-
ance is not an interesting topic for philosophers because all there is to
say about ignorance is that ignorance is the privation of knowledge. In
addition, knowledge is much more striking than ignorance so one should
study knowledge instead of ignorance. Take, for example, the following
reasoning from a summary article by Le Morvan and Peels on the dispute
between the Standard View and the New View:

Taking ignorance to be the complement of knowledge unifies theor-

izing about ignorance with theorizing about knowledge in that it
seems that insights into the nature of knowledge automatically yield
corresponding putative insights into the nature of ignorance. This is
because, on the Standard View [i.e., the view that ignorance is lack of
knowledge, N.E.], ignorance has no substantive and positive nature of
its own. Being purely privative and negational, its nature is completely
determined by its contrast with the nature of knowledge. So conceived,
the relationship between ignorance and knowledge proves analogous to
the relationship between darkness and light inasmuch as darkness is the
absence or want of light.
(Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 16–​17)

Clearly, this argument is a non sequitur. Just because ignorance can be

described as the privation of knowledge does not mean that it does not
merit independent study. Second, there is more to ignorance than an
account of its nature. Third, one may reject the Standard View of Ignorance
(as I do). Fourth, the nature of ignorance is not fully determined by its
negational character, just as the nature of darkness is not fully determined
by its negational relation to light. For example, fear in the dark is more
than fear of absence of light.
The second objection argues that there can be no epistemological studies
of ignorance –​it is a contradictio in terminis –​because epistemology is the
study of knowledge and as such it does not include ignorance. Clearly, this
argument is also not convincing. I have noted earlier how James Ferrier
argues that there can be no ontology if one does not study knowledge and
ignorance. In addition, epistemology is not restricted to the study of know-
ledge, it is concerned with the epistemic situation of agents. And clearly,
ignorance (co-​)determines the epistemic situation of all human agents.
The third objection tries to move ignorance to other disciplines in phil-
osophy, for example, moral philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, fem-
inist philosophy and critical race theory. Ignorance does not really belong
in epistemology because it is much more prevalent in these other fields.
But there is no adequate argument for any such maneuver: epistemologists
 Introduction 21

need to engage with ignorance to understand knowledge, to disentangle

human epistemic life, to uncover epistemic norms, etc. Epistemological
studies of ignorance are even necessary in epistemology because it can fill
gaps in epistemology. For example, as we will see, epistemological studies
of ignorance can examine the standard twin goals “Strive for truth and
avoid falsehood” that epistemologists rely on but fail to examine and
relate adequately (Section 8.1). Epistemological studies of ignorance can
help epistemology cover omissions and lack of belief, a perceived lack in
epistemology since theories of justification only work for beliefs and not
for omissions or lack (cf. Riggs 2003). They can also extend epistemology
to cover epistemic vices, as does vice epistemology (Cassam 2016).
In addition, the other disciplines like moral philosophy and feminist
philosophy focus on selected aspects of ignorance, for example, feminist
epistemologies of ignorance focus on ignorance as detrimental, impacting
the life of the oppressed, and thus narrow the field of study (e.g., Alcoff
2007, Dotson 2011, Medina 2013). In contrast, socio-​ epistemological
studies of ignorance address fundamental issues about ignorance (e.g.,
nature, normativity, value) and can regard ignorance as not intrinsically
negative. In a way, one may say, epistemological studies of ignorance do
the groundwork for the other disciplines in philosophy. And, of course,
the fields can cooperate to improve their accounts involving ignorance. In
fact, they need to cooperate, as I will show in Part 1 in my study of what
ignorance is.
The fourth objection argues that the study of ignorance belongs with
agnotology –​the “study of conscious, unconscious, and structural pro-
duction of ignorance, its diverse causes and conformations, whether
brought about by neglect, forgetfulness, myopia, extinction, secrecy, or
suppression” (Proctor 2008, 3). This is the natural home of studies of
ignorance –​as the neologism crafted by Proctor indicates. But this objec-
tion overlooks an important detail: Proctor is a historian of science, and
agnotology uses the tools of historians, not so much the tools of phil-
osophy, that is, agnotologists study historical sources, they mainly work
descriptively, working out a narrative of what happened. In contrast,
epistemological studies of ignorance are interested in people’s access to
the world, their epistemic situation, epistemic agency, and they work
normatively, they ask normative questions. Note that this does not
mean that historical texts are excluded from my study, in fact, as I have
said earlier, I also rely on historical philosophical texts to develop an
answer to the question of how one should rationally deal with ignor-
ance. But I do so from a philosopher’s perspective and not a historian’s
perspective.23
These objections are crucial and consequential because they are ultim-
ately questions about the legitimacy of epistemological studies of ignorance,
22 Introduction

questions about who defines what epistemology is. And I insist that ignor-
ance must not be excluded from this prestigious field of philosophy.

1.7 Build-​Up
My study has three parts: Part 1 develops a revisionist-analytic answer
to the question of what ignorance is. Part 2 is a normative study of how
one should rationally deal with ignorance. Part 3 applies the Integrated
Conception of Ignorance and the maxim-​based approach to rationally
dealing with ignorance to politics and medicine.
Part 1 explicates the concept ignorance and fills a gap in epistemology
by improving on the scarce explorations of ignorance in philosophy. I dis-
tinguish logical and empirical conceptions of ignorance. Then I discuss
different conceptions of ignorance (Standard View, New View, Normative
View). On that basis, I develop a more complex conception of ignorance
that captures both its epistemological meaning and relevance, as well as its
real-​world manifestations (pace, for example, Goldman and Olsson 2009,
Peels 2010, Le Morvan 2011b). On the new conception, the Integrated
Conception of Ignorance, ignorance consists in doxastic components,
agential components and structural components.
I use the structure of a medical encyclopedia entry for a syndrome to get
at the different layers of ignorance: What is ignorance? How widespread
is ignorance? What are symptoms of ignorance? How do ignorant beings
live? What are causes of ignorance? This extraordinary heuristic allows
me to go beyond the merely doxastic level of ignorance, and include, for
example, the phenomenology of ignorance. In addition, it delivers insights
about ignorance that are particularly helpful for answering the second
question, how we should rationally deal with ignorance. Note that the
syndrome-​heuristic does not imply that all ignorance is bad. One might
be tempted to draw that inference since a medical syndrome qua disease
seems to be bad; but this inference is not warranted because a syndrome is
a category, not an evaluative judgment.24
On the basis of the Integrated Conception, Part 2 discusses what the
most sensible ways for dealing with ignorance –​in particular, one’s own
ignorance –​are. I start by examining the oft-​cited claim that ignorance
should be turned into knowledge by discussing the consequences of
Aristotle’s Metaphysics claim that “all human beings desire to know” and
asking whether Socratic ignorance is the best way for dealing with ignor-
ance. I dismiss these virtue-​theoretic answers because they are imprecise
and not adequate for human epistemic practice. After that, I discuss con-
sequentialist answers that suggest looking at results to find the best way
for rationally dealing with ignorance; the Jamesian twin goals, “Strive for
truth, avoid falsehood”, are the primary example of that approach.
 Introduction 23

Then I discuss deontological answers to how one should rationally

deal with ignorance: Clifford’s duty to mankind; Locke’s view that human
beings have an alethic obligation toward God (Locke 1979, Wolterstorff
1996) and the view that there is a duty to know –​developed on the basis
of Goldberg’s notion of practice-​generated entitlements (Goldberg 2017b).
None of the proposals provides adequate principles for dealing with
ignorance.
Finally, I show that Kant’s advice as to how one can avoid error in the
Jäsche Logic (JL, AA IX)25 and parallel passages on the sensus communis
in The Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ, AA V) and Anthropology
from a pragmatic point of view (Anth, AA VII) is the best suggestion for
epistemic agents for rationally dealing with ignorance. The three maxims
are “1. To think for oneself. [The enlightened mode of thought] 2. To
think oneself (in communication with human beings) into the place of
every other person. [The extended mode of thought] 3. Always to think
consistently with oneself. [The consequent mode of thought]” (Kant, JL,
AA IX 57, my additions in brackets). I develop the Maxim-​based Answer
from these maxims and from Ernst Tugendhat’s remarks on intellectual
honesty. By discussing three objections –​the Pessimist Objection, the
Objection from Those Who Just Do Not Care and the Objection from
Overdemandingness, from Arrogant Elitism and from Intellectualization,​
a cluster of related objections –​I further explicate the proposal and make
explicit its background assumptions as well as its advantages.
In Part 3, I apply these insights to two real-​world issues related to ignor-
ance: democracy and ignorance (politics) and medical uncertainty (medi-
cine). My Integrated Conception which recognizes that ignorance consists
in doxastic, agential and structural components shows that ignorance
is not a threat to democracy but rather a natural feature of democracy.
In medical epistemology, my new conception overcomes the ambiguities
between the terms ignorance and uncertainty and the overly detailed tax-
onomies in current medical literature. My suggestion for rationally dealing
with ignorance also proves helpful for dealing with ignorance and uncer-
tainty in clinical medicine and in patient–​practitioner interaction.
In addressing ignorance as well as asking how one should rationally
deal with ignorance, I contribute to epistemological studies of ignor-
ance. First, I study ignorance from the perspective of epistemic agents, by
considering our dealings with ignorance. Second, I bring together histor-
ical insights about ignorance that are often overlooked and contemporary
works. Third, I develop a new way of conceptualizing ignorance, taking
both epistemological and political considerations into account, aspects
which traditionally have been kept separate. By discussing them together,
I show that practical considerations feed into epistemology and epistemo-
logical considerations feed back into practical approaches.
24 Introduction

1.8 Reading Suggestions

Since this is a monograph and we have grown less accustomed to reading
whole books and are sometimes interested in just one question or issue
in the book, I would like to offer a few reading suggestions for readers.
If one is interested in the debate about the nature of ignorance and my
criticism of current, analytic approaches to ignorance, one can focus on
Part 1. Discussing the facets of ignorance, different instantiations of ignor­
ance, causes of ignorance is crucial for my claim that ignorance is not
just cognitive or propositional. The Integrated Conception of Ignorance is
developed in Sections 3.5 and 3.6.
If one is interested in seeing what a historically informed, socio-​
epistemological take on dealing with one’s own ignorance looks like, one
can skip Part 1 (maybe read Section 3.5 for the Integrated Conception)
and start with Part 2. Also, if one is interested in how different epis-
temological approaches play out with regard to ignorance, Part 2 is the
place to go.
And if one is most interested in real-​life ignorance and suggestions for
dealing with it, one may also start with Part 3 in which I apply the Maxim-​
based Answer to ignorance in democracies and in medical contexts. For
readers who want to get suggestions for further applications, it might be
also more useful to start with the application and then look at the theoret-
ical details of the Maxim-​based Answer in Chapter 10.

Notes
1 Being stupid or pretending to be stupid may be a constitutive feature of being –​
playing the fool –​and that may be why fools are the only characters who can
get away with being stupid. See Van Treeck (2015, 17–​22) on the complicated
character of the fool (Narr) and Geisenhanslüke (2011) on the relation between
stupidity, wit and literature.
2 Authors from other disciplines have started to connect innocence and ignor­
ance. For example, Gloria Wekker introduces the term white innocence to
capture how Dutch society presents itself as color-​blind, non-​discriminatory
but is permeated by xenophobic and racist beliefs, structures and traditions.
In developing the notion of innocence, she explicitly connects innocence and
ignorance: “The claim of innocence, however, is a double-​edged sword: it
contains not-​knowing, but also not wanting to know, capturing what phil-
osopher Charles W. Mills (1997, 2007) has described as the epistemology of
ignorance. … Essed and Hoving also point to ‘the anxious Dutch claim of
innocence and how disavowal and denial of racism may merge into what we
have called smug ignorance: (aggressively) rejecting the possibility to know.’
(2014, 24)” (Wekker 2016, 17–​18, reference adapted, N.E.). Amélie Rives’
 Introduction 25

spirited criticism of innocence and ignorance as values in the education of girls

in the late 19th century provides an interesting insight into the role of ignor-
ance in education (1892). Rives’ remarks invite us to consider how these edu­
cational values have developed in later and contemporary education.
3 Cf. the entry “un-​” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache.
4 Since I argue that ignorance is not just lack of knowledge or lack of true belief,
I mostly use the term “being ignorant” rather than “not knowing” to describe
the state the subject is in and which I want to examine. “Not knowing” may
include implicit assumptions about knowledge being primary for understanding
ignorance and so I’ve tried using it only when it is really appropriate. “Being
ignorant” is related to “not knowing,” but they are not the same.
5 See also David A. Graham (2014) for a political-​historical contextualization of
Rumsfeld’s statement.
6 See the Belgian movie Le tout nouveau Testament (2015) for a fictional rendi­
tion of how people would react to learning of their death date and hour.
7 But see also Kourany and Carrier (2019) for the challenges to knowledge pro­­
duction in the sciences.
8 Thanks to Nemiah Ladd for providing this example.
9 For further examples of errors in science, see e.g., Kricheldorf (2016).
10 See Kennedy (2019) for a discussion about the reaction to this mistake.
11 Bondy (2018) has suggested that one could extend my Integrated Conception
of Ignorance to cover practical ignorance, but I do not think that there is an
easy route from remarks about propositional ignorance to practical ignorance
in the sense of lack of know-​how. We need to respect the highly evolved debate
about know-​how (e.g., in Löwenstein 2017) and include their concerns and
arguments in any account that wants to address the lack of know-​how or
lack of practical knowledge. Any further conclusions require communication
between the different fields and debates. Peels (2023, 37, 41) lists practical
ignorance as one kind of ignorance –​with objectual and propositional ignor-
ance as the other kinds.
12 For an exemplary article in such revisionary epistemology, see Haslanger
(1999).
13 Thanks to Lutz Wingert for highlighting this approach.
14 There are also historical non-​White suggestions on ignorance and how to deal
with ignorance, but I have not included them in this study. There is no denying
that this is a gap in this study. And it would be arrogant to try to patch up this
gap by adding a footnote or paragraph about the literature that is missing from
this study. This literature should be included appropriately and not in passing.
So I leave any further remarks for another occasion.
15 It is almost ironic that ignorance is the punishment for the act of eating from
the Tree of Knowledge.
16 John Milton’s Paradise Lost considers the ramifications and the context of the
original sin committed in paradise in a literary form, for example, by having
the devil ask himself why knowledge, the Tree of Knowledge, is forbidden
for human beings (Milton 1667/​2003, book IV, 505ff.). Thanks to Christian
Weibel for indicating this reference.
26 Introduction

17 Unfortunately, the relevant passages in Al Fārābī’s Book of Demonstration

are not translated into English. Therefore, I only refer to Alon’s entries (2002).
See Alon (2002) for more entries on ignorance in the Fārābī-​lexicon. And see
Hodges and Druart (2019) for an introduction into Al Fārābī’s Philosophy of
Logic and Language.
18 Al Farābi in his political works argues that the democratic state is the
happiest state.
19 See Adler and Godel (2010) for a collection of articles on ignorance in the
Enlightenment age, and Bates (1996) for an interesting contribution on error
in late Enlightenment France.
20 See Keefe (2007) for a discussion of Ferrier’s work.
21 See Silva and Siscoe (2024) for a recent and –​I daresay –​quite typical example
of a contemporary epistemological analysis of ignorance that focuses on the
“Standard View” and “New View” and only refers to social and political
contexts and implications in a footnote.
22 I avoid using the term “epistemology of ignorance” for my approach because
Mills, Alcoff and others use the term for describing pernicious ignorance, epis-
temologies that employ ignorance in oppression and for maintaining unjust
states. My study is not restricted on that kind of ignorance, and so I talk about
“epistemological studies of ignorance” and keep “epistemologies of ignor-
ance” for its intended meaning.
23 So, I do not argue that epistemological studies of ignorance must include
agnotology. Peels (2023) seems to read my argument in El Kassar (2018)
as making that claim. But I do not undertake a study in agnotology; this is
epistemology.
24 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to add this clarification.
25 I follow abbreviations used by the Kant-​Forschungsstelle to refer to Kant’s
work. The Jäsche Logic is one exception because it is not included individually
in their list; therefore, I use the abbreviation “JL” to refer to it. I refer to the
Akademie Ausgabe numbering to give page numbers.
Part 1

What Is Ignorance?
2 The Framework I

2.1 A Fundamental Distinction: Logical Conceptions and Empirical

Conceptions
In attempting to develop an appropriate conception of ignorance, I pro-
pose to start by distinguishing two approaches that address two import-
antly different kinds of ignorance:

1 The logical conception: ignorance as a concept used in logic.

2 The empirical conception: ignorance as manifested in the real world in
the cognition and psychology of real, non-​ideal epistemic subjects.

I will often refer to the latter kind of ignorance as real-​world manifestations

of ignorance. Such cases of ignorance are not idealized, not pure, but closer
to the messy realities of the epistemic lives of subjects.
This distinction is quite rare in philosophy of ignorance.1 In fact, to my
knowledge, Olsson and Proietti (2016) are the only authors who suggest a
similar distinction. They distinguish a formal approach to ignorance and a
“descriptive or psychological one” (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 84). What
they call a formal approach is what I call a logical approach or the logical
conception. Such a formal approach “list[s]‌the properties of the concept
in question (e.g., knowledge and belief) with respect to its content and to
its interaction with other concepts (e.g., Boolean operators such as ‘and,’
‘or,’ ‘not’)” (Olsson and Prioietti 2016, 84).
Epistemologists frequently overlook that ignorance is also discussed in
logic, both as a topic in its own rights and in the context of discussions
of vagueness (e.g., Williamson 1996, Dorr 2003). This section introduces
some examples for logical work on ignorance. It will be a somewhat brief
section because there are basic issues surrounding these approaches to ignor-
ance that I acknowledge but cannot solve nor deal with adequately: what
is the impact of syntactic or semantic logic results concerning ignorance on
epistemological works on ignorance? What is the relation between logic

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-3
30 What Is Ignorance?

and epistemology? Answering these questions is too big for this study. But
I want to give an example of a logical conception of ignorance so that the
distinction can be picked up. In addition, I will gesture toward reasons
why logical or formal approaches to ignorance do not provide an adequate
basis for addressing the question of how one should rationally deal with
ignorance in the way that this study aims to address the question. –​This
is not necessarily a fault of logical approaches, they just ask very different
questions from theories that include ignorance as the state of a thinker. As
I have noted above, logical approaches “list the properties of the concept
in question (e.g., knowledge and belief) with respect to its content and to
its interaction with other concepts (e.g., Boolean operators such as ‘and,’
‘or,’ ‘not’)” (Olsson and Prioietti 2016, 84). This approach is not as ger­
mane to the question of how one, an epistemic agent, should rationally
deal with ignorance.
There are only a handful of philosophers working on theories of ignor-
ance today who may be said to pursue the project of determining the logical
conception of ignorance. Olsson and Proietti themselves are an exception
to this gap, and they refer to a paper by Wiebe van der Hoek and Alessio
Lomuscio (2004) which provides a purely formal analysis of ignorance.2
I will only present and discuss Olsson and Proietti’s semi-​formal account
of ignorance in this section because I won’t be talking much about ignor-
ance in the logical sense. Moreover, they do not aim at a formal account
but a semi-​formal account that may be closer to the approach taken in this
book Kit Fine’s analysis of “ignorance of ignorance” is another example
of a logical study of ignorance (2018).
Olsson and Proietti aim to fill a large gap in the theory of ignorance: they
want to develop a (semi-​)formal account of ignorance. Their proposal is
based on a technical paper by van der Hoek and Lomuscio (2004). Van
der Hoek and Lomuscio restrict ignorance thus: being ignorant as to X is
“not knowing that X and not knowing that not-​X”3 (Hoek and Lomuscio
2004, 98, in Olsson and Proietti 2016, 82). This definition excludes cases
in which the subject does not know that X because she knows that not-​
X; clearly, she is not ignorant even though she does not know that X,
therefore, we do not want a definition of ignorance that cannot exclude
this case.
On this basis, Olsson and Proietti develop the following semi-​formal
account of ignorance. Ignorance involves an agent who does not know
whether X or not-​X and therefore has X and not-​X in her “epistemic
space” (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 91). Ignorance thus is defined as follows,
where IX stands for “the agent is ignorant about X” (Olsson and Proietti
2016, 91):

IX =​def (¬K X) ∧ (¬K ¬X)

 The Framework I 31

From this definition it follows that ignorance is not simply the absence
of knowledge. And as Olsson and Proietti put it: “being ignorant about
X does not reduce to not knowing that X” (Olsson and Proietti 2016,
91). They present this finding as showing that “ignorance does not simply
come out as absence of knowledge” (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 91). Theirs
is a non-​reductionist, semi-​formal account of ignorance because it does
not want to reduce ignorance to the absence of knowledge.
And even though I do agree with the general thrust of the claim, I want
to note that Olsson and Proietti do not support this non-​reductionist, semi-​
formal account adequately. They make the result sound more substantial
than it is. It is tailored to refute those authors who say that ignorance
is absence (or lack) of knowledge, but their refutation is based on some
terminological inaccuracies and, thus, appears to be inflated. Olsson and
Proietti do not distinguish knowing that X, knowing about X and being
ignorant that X, being ignorant about X when these are crucially different
kinds of knowing and being ignorant.4
With this example of a logical conception of ignorance in place, I turn to
explicating the difference between the empirical conception and the logical
conception more clearly. The conceptions ask different questions about
ignorance and yield different answers to the question of what ignorance is.
For example, the empirical conception examines such diverse instances of
ignorance as scientists’ ignorance about an as of yet undiscovered method
for treating, say, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV/​AIDS, avian flu or someone not
knowing that Ottawa is the capital of Canada. These particular instances
of ignorance do not have to be obviously interesting and they may even be
irrelevant to logical conceptions of ignorance because these conceptions
care about the formal, the logical, and not so much about the empirical
content and the manifestation side of ignorance.
If, on the other hand, one scrutinizes ignorance on an empirical con-
ception, this implies that ignorance is manifested in the real world in
human beings. These manifestations can be very diverse, as I have noted
when introducing examples of ignorance. A scientist’s ignorance about
an as of yet undiscovered method for treating Alzheimer’s disease but
also the ignorance of someone who has not heard of emoluments before
she hears that term for the first time, and after she has heard it but
still doesn’t know what it is. As we will see later, on an empirical con-
ception of ignorance there is room for extending agential ignorance to
processes that cause ignorance, and institutional structures that facilitate
ignorance and may even be said to count as manifestations of ignorance
(Section 3.5).
The distinction between a logical conception and an empirical concep-
tion is fairly novel in work on ignorance, but we can quickly see that it is
productive. First, it helps us explain apparently incompatible claims about
32 What Is Ignorance?

ignorance because we can see that they are based on a confusion about
which conception of ignorance the author embraces. Look, for example,
at the following two claims:

A Ignorance is derivative of knowledge, that is, knowledge is primary

(e.g., Le Morvan and Peels 2016).
B Ignorance is prior to knowledge, for example, before the subject is
knowledgeable she is ignorant, or before the physician learns of a
new method in vascular bypass surgery she is ignorant of it (cf., e.g.,
Firestein 2012).

These claims seem to be incompatible: (A) says that knowledge is pri-

mary, and (B) says that ignorance is prior to knowledge. But with the dis-
tinction between ignorance on a logical conception and ignorance on an
empirical conception we can see that the two claims concern two different
kinds of ignorance: claim (A) is relevant for ignorance as used in logic,
claim (B) is relevant for ignorance on an empirical conception.
Second, the distinction enables us to connect otherwise disparate work
on ignorance within different philosophical fields and across different dis-
ciplines because we can thus be clearer on what the authors are talking
about –​the logical conception or the empirical conception –​and how their
separate claims complement each other –​or do not. The distinction is
thus key to further conceptualizing disputes about the nature of ignorance,
recognizing that the authors working on ignorance may (and do) aim at
different conceptions.

2.2 The Syndrome Framework

Let me say something about my framework for approaching ignorance. In
spelling out the facets and characteristics of ignorance, I approach ignor-
ance as one would approach a syndrome in medical studies. A syndrome
is a disease that consists in several interrelated symptoms, for example,
as in the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that contribute
to the likelihood of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, or the
Takotsubo syndrome, a temporary heart condition. The presence of the
relevant symptoms indicates and confirms that the patient suffers from
the syndrome. However, for many syndromes not all symptoms have to
be present for the syndrome to be diagnosed in a patient. This feature is
one of the central reasons for analyzing ignorance as a syndrome. As we
have seen earlier in the examples of ignorance as an empirical concept,
the features, characteristics and aspects of ignorance can be very different.
For example, ignorance of which the subject is not aware and ignorance
of which the subject is aware are very different as regards the self-​reflexive
 The Framework I 33

awareness, but they are still both cases of ignorance. And talking about
ignorance as a syndrome provides a framework for capturing and acknow-
ledging these differences.
Let me emphasize that by using the syndrome framework, I do not
pre-​judge ignorance as intrinsically bad, disvaluable or even as a dis-
ease. Ignorance can be valuable, and it is one of the aims of this project
to leave room for valuable ignorance and not restrict it to a bad (epi-
stemic or moral) state. A syndrome is interesting for this study of ignor-
ance because it is a phenomenon that has different symptoms that can
be present but do not have to be conjointly present for the syndrome to
obtain. And a syndrome is not an intrinsically bad or pernicious state.
A syndrome is a special type of phenomenon, and it is special because
of its relation to its symptoms. There is no simple relation of neces-
sary and sufficient conditions between the symptoms and the syndrome
and this kind of relation, I submit, also holds between ignorance and its
constituents.5
We will see that the symptoms of ignorance are not restricted to lack of
knowledge but concern the whole epistemic agent. Another advantage of
this framework is that we can go beyond the so-​called standard concep-
tion of ignorance as lack of knowledge and get at the texture, the details
of ignorance. This is because by treating ignorance as a syndrome, the
agent who is “affected” by ignorance comes into the center of attention.
As I have noted in the Introduction, my aim is to examine ignorance as a
state of subjects and not as an object. The study is of being ignorant rather
than of the object of ignorance –​Unwissenheit rather than Unwissen in
German.
I do not follow the build-​up of entries for syndromes in medical encyclo-
pedia, but many of the areas covered in medical encyclopedia will also
appear –​adapted to the philosophical topic –​in this discussion of ignor-
ance. These entries cover the following issues:6

1 Definition. A general description of the topic of the entry.

2 Epidemiology. How widespread is the disease?
3 Symptoms. What are the symptoms of the disease?
4 Pathophysiology. How do human beings with the disease live?
5 Diagnosis. How does one diagnose and identify the disease?
6 Etiology. What are the causes of the disease?
7 Treatment. How can the disease be treated?

Obviously, there are limits to this heuristic for analyzing ignorance and
I do not adhere to it without reflection. The most important limitations
are that ignorance is not a medical condition and that ignorance is not
something that must be treated. In this study, I am looking for ways of
34 What Is Ignorance?

dealing with ignorance, but I am not looking for a cure. As we will see,
ignorance is pervasive and necessarily present in human lives –​in being
human –​so the idea of curing ignorance is nonsensical. Some ways of
dealing with ignorance may be regarded as offering “treatments” –​not a
cure that eradicates ignorance and leads to some state of not-​ignorance.
But I do not want to overstretch the syndrome heuristic and the related
metaphor: I am not looking for a treatment of ignorance. That means that
the second question of how we should rationally deal with ignorance will
be addressed outside of the syndrome framework.
Despite these limitations, this somewhat extraordinary frame has sig-
nificant advantages. If I frame ignorance as a syndrome, it should be
clearer that this study is about ignorance as a state of human beings, and
not about ignorance as an object.7 Second, since every encyclopedia entry
has a definition, a first sentence that collects the most salient features of
the topic of the entry, viz. ignorance, it provides a framework for pitting
different conceptions of ignorance against each other as competitors for
the definition. And third, by asking questions about the symptoms of
ignorance, we can capture different facets of ignorance, for example, the
structure of ignorance, different kinds of ignorance, causes of ignorance.
In addition, by capturing ignorance in terms of a syndrome, the question
of dealing with ignorance is always implicitly and sometimes explicitly
present in Part 1 already and forms the basis for the different suggestions
for rationally dealing with ignorance in Part 2.
Fourth, by using the framework, we get to further details of ignorance
that are crucial in understanding ignorance and suggesting how one should
deal with it. By detailing the epidemiology, the symptoms, the etiology, etc.
of ignorance, I can assemble the components, features, measures and tools
that we require for addressing the question of how we should deal with
ignorance. We need to know what kinds of ignorance we are dealing with
and what features we are dealing with, etc. and this is what we can get
at by employing the medical encyclopedia framework and the syndrome
framework. I have already gone through the anamnesis –​in the medical
sense –​, by looking at examples of ignorance in the Introduction. Now let’s
turn to definitions of ignorance to get the right conception of ignorance in
view. The aim of the following chapters in Part 1 is to provide an overview
of (cognitive) conceptions of ignorance and to develop an appropriate con-
ception of ignorance that will provide the basis for the question of how we
should rationally deal with ignorance.

Notes
1 Outside of philosophy of ignorance, there are other examples of distinction
between a logical and a psychological concept. For example, Andrew Chignell
 The Framework I 35

in a paper on Kant’s concept of justification makes a similar distinction between

assent as a “psychological concept” and judgment as a “logical concept” in
Kant’s epistemology (2007, 35).
2 It might seem that the Standard View and the New View of ignorance also belong
with reductionist logical approaches to ignorance. The Standard View reduces
ignorance to a lack of knowledge –​Le Morvan’s view –​and the New View
reduces it to true belief –​Peels’ view. Both authors talk of offering definitions of
ignorance (e.g., Peels 2010, 57, 59, Le Morvan 2011b, 335), and, second, both
proposals look like descendants of Aristotle’s privation account of knowledge.
Especially the Standard View can be said to make very similar claims. See this
passage about the implications of the Standard View noted above: “Insights
into the nature of knowledge automatically yield corresponding putative
insights into the nature of ignorance. … Being purely privative and negational,
its nature is completely determined by its contrast with the nature of know-
ledge” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 17). But the two views do not belong with
logical approaches to ignorance since Peels and Le Morvan talk about “the
nature of ignorance” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 12), about “what it is to
be ignorant” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 12, emphasis in original), and this
means that their theories belong with empirical conceptions of ignorance.
3 Hoek and Lomuscio use φ instead of X.
4 Further problems are in view for Olsson and Proietti with regard to their list of
features of ignorance:
a Ignorance is a (cognitive) state, not a (cognitive) process (Olsson and Proietti
2016, 83).
b Ignorance does not come with an emotional or volitional component (Olsson
and Proietti 2016, 84).
c Ignorance does not come in degrees because knowledge does not come in
degrees (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 85).
d Ignorance is a passive attitude because it can be independent of the agent’s
knowledge of alternatives (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 92).
The first claim (a) about ignorance being a (cognitive) state is later reformulated
by Olsson and Proietti as referring to a state understood as “a particular con-
figuration of the epistemic space” (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 91) of an agent.
First, the features of ignorance are not developed formally, which is unfortu-
nate even for a semi-​formal account. Second, it is not clear where these features
of ignorance come from and what the basis for these claims about ignorance is.
They appear to be only stipulations.
Olsson and Proietti also do not offer sufficient arguments for (b) and (c);
they just present them as obviously true when looked at in comparison with
another attitude –​doubt. Ignorance, unlike doubt, does not have an emo-
tional or volitional component, and ignorance, unlike doubt, does not come
in degrees. In the first case the strategy may work: their definition of ignorance
does not include an emotional or volitional component, unlike doubt, which,
according to Olsson and Proietti’s construal, contains the agent having the issue
in doubt on her “research agenda” (Olsson and Proietti 2016, 94).
36 What Is Ignorance?

But in the case of (c) where ignorance is said to not have degrees, there is
not enough argument for that. The only argument they offer is that knowledge
does not come in degrees either, but obviously, they cannot avail themselves of
this argument because they take themselves to have shown that ignorance is
not absence of knowledge. Why should the standards of knowledge apply for
ignorance, if ignorance is not just absence of knowledge?
  Note also that van der Hoek and Lomuscio, on whom Olsson and Proietti
rely in their formal account, allow that there are degrees of ignorance and they
consider that those degrees could be captured in a “spectrum of concepts,” for
example, A has no information at all, or A regards a fact to be “more likely
to be true or false but still contemplates the possibility of the fact being false”
(van der Hoek and Lomuscio 2004, 99–​100). It is thus not clear why we should
suppose that there are no degrees of ignorance, even on a semi-​formal (logical)
approach.
  Since it is unclear how the four features are related to the semi-​formal defin-
ition of ignorance as not knowing X and not knowing that not-​X, the worries
and objections against the features of ignorance given by Olsson and Proietti do
not necessarily affect the definition of ignorance. But Olsson and Proietti’s con-
tribution to the formal approach to ignorance would seem to be, in effect, fairly
uninformative, because the major insight is one they take from van der Hoek
and Lomuscio. Let me emphasize that the rest of their paper does contain a
novel and valuable discussion of how one should define doubt and the relation
between doubt and ignorance, which I cannot address in this context. In this
respect their contribution is innovative, but it is not sufficient as a semi-​formal
non-​reductionist account of ignorance.
5 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for inviting me to say more about the use of
the term “syndrome” in this book.
6 The order may change and there may be more distinctions (e.g., more on bio­
chemistry), but this doesn’t matter for my study.
7 Cf. the German distinction between Unwissen (object) and Unwissenheit (state
of ignorance).
3 Conceptions of Ignorance

This chapter is devoted to formulating a conception of ignorance that

captures ignorance as a real-​world phenomenon manifested in human
beings as they are. I will frame this issue as the task of determining the first
sentence for an entry for the syndrome ignorance. This rather metaphor-
ical frame may be surprising to some readers, but it is useful for illustrating
why it matters which definition or conception of ignorance we employ.
It is what forms the basis for everything we say about, do with and do
about ignorance. When Sally Haslanger distinguishes different answers
we may want from asking “What is racism?” and from asking “What is
knowledge?”, she shows why it is important to have an answer –​a con-
ception –​that fits to what we want (Haslanger 1999, 2017). And since
I’m interested in ignorance as a real-​world, cognitive phenomenon, “what
we want” is important for the answers that can be given to the question
“What is ignorance?”
For most philosophers, I dare say, “What is ignorance?” looks like
a simple question with a simple answer. Their answer is: Of course,
the first sentence that gives a general description of ignorance should
be: “Ignorance is lack of knowledge,” or the closely related “Ignorance is
absence of knowledge.” They would go for this definition because that is
how they put ignorance. There is ignorance when there is no knowledge.
Today, authors standardly state that ignorance is lack of knowledge or
lack of true belief. I have already revealed in the Introduction that I will
not accept this definition of ignorance, but there is no denying that it cur-
rently is the standard position.
Nevertheless, there is ample reason for contesting the status of “ignor-
ance is lack of knowledge” as the standard position, and, thus, as the
hypothetical first sentence on ignorance. The claim that ignorance is lack
of knowledge is rejected by other conceptions, for example, quite expli-
citly, by the defenders of what is called the New View who say that “ignor-
ance is lack of true belief” (e.g., Peels 2010, 2023).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-4
38 What Is Ignorance?

There are further legitimate claims to defining ignorance by other

accounts and so in this chapter I review different conceptions of ignorance
and treat them as candidates for the definition. The following conceptions
of ignorance will be discussed:

1 Reductionist propositional conceptions: Standard View and New View

2 Agential conceptions of ignorance: Normative View and Epistemologies
of ignorance
3 Structural conceptions of ignorance
4 Integrated Conception of ignorance.

My proposed conception is the Integrated Conception that recognizes

ignorance as a multifaceted phenomenon.

3.1 Reductionist Propositional Conceptions

Reductionist propositional conceptions reduce ignorance to lack of know-
ledge or lack of true belief. They focus on propositional ignorance and
on the doxastic character of ignorance. The most prominent reductionist
views are the Standard View –​ignorance is lack of knowledge –​and the
New View –​ignorance is lack of belief. Rik Peels defends the New View of
ignorance, but he accepts that there is more than propositional ignorance
and even notes that

the nature of ignorance is … to be in a state of propositional ignorance

(i.e. to lack propositional knowledge or to lack true belief), to be in
a state of objectual ignorance (i.e. roughly, to lack objectual know-
ledge), or to be in a state of practical ignorance (i.e. to lack practical
knowledge).
(Peels 2023, 37)

But the New View is a view about propositional ignorance (as we will see
later) and does not combine with objectual ignorance or practical ignor-
ance. Peels recognizes that strategic ignorance is not reducible to prop-
ositional ignorance and also involves practical ignorance, but the New
View is limited to propositional ignorance. That is why this approach fits
the heading “Reductionist propositional conceptions,” together with the
Standard View. I sometimes call these conceptions doxastic conceptions
because they restrict ignorance to doxastic components. I analyze the
Standard View and the New View in turn.
Another brief preliminary note: Le Morvan argues for the Standard View
and Peels argues for the New View, but they have coauthored an article
that helpfully summarizes the arguments from their previous debate and in
 Conceptions of Ignorance 39

referring to formulations and claims made in that article about the Standard
View and the New View, I will refer to and cite both authors, even though
only one of them really is a proponent of the Standard View/​New View.

3.1.1 The Standard View of Ignorance

The Standard View holds that ignorance is lack of knowledge. According

to Le Morvan and Peels, this view goes together with the view that know-
ledge is justified true belief plus some Gettier condition. They briefly con-
sider other accounts of knowledge (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 20–​21), but,
ultimately, they presuppose a “justified true belief +​Gettier condition” con-
ception. On the basis of this assumption they distinguish doxastic ignorance,
alethic ignorance, justificational ignorance, and Gettier-​type ignorance:

i “Doxastic ignorance that p occurs when p is not believed” (Le Morvan

and Peels 2016, 18).
ii “Alethic ignorance occurs when a proposition is not true” (Le Morvan
and Peels 2016, 18f.).
iii “Justificational ignorance occurs when a proposition is believed
without justification” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 19).
iv “Gettier-​type ignorance occurs when a proposition is true and believed
with justification, but is subject to Gettier-​type counterexamples” (Le
Morvan and Peels 2016, 19).

My first worry already appears at this juncture: it is not clear why an

account of ignorance should go back to a conception of knowledge that is
contested and not without competitors and alternatives. Le Morvan and
Peels could have given an argument for starting with “justified true belief
+​Gettier condition” conception since one might be just as convinced that
a capacity conception of knowledge is more appropriate to capture what
it means to say that ignorance is lack of knowledge. There are clearly
advantages in using the four components –​belief, truth, justification and
the relevant Gettier condition –​to capture ignorance: They factor into
forms of ignorance. But that by itself is not an argument for taking this
approach since the costs for accepting it might be too high.
Some of the costs of the “justified true belief +​Gettier condition” con-
ception certainly lie in its simplistic assumptions about the epistemic
subject, an anemic subject, one might say. The subject S at the heart of
the conception is neither situated, nor social, nor does the conception
adequately include epistemic attitudes of the subject. That also means that
a conception of knowledge as situated knowledge (cf., e.g., Code 1991)
may be more apt for spelling out ignorance as lack of knowledge. My criti-
cism specifically concerns interpretations of the lack of knowledge claim
40 What Is Ignorance?

that presuppose an anemic subject and simplistic conceptions of know-

ledge as mere justified true belief plus some Gettier condition since that is
how the approach is spelled out by Le Morvan.

The Unified Account Argument

Defenders of the Standard View cannot reject this objection by saying that
the epistemological discussion about which conception of knowledge is right
is irrelevant to the project of defining ignorance because the Standard View
holds that the nature of ignorance “is completely determined by its contrast
with the nature of knowledge” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 17). They have
to decide on a conception of knowledge because ignorance is determined by
the negation of knowledge only, “being purely privative and negational”
(Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 17). They even go so far as to suggest that
“every theory or conception of knowledge automatically yields by negation
a theory or conception of its complement ignorance, and theorizing about
both is thereby unified” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 17). In fact, this obser­
vation is cited as an argument in favor of the Standard View: the Standard
View unifies theory of knowledge and theory of ignorance. I call this the
Unified Account Argument: We should go for the Standard View because it
provides a unified theory of knowledge and ignorance.
To be precise, Le Morvan and Peels spell out this unification argument
in two ways. They spell it out in terms of different types of knowledge
and in terms of different types of ignorance. There is factual knowledge,
objectual knowledge and procedural knowledge (aka know-​how) and,
corresponding to these types of knowledge, there are factual ignorance,
objectual ignorance and procedural ignorance. In addition, for factual
ignorance they distinguish the above kinds of ignorance, corresponding
to the constituents of knowledge: doxastic, alethic, justificational and
Gettier-​type ignorance.
The argument, however, does not work. First and foremost, and as Peels
and Le Morvan admit, if one is not interested in a unified account, the
argument is simply irrelevant. And they do not say why one should aim
for a unified account. Since my distinction between logical and the empir-
ical conceptions of ignorance was partly motivated by the observation that
such a unified account of knowledge and ignorance on which ignorance
is a mere privation is inappropriate, I am not convinced of the need of a
unified account. One express aim of this study is to show that we should
not go for a unified account of knowledge and ignorance because ignor-
ance is more than non-​knowledge.
Second, it is also not clear what the supposed unification consists of.
Is the account unified because it says that there are factual, objectual
 Conceptions of Ignorance 41

and procedural knowledge and, correspondingly, factual, objectual, and

procedural ignorance, and because ignorance is determined by lack of
constituents of knowledge (belief, truth, justification +​x)? If so, how do
the two claims contribute to a unified account? Is the factual, object and
procedural knowledge-​ ignorance observations enough for grounding a
unified account?
The most serious downside of the unified account argument is that it
entails that ignorance does not have a “substantive and positive nature of
its own” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 17). The different cases of ignor­
ance that I have introduced in the Introduction and the discussion of
conceptions of ignorance show that ignorance does have a “substantive
and positive nature of its own.” Ignorance might be logically determined
as lack of knowledge, but ignorance as an empirical conception, as an
empirical concept is not just lack of knowledge. Ignorance as a real-​world
phenomenon is integrated in society; it is manifest in human beings that
are members of societies; it is reflected in people’s belief sets and their
behavior. Ignorance can be manifested as the mental state of a scientist
conducting experiments to get clearer about a particular problem, but it
can also be manifested as the mental state of a citizen who is uninformed
about the situation of a minority group and therefore discriminates against
members of this group.
The Standard View and the unified account argument do not capture
ignorance adequately; they do not see ignorance as a state (or: dispos-
ition) in its own rights and thereby underestimate ignorance and its effects.
Anyone who holds that ignorance is nothing but mere lack of knowledge
and aims at a unified account, thus, trivializes ignorance.
Le Morvan might reply that the claims of the Standard View are only
concerned with the epistemic side of ignorance (cf. Peels and Blaauw
2016, 9), and therefore any challenges about ignorance as a real-​world
phenomenon are unfounded. But this reply would clearly be ad hoc and
inconsistent. Since Le Morvan and Peels cite common language use as a
valid argument for the Standard View (see later), it would be inconsistent
to limit ignorance to some epistemic variety. Their distinctions of var-
ieties of ignorance also are clearly meant to model real-​world phenomena.
Moreover, in times of social epistemology, applied epistemology, non-​ideal
epistemology, etc., it is archaic to just insist on the distinction between
epistemology and ethical, social, practical issues.

The Argument from Common Language

As I have just noted, another argument for the Standard View is common
language usage and dictionary entries. Le Morvan and Peels invite us to
42 What Is Ignorance?

consider the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition 1a of the word

“ignorance”: “The fact or condition of being ignorant; want of know-
ledge (general or special).” The current meaning of “ignorance” as
an antonym of “knowledge” squares with its etymology since the
English term “ignorance” comes from the Middle English “ignor-​ance”
or “ygnoraunce,” from the Old French “ignorance,” from the Latin
“ignōrāntia,” from the Latin “ignosco” derived from “in” (meaning:
the opposite of) and “gnosco” (meaning: know).
(Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 15)

And they add that similar observations hold for other languages (see also
Peels 2023, 54). Le Morvan and Peels admit that such an argument is
not conclusive, but they still want to include it in the argumentation (Le
Morvan and Peels 2016, 15).
There are several issues with this defense and the argument itself. First,
it is not clear that the philosophical investigation of ignorance really “seeks
to understand what is ordinarily meant by a term” (Le Morvan and Peels
2016, 15, my emphasis); philosophical investigation certainly aims to expli­
cate a term, but it is controversial what role the ordinary understanding of
a word should take in this project. Normative epistemology, for example,
does take ordinary understanding into account but aims to improve the
ordinary understanding (e.g., Haslanger 1999). So ordinary understanding
is not allowed to lay any particular claims on the resultant conception.1 If
the Standard View is supposed to go with Ordinary Language Philosophy,
which would make the common usage observation stronger, that is quite
a commitment to take, and again, it would need additional argumentative
support. Moreover, it is not obviously true that a dictionary is the best
place to find the ordinary understanding of a term. Le Morvan and Peels
might have to devise studies to examine the ordinary understanding and,
thus, engage with experimental philosophy.
Second, I do not think that it is even substantially informative to look at
a dictionary entry or ordinary understanding. To an epistemologist, “want
of knowledge (general and special)” is not particularly informative because
she will at once think of the debates surrounding the term knowledge. And
so it is an open question whether “want of knowledge” means the same
to a non-​philosopher as to a philosopher and we might ask ourselves, why
we should give any weight, even light weight, to this consideration? It is
interesting to know but not decisive.
Finally, even if one accepts that referring to a dictionary entry and
common usage is helpful, the common usage observation can be challenged
easily. Le Morvan and Peels summarize the common usage insight
as: “ ‘ignorance’ as an antonym of ‘knowledge’ ” (Le Morvan and Peels
2016, my emphasis). But as the indefinite article indicates, “knowledge”
 Conceptions of Ignorance 43

is but one antonym of “ignorance.” Roget’s Thesaurus, for example, has

the following list of antonyms of ignorance: “Cognizance, Understanding,
Competence, Cultivation, Education, Experience, Intelligence, Knowledge,
Literacy, Talent, Wisdom” (Kirkpatrick and Roget 1998). Why is
the Standard View allowed to ignore these nuances and focus only on
knowledge?
To be clear, the common usage observations are not irrelevant to a study
of ignorance, but they should not be counted as an argument or be treated
as convincing. Note that the same objection applies to accounts that draw
conclusions from the etymology of a term –​in fact, the common usage
argument also, in passing, relies on the etymology of ignorance. In many
languages the word for ignorance does contain a negation and knowledge
(cf. e.g., Peels 2023, 54), but this is not relevant for what the right account
of the phenomenon ignorance is. The observation is a linguistic observa-
tion, not a philosophical argument for the nature of ignorance or the right
conception of ignorance.

The Argument from Ignorance of Falsehoods

The third argument turns on the fact that the Standard View can include
ignorance of falsehoods. The New View cannot include ignorance of
falsehoods and so it is at a disadvantage in comparison with the Standard
View. Again, this is strictly speaking not an argument. It is only an advan-
tage of the Standard View that someone who thinks that there can be
ignorance of falsehoods might deem relevant. But it is not independently
decisive. –​Admittedly, Peels and Le Morvan say that they are not after
decisive arguments, but that does not mean they can just call advantages
“arguments.”
The Standard View explains the possibility of ignorance of falsehoods
by way of examples. Take two propositions, one true, one false.

a “The New Yorker is sold in some book stores in Zurich.” (true)

b “The New Yorker is not sold in some book stores in Zurich.” (false)

Aristotle was ignorant of both propositions. He was pre-​conceptually

ignorant of the falsehood (and the true proposition) since he did not
possess the concepts required to hold an attitude toward the falsehood, for
example, “magazine,” “book stores” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 23).2
Another case of ignorance of falsehoods is post-​conceptual ignorance: S
possesses the conceptual framework, but does not have an attitude toward
that falsehood, for example, you might have been post-​ conceptually
ignorant of the falsehood “The New Yorker is not sold in some book
stores in Zurich.” before reading this paragraph because you possessed
44 What Is Ignorance?

all relevant concepts but you did not know that the New Yorker is sold in
some book stores in Zurich.
As I said, if you think one can be ignorant of falsehoods, this may be
a consideration in favor of the Standard View, but, clearly, it cannot be
decisive. Moreover, it is not clear how this advantage relates to arguments
for the Standard View in general. Maybe one can really want to be able to
say that one can be ignorant of a falsehood, but it is doubtful that this can
force one to commit to the Standard View. It most certainly cannot lead
one to accept the Standard View because Peels and Le Morvan do not give
arguments for the Standard View. They just adduce considerations that
speak for it.3
The three “arguments” might be assumptions in the background of the
Standard View according to Le Morvan, but they are not arguments for
the Standard View in the strict sense, and, thus, do not show why one
should accept the Standard View of Ignorance as spelt out by Le Morvan.
Moreover, the arguments are not convincing, they include desiderata
about a theory of ignorance that can easily be rejected (the unification
of knowledge and ignorance argument) and are based on bad arguments
from common usage. On the basis of these considerations no one will
be tempted to accept the Standard View who has not been holding it
previously.
And the above issues with restricting ignorance to lack of knowledge,
thereby, misconstruing ignorance are bound to impede the Standard View’s
bid for determining the first sentence. A view that misconstrues ignorance
cannot be allowed to determine ignorance and what’s most central about
ignorance.

3.1.2 The New View of Ignorance

The situation is not much different for the arguments for the New View.
The New View holds that ignorance is lack of true belief. On this picture
there are three kinds of ignorance:

i Disbelieving ignorance: one disbelieves that p while p is true.

ii Suspending ignorance: one suspends belief and disbelief on p while
p is true.
iii Deep ignorance: one neither believes nor disbelieves nor suspends
belief and disbelief on p while p is true.
(Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 26)

It is important to note that the New View is not set up as an inde-

pendent position, rather it is developed in opposition to what Le Morvan
has started out calling the “Standard View” (Le Morvan 2011b, 335). In
 Conceptions of Ignorance 45

Peels’ original paper the view is framed as a rejection of “what is widely

assumed among philosopher” (Peels 2010, 59).4 This is also reflected in the
arguments for the New View. They are mainly arguments detailing why
the New View is better than the Standard View, rather than independent
arguments for the conception of ignorance as lack of true belief. We have
seen a similar problem with the considerations that Peels and Le Morvan
present as arguments for the Standard View. Peels gives three arguments
for the New View, but, as we will see, they, too, are not decisive.

The Argument from Conflicting “Intuitions about Cases of True Belief That Fall
Short of Knowledge”

The first argument notes that the Standard View cannot explain the intu-
ition that instances of true belief that fall short of knowledge do not count
as ignorance. The New View can explain this intuition. Peels gives two
examples to illustrate the argument: Imagine Sam who walks into a room,
looks at the clock and sees that it is set on 7 p.m. Sam knows that the
clock is reliable, and he forms the belief that it is 7 p.m. But Sam does not
know that the clock has stopped working 24 hours ago. So, the clock is
unreliable, but it happens to show the right time to Sam. Sam, thus, has
the true belief that it is 7 p.m., but he does not know that it is 7 p.m. On
the Standard View Sam counts as ignorant as to the time, since he does
not know that it is 7 p.m. The New View claims that this verdict conflicts
with our intuitions; New View supporters hold that we are reluctant to
say that Sam is ignorant. On the Standard View Sam counts as ignorant as
to the time, since he does not know that it is 7 p.m. The New View claims
that this verdict conflicts with our intuitions; New View supporters hold
that we are reluctant to say that Sam is ignorant (Le Morvan and Peels
2016, 26–27).
Similarly, for a case of lucky true belief of Alfred which is constructed
along the lines of the first Gettier example (Gettier 1963): Alfred believes
that he will be the next president of the USA and that, thus, the next presi-
dent of the USA currently lives in Columbia, Missouri. The latter belief is
true because Ms. Howard who currently lives in Columbia, Missouri, will
be the next president of the USA. So, Alfred has a true belief that is not jus-
tified. Is he ignorant or not? The New View holds that he is not ignorant.
True belief that falls short of knowledge and merely true belief do not
count as ignorance, and the New View concludes that this also means
that cases between those poles also do not count as ignorance. Peels and
Le Morvan note that accepting one of the examples is enough to defeat
the Standard View, but you need to accept all three steps (true belief that
falls short of knowledge, merely true belief, in-​between cases) to produce
support for the New View (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 27).
46 What Is Ignorance?

How strong is this argument from “Intuitions About Cases of True

Belief that Fall Short of Knowledge” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 26)?
Obviously, it is not doubtful that an appeal to intuitions can consti-
tute a strong argument. But this argument from intuition does not count
as a convincing argument for a theory about the nature of ignorance.
The argument is based on the set up that Le Morvan and Peels have
chosen. Other views that have a different conception of knowledge than
Le Morvan might be able to deal with intuition. They might be able to
offer nuances for dealing with the cases of mere true belief. For example,
a competence conception of knowledge (cf., e.g., Greco 2009) may be
able to pull apart the mere true belief case (Sam’s case) and the belief that
falls short of knowledge case (Alfred’s case), say, locating a mistake in
Alfred’s reasoning, whereas Sam did not make a mistake but was simply
in unfavorable, non-​standard circumstances.5 Why should we choose the
two examples as two poles?
In addition, Pritchard’s Normative View shows that one may disagree
with Peels’ intuitions. Pritchard argues that the New View is unable to iden-
tify some cases of ignorance that we would want to call ignorance. On the
New View a gullible person who just accepts a particular true belief would
not count as ignorant, but on the Normative View that person would count
as ignorant –​since she did not meet the relevant duties of inquiry –​which
is presupposed by her gullibly accepting the belief (Pritchard 2021b).
Peels argues against the Normative View (Peels 2023, 63–​72), but he does
not weaken that particular argument against the New View, and thus
Pritchard’s objection against the New View remains relevant.

The Argument That Ignorance Excuses

The second argument for the New View is supposed to be a “simple modus
tollens” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 29). Blameless ignorance can be an
excuse whereas “any kind of true belief that falls short of knowledge does
not excuse” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 29, emphasis deleted, N.E.), and
thus the defender of the New View concludes that ignorance cannot be lack
of knowledge (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 29, see also Peels 2023, 59f.).
At first glance, this might look like a promising argument for the New
View, but again the argument only favors the New View relative to the
Standard View and does not offer an independent argument. In their joint
paper Le Morvan and Peels also note that the New View can give a unified
account of excuse and that such an account is more attractive (Le Morvan
and Peels 2016, 30). But again, it is questionable whether aiming to develop
a unified account is a sufficient argument for a(ny) theory. Moreover, one
may wonder why it’s important to meet the intuitions about excusing
powers of ignorance and not other intuitions.
 Conceptions of Ignorance 47

Ignorance Comes in Degrees

Peels calls the third argument –​Ignorance comes in degrees –​“perhaps the
strongest argument for the New View” (Peels 2023, 61). Ignorance comes
in degrees (see also Brogaard 2016, 57) and the Standard View cannot
account for this fact, since knowledge does not come in degrees –​and the
Standard View claims that ignorance simply is the antonym of knowledge.
“To be ignorant of” is “moderately relatively gradable” (Peels 2023, 61).
One needs the context to determine what “to be ignorant of” means (Peels
2023, 62). And finally, “is ignorant of” can produce sorites paradoxes and
therefore is gradable (Peels 2023, 62). Again, this argument may speak
against the Standard View –​and indeed it looks promising –,​but it is not
an argument for the New View over other views that may also be able
to account for the fact that ignorance comes in degrees nor is it an inde-
pendent argument for the New View.6
Since the Standard View and the New View are entangled in these argu-
mentative ways and since neither view can establish their argumentative
superiority with independent arguments, I suggest we look at alternative
conceptions that are not reductionist.

3.2 Agential Conceptions: Ignorance as Actively Upheld False

Outlooks
I want to turn to a group of candidates from philosophy that include some
components of the previous “ignorance is lack/​absence of knowledge/​true
belief” suggestions, but at the same time are radically different because they
focus on the cognizer as a subject in a normative or even sociopolitical con-
text. Consequently, ignorance is not simply seen as a state, but as a state of
an epistemic agent. There are two branches of agential conceptions. The
first group of approaches to formulate agential conceptions was part of
epistemologies of ignorance, theories that examine the social and political
nature of ignorance. On these conceptions, the ignorant subject is regarded
as a member of a hierarchically organized and unjust community. There
is considerable overlap between epistemologies of ignorance and feminist
philosophy and critical race theory. Some of the authors working with a
feminist and critical race background distance themselves from more trad-
itional epistemology of ignorance by using the plural of epistemology –​
epistemologies of ignorance –​thereby noting that there is not just one
epistemology (cf. Alcoff 2007). The second group of approaches focuses
on the normative traits in ignorance, so-​called Normative Views of ignor-
ance. Pritchard has first put forward a normative conception of ignorance
(2021). Anne Meylan also advances a normative account of ignorance,
building on Pritchard but offering an adapted version of the position –​for
48 What Is Ignorance?

example, by introducing talk of “improper inquiry” –​and an independent

argument for this normative conception (2022). I’ll start with norma­
tive conceptions of ignorance because they are closer to the traditional
approaches to ignorance and then turn to epistemologies of ignorance.7

3.2.1 The Normative View of Ignorance (Pritchard and Meylan)

Duncan Pritchard has first introduced the notion of a Normative View of

ignorance into the debate (2021). Pritchard holds that “to be ignorant is
to be unaware of a fact that one ought to be aware of” (Pritchard 2021b,
226). This conception of ignorance is conjunctive since it combines the
epistemic standing of a subject –​“be[ing] unaware of a fact” (Pritchard
2021b, 226) –​and the normative demands on the subject’s belief. In other
words, in order to be ignorant a person needs to lack awareness of a fact
when she ought to have awareness of this fact (cf. Pritchard 2021b, 237).
Mere lack of awareness is not enough, the ought-​condition also has to
be met. Pritchard’s epistemic state in question is “awareness of a fact”
(Pritchard 2021b, 240) rather than knowledge. Awareness amounts to
direct or indirect epistemic access to a fact, access via perceptual experi-
ence or via testimony. According to Pritchard, awareness is more than true
belief and less than knowledge, something in-​between.
By introducing the ought-​condition, Pritchard aims to distinguish cases
in which we would not attribute ignorance to a subject from those cases in
which we would attribute ignorance to a subject. The most pertinent case
is not knowing pointless truths –​for example, how many ships and boats
are on Lake Lucerne while I am writing this sentence. I don’t know that
number, but, Pritchard claims, we would be reluctant to call me ignorant
in such a case of pointless truths. Similarly for unknowable truths. We
can’t know them, but we still wouldn’t call ourselves ignorant if we don’t
know unknowable truths. So there is an important difference between not
knowing something (some proposition or a fact) and ignorance.
How does Pritchard determine what “one ought to be aware of”
(Pritchard 2021b, 226)? One ought to be aware of those truths that are
epistemically available (Pritchard 2021b, 229) or practically important
(Pritchard 2021b, 229). Pritchard notes that a parent who could read the
diary of their child but does not read the diary is not ignorant because
they are not subject to an ought. He also refers to the Sentinelese to spe-
cify when someone counts as ignorant: they do not know about “modern
science” because they shun any contact with the outside world, but we
“will be reluctant to describe them” as ignorant because they have a “good
rationale, by their own lights at least” (Pritchard 2021b, 234).
Pritchard’s normative conception can be regarded as an advancement of
philosophical debates about theories of ignorance because he avoids the
 Conceptions of Ignorance 49

derivative approach of the Standard View and the New View and includes
normative considerations in the conception of ignorance itself.
The Normative View does not reduce individuals who are ignorant
to epistemic subjects with doxastic states who are not embedded in an
environment. It is a conjunctive conception on which someone is ignorant
only when they lack awareness and ought to have this awareness because
it is practically relevant or epistemically available. Individuals can assess
practical relevance and live in groups and contexts in which there are
oughts, for example, obligations and expectations (inter alia). And
Pritchard’s evaluation of whether an individual ought to have awareness
takes into account the situation of the individual. For example, for the
Sentinelese tribe not knowing about modern science is, as Pritchard puts
it, rational “by their own lights at the least” (Pritchard 2021b, 234).
And so Pritchard does include identities and situatedness and social
contexts in the evaluation of ignorance. They are indirectly built into
the definition of ignorance because they are necessary for explicating
and determining whether the subject ought to have this awareness and
what is practically relevant. They are not in the definition or conception
of ignorance itself, but they come up when the conception is applied to
the individual case. The crucial difference to the Standard View and the
New View is that the Normative View opens up space for constitutive
factors beyond the doxastic level, namely the normative realm of oughts.
It acknowledges that oughts are central for determining ignorance.
Meylan aims to expand Pritchard’s normative conception of ignorance
by offering an independent argument for the normative conception. Since
Meylan’s reconstruction of the normative conception does not include the
conjunctive setup of Pritchard, I discuss it separately. Meylan holds that
“ignorance is the lack of a valuable cognitive state (knowledge/​true beliefs)
that is due to an improper inquiry” (2024, 210).
On her conception, ignorance is prima facie bad because it is a
“disvaluable cognitive state,” the absence of something valuable.
Ignorance can be all things considered good, but it remains prima facie
bad. That is also why Meylan claims that ignorance is “the fitting object
of negative emotions” (2024, 214). She argues that if we “isolat[e]‌the
instance of ignorance from the specific circumstances in which it takes
place” (2024, 219) a negative emotion will always be correct or fitting.
I will take issue with this claim later, but before that I want to unpack the
account and add Meylan’s independent argument for a normative concep-
tion. “Improper inquiry,” the reason for ignorance, is improper because it
is conducted too slowly or carelessly. And the term picks up on Pritchard’s
conception of an “intellectual failing that is concerned with a failing of
good inquiry” (Pritchard 2021a, 115). Meylan endorses the Normative
View of ignorance because it can account for the negativity of ignorance
50 What Is Ignorance?

and because it can explain the negativity of ignorance. Ignorance as the

result of improper inquiry is bad because it is a “missed opportunity to
know” (Meylan 2024, 213). We must not miss opportunities to know,
Meylan holds.
In a way, Meylan’s conception anticipates the Jamesian twin goals
“Strive for truth, avoid falsehood” and assumes a rationalistic conception
of the value of knowledge that is shared by an “economics of informa-
tion perspective” (Hertwig and Engel 2021. 14) and “microeconomics”
(Meylan 2024, fn. 15): If there’s a cheap way to getting knowledge, one
must take it. It would be irrational not to acquire this easy knowledge. On
her conception, deliberate ignorance (cf. Hertwig and Engel 2021), cannot
be rational or sensitive. I return to the Jamesian twin goals and whether
they are good suggestion for dealing with ignorance in Chapter 8.
As I said earlier, I am not convinced that ignorance is always prima facie
bad nor that it always elicits and warrants negative emotions. Meylan
wants to focus on the reaction that ignorance gets when we “isolat[e]‌the
instance of ignorance from the specific circumstances in which it takes
place” (2022, 13) –​but I do not understand what that would even mean,
nor whether we can even get at such a reaction. What would we get if we
isolate ignorance from the circumstances in which it takes place? What
would such ignorance even be? And how would a reference to an emotion
come in when one isolates from the circumstances of the case of ignor-
ance? Moreover, Meylan’s Normative Account of ignorance as the result
of improper inquiry could not be understood or applied on this abstract
idealizing model. We would certainly be unable to determine something
as a case of ignorance that is the result of improper inquiry if we are to
abstract away from the particular circumstances of that instance of ignor-
ance. So the first issue is that we cannot adequately identify ignorance (as
understood by Meylan’s own conception). The second issue is that we
cannot take this isolating stance toward ignorance and still take up an
emotional or evaluative stance.8
I also do not think that one is required not to “miss [out on an] oppor-
tunity to know.” We don’t have to know everything that we can know.
Think of knowledge that can lead to dangerous deadly development, for
example, knowledge on how to make bacteria more heat resistant that
would be conducive to biological weapons. Another argument is avoiding
cluttering (cf. Harman 1986). Meylan might respond that her claim is just
prima facie correct. But I do not think that this says much if the expect-
ation that we must not miss out on an opportunity to know does not
hold, as I’m sure many cases will show. And this also reflects back on
Meylan’s initial assumption that ignorance is prima facie disvaluable or
bad. If we can come up with relevant examples of ignorance in which one
is not faulted for remaining ignorant and if we can add cases ignorance is
 Conceptions of Ignorance 51

conducive to knowledge, for example, investigative ignorance that is not

even epistemically bad, why hold on to the idea that ignorance is prima
facie bad? The claim would be simply wrong.

3.2.2 Ignorance as Actively Upheld False Outlooks

The second branch of agential conceptions focuses on agents or cognizers,

but they do not idealize agents, the environment or even ignorance itself.
Instead, they are firmly rooted in and focused on human beings and the
world as they really are.9 And so they discuss ignorance as a facet of
unjust oppressive communities, in particular in the shape of epistemic
injustice, for example, pernicious ignorance as a feature in oppressive
societies (e.g., Dotson 2011) or ignorance as actively brought about
and maintained (e.g., Pohlhaus 2012, Medina 2013). Hence ignor­­
ance is mainly seen as a negative condition with detrimental effects on
oppressed subjects in unjust societies.10 I call the underlying conception
of ignorance in this field “Ignorance as actively upheld false outlooks”
(El Kassar 2018).
On these conceptions, ignorance is conceptualized as passive and active,
as something that affects subjects, and also something that is constructed
or produced by subjects. Charles Mills’ conception of white ignorance and
José Medina’s conception of active ignorance may provide the blueprint
for a conception of ignorance thus informed. Similar conclusions may be
drawn from other authors in epistemology of ignorance, for example,
Kristie Dotson’s notion of reliable ignorance which “needs to be under-
stood not as a simple lack of knowledge, but as an active practice of
unknowing” (Dotson 2011, 243). Since Mills’ work has been so ground­
breaking and influences most authors –​including Dotson’s conception of
ignorance –​and since Medina’s conception emphasizes the role of the epi-
stemic subject in ignorance, I focus on Mills’ and Medina’s theories. I start
with Mills’ conception.
The term white ignorance is “meant to denote an ignorance among
whites –​an absence of belief, a false belief, a set of false beliefs, a per-
vasively deforming outlook –​that [is] not contingent but causally linked
to their whiteness” (Mills 2015, 217). While race plays a causal role in
determining white ignorance, it is not restricted to white people but can
be transmitted to nonwhites via unjust relations (Mills 2007, 22). White
ignorance manifests itself paradigmatically in white people being unable
to understand the world, make sense of other people’s lives, question their
own position in an unjust society. Such ignorance is “a cognitive ten-
dency –​an inclination, a doxastic disposition” (Mills 2007, 23).11
At first glance, Mills’ white ignorance may seem restricted to propos-
itional ignorance and doxastic attitudes.12 But as becomes clear in Mills’
52 What Is Ignorance?

adapted description of white ignorance in his article on global white

ignorance (2015), Mills’ conception also takes the subject’s motivation
and her attitudes into account, thus going beyond a reductionist doxastic
conception. The traces of this fundamental assumption are also in Mills’
book The Racial Contract (1997) in which he develops “white ignor­
ance” as a component of “an epistemology of ignorance, [as] a particular
pattern of localized and global cognitive dysfunctions” (Mills 1997, 18,
my emphasis). This kind of ignorance is manifest in people’s outlook on
the world and their actions, for example, in their avoiding evidence, their
harboring false beliefs, in not listening to other people, etc. Their ignor-
ance is an epistemic practice in which propositional ignorance is merely
one of the contributing components.
As a representative of epistemologies of ignorance, Mills naturally
transcends the propositional framework, for example, by going for a
wide conception of knowledge on which it includes concept-​possession,
understanding and epistemic attitudes more broadly, because willful
ignorance is not limited to the absence of true beliefs and the presence of
false belief. Mills’ view of ignorance as an epistemic practice that consists
in a “pervasively deforming outlook” Mills 2015, 217 cannot be squared
with any reductionist propositional approach.
Medina’s concept of active ignorance also instantiates the agential con-
ception of ignorance. Active ignorance is fed by epistemic vices –​in par-
ticular, by arrogance, laziness and close-​mindedness. More particularly,
active ignorance is

an ignorance that occurs with the active participation of the subject and
with a battery of defense mechanisms, [it is] an ignorance that is not
easy to undo and correct, for this requires retraining –​the reconfigur-
ation of epistemic attitudes and habits –​as well as social change.
(Medina 2013, 39)

For Medina’s conception it is even more obvious that ignorance is not

restricted to propositional ignorance. Active ignorance is constituted by the
subject’s “epistemic attitudes and habits,” thus going significantly beyond
ignorance as propositional ignorance. On these agential conceptions epis-
temologies of ignorance are social and political.
These agential conceptions of ignorance go beyond the reductionist
propositional conception of ignorance in just the right way. They provide
material for capturing ignorance more adequately. Think of the example of
Hannah who does not know that the sulfur and carbon dioxide emissions
of cruise ships are bad for the environment and also would not want to
know that this is true of cruise ships. The agential conception can capture
her close-​mindedness.
 Conceptions of Ignorance 53

What sort of conception for ignorance do these approaches lead to?

On the basis of Mills’ and Medina’s considerations one might suggest the
following statement:

Ignorance is a cognitive dysfunction either passive or actively produced

by the subject and it is realized in absence of knowledge, the presence
false beliefs and “pervasively deforming outlooks” (Mills 2015, 217;
see also Mills 2007, 16).

This conception fulfills some of my desiderata but also has some

disadvantages. It includes the ignorant subject, but I am skeptical as to
whether claims about the causes of ignorance –​passive or active –​should
be included in the first sentence. In addition, talk of a dysfunction, albeit
insightful, gets us on the wrong track because it suggests that ignorance is
a process, when it seems more appropriately captured as a state, or a dis-
position. But the character of ignorance is not the only problem with this
suggestion. There is a still more fundamental problem that is likely to affect
any suggestion that comes from feminist and critical race epistemology of
ignorance. As I have noted earlier, these conceptions regard ignorance as a
negative condition, and in the case of oppressed subjects in unjust societies,
ignorance has detrimental effects on these subjects. After all, ignorance is
social and political. But ignorance is not always negative; the conception
of ignorance should leave space for scientific ignorance and other conceiv-
able cases of positive or beneficial ignorance (see Introduction). And so
these observations about ignorance are crucial, but they are too specific
as a general conception of ignorance. But as I will show in the Integrated
Conception, we can disconnect the valuable insights about the role of the
epistemic agent in ignorance from the claim that ignorance is bad and
make sure that they are reflected in the first sentence.

3.3 The Structural Conception: Ignorance as a Substantive Epistemic

Practice
Linda Alcoff’s conception of ignorance is also representative of the
approach in epistemologies of ignorance –​in fact, Alcoff’s 2007 article is
titled “Epistemologies of Ignorance” and she argues for the plural formu-
lation. The conception is related to the agential conception but goes one
step further since Alcoff conceives of ignorance as a “substantive epistemic
practice” (Alcoff 2007, 39, emphasis in original) including individual,
social and structural belief-​forming practices.

Even in mainstream epistemology, the topic of ignorance as a species

of bad epistemic practice is not new, but what is new is the idea of
54 What Is Ignorance?

explaining ignorance not as a feature of neglectful epistemic practice

but as a substantive epistemic practice in itself. The idea of an epistem-
ology of ignorance attempts to explain and account for the fact that
such substantive practices of ignorance –​willful ignorance, for example,
and socially acceptable but faulty justificatory practices –​are structural.
This is to say that there are identities and social locations and modes
of belief formation, all produced by structural social conditions of a
variety of sorts, that are in some cases epistemically disadvantaged or
defective.
(Alcoff 2007, 39–​40, first emphases in original
but last emphasis mine)

Her conception of ignorance, thus, is agential but also structural. Ignorance

is a “bad epistemic practice” (Alcoff 2007, 39) that is also structurally
manifested. Ignorance as a (bad) practice is not just rooted in the beliefs,
epistemic vices, and the outlook of the individual but also manifest in and
maintained by social and institutional structures and mechanisms. Let’s
call this the structural conception of ignorance.
Nancy Tuana also employs this conception when she shows how sev-
eral kinds of ignorance “intersect with power” (Tuana 2006, 3). Despite
appearances, this holds in particular for ignorance in science. Tuana also
rejects the standard propositional conception of ignorance:

Ignorance in the realm of science is typically depicted as a gap in know-

ledge: something that we do not (yet) know. But the condition of not
knowing is not (always) that simple. Just as any adequate account of
knowledge must include far more than the truth of that piece of know-
ledge –​including, for instance, an analysis of why those who are in a
position of authority (which itself requires a genealogical analysis) have
come to accept that belief as true –​so too ignorance in the fields of
knowledge production is far more complex an issue than something we
simply do not yet know.
(Tuana 2006, 3)

We need to recognize that ignorance is situated, Tuana argues. She parallels

this development in conceptualizing ignorance with the insight that know-
ledge is situated (Tuana 2006, 3), though, of course, the claim that know­
ledge is situated is still fairly contested in epistemology. This gives us an
idea of how controversial Alcoff’s and Tuana’s conception of ignorance
may sound to some.
Conceptualizing ignorance as an epistemic practice may seem equally
controversial. But it is possible to spell out ignorance in terms of an epi-
stemic practice. Including the claims about ignorance as structurally
 Conceptions of Ignorance 55

manifested or collective requires carefully integrating theories of social

ignorance and institutions, and asking whether there is something like
ignorance in social institutions. A role model for extending a somewhat
individualist conception to a structural conception is Anderson’s structural
interpretation of epistemic injustice (Anderson 2012).
On the basis of Alcoffs’ remarks we can formulate the following struc-
tural conception of ignorance:

Ignorance is a practice that involves individual, social and institutional

belief-​forming practices that are biased, mal-​informed or in other ways
dysfunctional.

But this proposal has the same drawback as the second agential concep-
tion: it pictures ignorance as purely negative when ignorance may, in fact,
be valuable in the sciences and in inquiry quite generally (e.g., Bromberger
1992, Firestein 2012).
Moreover, despite all the previous criticism of reductionist propos-
itional conceptions, it would be a mistake not to explicitly mention the
considerations about propositional ignorance, and the relations between
knowledge/​ true belief and ignorance in the conception. The debate
between the Standard View and the New View is misguided and works
with a faulty dichotomy, but these propositional ignorance conceptions
have still suggested valuable details about propositional ignorance that are
also fruitful for more practice-​oriented conceptions.
The Standard View and the New View cannot lay claim to being com-
plete and definitive accounts of ignorance, but they do address central
facets of ignorance. For example, the three-​partite distinction of kinds of
ignorance of the New View could be useful for distinguishing importantly
different kinds of propositional ignorance in a person. It enables us to
distinguish at some level Hannah who is deeply ignorant that cruise ships
have high emissions of both carbon and sulfur dioxides and, therefore,
are bad for the environment and Monika who is suspendingly ignorant
that cruise ships have high emissions of both carbon and sulfur dioxides
and, therefore, are bad for the environment. They are both ignorant but in
importantly different ways. The practice conception itself does not include
propositional ignorance and does not mention these details of the dox-
astic component of ignorance. It is, thus, also not sufficient for capturing
ignorance.
I have now discussed the most salient options concerning ignorance
currently on the market, but we have seen that every position is lacking
is some or another aspect. At the same time, we have also seen that, in
addition to their disadvantages, there are some advantages to all of the
positions. It is just that all on their own and because of their individual
56 What Is Ignorance?

limitations they are not fit to formulate the first sentence for an encyclo-
pedia entry on ignorance, in other words: they cannot determine the core
of ignorance. Consequently, the only promising positions are a disjunctive
or a conjunctive conception of ignorance.
One might also take a Wittgensteinian route and reject the very possi-
bility of finding a first sentence for ignorance, and of defining ignorance,
but this is no option in this project. The definition does not have to capture
all there is to ignorance, it should just be appropriate to the phenomenon
and allow for a discussion of ways of dealing with ignorance. I endorse
what I call an Integrated Conception, but before I turn to outlining this
conception, I want to formulate adequacy conditions that a conception of
ignorance that can determine the first sentence will have to meet.

3.4 Adequacy Conditions

These adequacy conditions are partly based on the discussion of the
different candidates for the first sentence in the previous sections, but they
are also developed from the demands of the second question of this study –​
how to rationally deal with ignorance.

3.4.1 Ignorance Is a Real-​World Phenomenon

The conception must adequately capture ignorance as a real-​world phe-

nomenon that is multifaceted and differently instantiated, and not just as
an abstract logical concept. We have seen in the logical approaches by
van der Hoek and Lomuscio (2004) and in the semi-​formal approach by
Olsson and Proietti (2016) that such approaches have a restricted pic­
ture of ignorance that does not fit with the non-​ideal, messy, real-​world
manifestations of ignorance that are the interest of my epistemological
questions about ignorance and ways of dealing with ignorance. The con-
ception should avoid abstractions that make ignorance unclear (e.g., as
in Meylan’s (2024) abstraction suggestion or in the Standard View and
New View).

3.4.2 Ignorance Is a Self-​Standing Phenomenon

The conception must approach ignorance as a self-​standing phenomenon

that is not just determined derivatively by its relation to knowledge and
true belief. In the debate between the Standard View and the New View
we have seen that ignorance is more than lack of knowledge/​true belief,
and instead is a state of an epistemic agent that needs to be examined as
such. Of course, it is connected to knowledge and true belief in important
ways, but this is just one facet of ignorance, as the agential conception
 Conceptions of Ignorance 57

and the structural conception have indicated. In addition, by choosing this

approach we can also make sure that we do not forget that ignorance can
also consist in error and false belief.

3.4.3 Avoid Narrow Conceptions of Knowledge

The conception has to avoid narrow conceptions of knowledge, for

example, equating knowledge with justified true belief or presupposing
a justified true belief +​x conception of knowledge. Instead it should
employ a wide conception of knowledge, on which knowledge is realized
in concept-​possession, understanding, justified true beliefs, interrelated
networks of pieces of knowledge.

3.4.4 Avoid Mistakes and Embrace Advantages of Other

Conceptions of Ignorance

We are looking for a conception that preserves the advantages of the other
conceptions and avoids their mistakes. The advantage of propositional
conceptions lies in the nuances in the doxastic structure that they provide.
The advantages of the agential and structural conceptions lie in recog-
nizing that ignorance is not limited to the doxastic level but is also mani-
fest in the agent herself and in social structures. And, more particularly,
they acknowledge that ignorance is manifest in the epistemic attitudes of
an epistemic agent.

3.4.5 Ignorance as the State of an Agent

The conception must take seriously that ignorance is a state of an agent

and that this agent is not some anemic abstract being but an epistemic
agent that is modeled after real non-​ideal human being.

3.4.6 A Neutral Conception of Ignorance

We are looking for a neutral conception of ignorance that is not limited

to ignorance being dysfunctional or in other ways negative. Ignorance can
be negative, for example, in close-​mindedly not wanting to know about
unjust conditions in one’s community, or in a doctor not knowing about
the standard treatment for the condition of one’s patient. But ignorance
can also be positive, for example, when one does not know how algae
blooming is related to the water temperature as one just starts one’s pro-
ject to work on the relation between the water temperature and algae
blooming, or in not knowing what one will receive as a birthday present
from one’s partner.
58 What Is Ignorance?

3.4.7 Connection to the Question “How Should We Rationally

Deal with Ignorance?”

The conception should provide the material and grounds for answering
the question “How should we rationally deal with ignorance?” We have
seen that the Standard View and the New View do not provide sufficient
material because they would tell us to focus on the doxastic level only, on
getting knowledge or getting true belief. But there is more to dealing with
ignorance because there is more to ignorance than the lack of knowledge
or true belief.

3.5 The Integrated Conception of Ignorance

After this discussion of current conceptions of ignorance and after having
formulated adequacy conditions for an apt conception of ignorance, I can
turn to developing and explicating my conception of ignorance. I call it an
Integrated Conception of Ignorance because it includes insights from the
different conceptions of ignorance and at the same time aims to avoid their
disadvantages.
One crucial disagreement between my Integrated Conception and
reductionist conceptions of ignorance lies in the scope of ignorance that
a conception should have. This is paradigmatically manifested in Peels’
criticism of my previous formulation of an Integrated Conception (Peels
2023). I have previously argued that

ignorance is a disposition of an epistemic agent that manifests itself in

her beliefs –​either she has no belief about p or a false belief –​her epi-
stemic attitudes (doxastic attitudes, epistemic virtues, epistemic vices).
(El Kassar 2018)

Peels rejects this conception and holds that his New View of ignorance
and this account of the nature of ignorance can do everything that my
Integrated Conception claims to do. Parts of Peels’ criticism of the above
formulation of the Integrated Conception are correct, but I still hold on
to the core of the Integrated Conception because –​as will become clear
in this section –​Peels has not shown that we can remain on the doxastic
level in determining ignorance (neither in his 2019 comment nor in the
2023 book).
Peels claims that the nature of ignorance should be determined as
follows: “Ignorance is the lack of propositional knowledge/​the lack of true
belief, or the lack of objectual knowledge, or the lack of practical know-
ledge” (Peels 2023, 41). And propositional ignorance should be under­
stood as “lacking a true belief that is of significance” (Peels 2023, 73).
 Conceptions of Ignorance 59

The Integrated Conception is at fault because it “confuse[s]‌the nature of

[ignorance] with the accidental features of it that we value or disvalue”
(Peels 2023, 47, my additions). Note that there is an ambiguity in Peels’
very setup: The nature of ignorance is being lack of propositional know-
ledge or lack of objectual knowledge or lack of practical knowledge, but it
is also lack of “a true belief that is of significance.” Which of the statements
is more fundamental?
Peels argues that my initial definition is faulty: First, “doxastic
attitudes” can be dropped from the addition in brackets because belief or
disbelief are doxastic attitudes. Second, epistemic virtues and epistemic
vices are dispositions so they cannot appear in a disposition. Third, open-​
mindedness, close-​mindedness and other virtues and vices are contingent
or accidental features of ignorance and thus not central to the nature of
ignorance.
Let me address the objections in turn. I could make the case why we can
leave doxastic attitudes in brackets and why they are more than belief and
disbelief, but I’ll hand this point to Peels without much discussion because
I want to aim further than the doxastic attitudes. Similarly for the second
objection. What’s more important is that Peels confuses determinables and
determinates with regard to virtues and vices in general and particular
virtues and vices, such as open-​mindedness and close-​mindedness. Saying
that ignorance is co-​constituted by epistemic virtues and or vices does not
mean that particular, determinate virtues always constitute ignorance.
It means that virtues or vices as determinables co-​constitute ignorance.
Peels’ objection against my first formulation of an Integrated Conception
of Ignorance misconstrues the conception and thus does not affect the fun-
dament of the actual conception.
As I said, I have modified my first formulation of an Integrated
Conception because virtues or vices are not the only constituents that need
to be considered for ignorance. But let me first take issue with Peels’ idea
of the nature of ignorance. His proposal that includes lack of propositional
knowledge (true belief), objectual knowledge and practical knowledge is
progressive because it goes beyond lack of propositional knowledge or
lack of true belief in determining ignorance. But, nevertheless, it does not
suffice for an adequate account of ignorance. If we try to explain ignor-
ance and simply use Peels’ claims about the nature of ignorance and his
New View of propositional ignorance, we have not really explained what
ignorance is. There are facets of ignorance –​that all instances of ignorance
have –​that are not captured by his approach. For example, we cannot
capture white ignorance with the New View or Peels’ remarks on the three
types of ignorance that constitute the nature of ignorance. Peels says that
white ignorance “is the lack of belief, false belief, or various false beliefs
(all captured by the conception of propositional ignorance), in certain cases
60 What Is Ignorance?

brought about or caused by factors related to race, gender, and the like”
(Peels 2023, 171). But this is a faulty and gappy reading of white ignor­
ance –​Peels does not see that it is not contingent that white ignorance is
caused by “factors related to race, gender and the like” (Peels 2023, 171).
That’s a necessary feature of white ignorance. In addition, he does not
recognize that white ignorance is not merely caused by these factors but
constituted by them and by further psychological processes as well as per-
ception, reasoning and memory. Mills himself describes white ignorance
as an outlook on the world, not just a set of false beliefs (Mills 2007, 22f.).
I have noted that I do not subscribe to my original formulation of an
Integrated Conception of Ignorance in El Kassar (2018) anymore. In the
light of agential and structural conceptions of ignorance, one could go
for a psychological conception that emphasizes psychological factors or
ignorance or one could go for an Integrated Conception that also includes
structural components. I put forward this (admittedly, more demanding)
notion:

Ignorance is a disposition of an epistemic agent that is constituted by

(1) beliefs, (2) epistemic attitudes, (3) epistemic character traits, (4) con-
duct and (5) socio-​political structures.

Let’s look at the constituents in turn. (1) Beliefs are the primary constituents
of ignorance, either lack of true belief or false belief. But ignorance can also
be constituted by (2) epistemic attitudes, for example, asking questions,
suspending belief, inquiry. Ignorance can also be co-​constituted by the
character traits (3) of the individual, for example, when they are arrogant
and thus arrogantly ignorant, or when they are curious and thus curi-
ously ignorant. Ignorance can also be co-​constituted by the conduct (4) of
an epistemic agent, for example, when they are dismissive or when they
act encouragingly or inquisitively. Such ignorance can be manifested in
silencing a subject that knows more about the topic at hand but is not
allowed to speak because of identity prejudice. Finally, ignorance is not
just constituted by traits or facets in an individual, but also co-​constituted
by structures –​social structures and political structures. There is a large
group of structures relevant for ignorance. And literature on epistemic
injustices, in particular, can lead us to these structures. They can range
from concepts or terminology (cf. hermeneutical injustice (Fricker 2007)
or inaccessible technical language, etc.), listening practices (e.g., Habgood-​
Coote, Ashton and El Kassar 2024) or silencing practices (e.g., Dotson
2011) to laws (e.g., Bright and Kwak 2023). Medina’s “battery of defense
mechanisms” in active ignorance can also consist in such structures.
Peels would probably object that my list of co-​ constituting elem-
ents really is a list of contingent factors or causes of ignorance. But that
 Conceptions of Ignorance 61

impression may come up because I have not yet fully developed the pos-
ition and its arguments. They follow now.
In order to understand the disagreement between Peels’ view and my
view it is instructive to look at the exchange between Sally Haslanger und
Tommie Shelby regarding ideology. They include very similar dynamics
with Shelby taking Peels’ position and Haslanger taking my position.
Shelby holds that “an ideology is a widely held set of loosely associated
beliefs and implicit judgments that misrepresent significant social realities
and that function, through this distortion, to bring about or perpetuate
unjust social relations” (2014, 66, italics in original deleted). The view is
cognitivist because it determines ideology in terms of “shared (false) beliefs
and shared (invalid) patterns of thought” (Haslanger 2017, 7). Haslanger
argues that this cognitivist account does not see that “belief and thought
are themselves products of psychological processes involving perception,
attention, memory and the like” (Haslanger 2017, 7). The account is too
limited because it does not recognize that the false beliefs that constitute
ideology are also shaped by ideology (Haslanger 2017, 8). Haslanger con­
tinues: “what we absorb through socialization is not just a set of beliefs,
but a language, a set of concepts, a responsiveness to particular features
of things (and not others), a set of social meanings” (Haslanger 2017, 9).
In other words: Ideology is also constituted by “[problematic] attitudes
and habits of the mind” (Haslanger 2017, 9). Ideology should be “[under­
stood] in terms of the concepts, rules, norms, stereotypes, scripts and the
likes that partly constitute a practice” (Haslanger 2017, 8). According
to Haslanger, we need such a practice-​first account of ideology to be able to
deal with the challenges we face with respect to ideologies, in particular, to
be able to efficiently critique and overcome ideology.
There are important differences between ideology and ignorance –​
first, ideology is almost always bad, ignorance is not necessarily bad –​
but the fault lines in the debates are the same. Cognitivist account vs.
a Practice-​first account. Reductionist account vs. Integrated account.
My integrated account of ignorance can also be read as a practice-​first
account, or at least as a practice-​oriented account. Ignorance is not
merely cognitive. And the advantages of Haslanger practice-​first account
are also the advantages of my integrated account of ignorance: We are
not limited to doxastic traits in saying what ignorance is and we can
determine better ways of dealing with ignorance (whether valuable or
pernicious ignorance).
In addition, white ignorance, in particular, seems to function rather
like ideology: it consists in false beliefs or lack of true beliefs that are
constituted by perception, memory, concepts, language, etc. Importantly,
these beliefs are not simply caused by the practices (perception, memory,
concepts, etc.) –​pace Peels. Rather, they are co-​constituted by the practices.
62 What Is Ignorance?

They are also constituted by institutions and norms that embody and sus-
tain white ignorance.13
I don’t want to overstretch the parallel and I think the general idea
is clear. Now, Peels (and others) will probably respond that we can tell
the whole story in terms of causes of ignorance (and ideology) and in
terms of contingent features of ignorance. But again, the arguments I have
given earlier kick in, and in addition, there is an additional argument
against Peels’ rejection of causes of ignorance and his claim that causes
of ignorance don’t belong in a conception of ignorance: the Argument
from Building Relations. Causal relations can be building relations and,
thus, something that we describe as a cause of O can be a constituent of
O. Institutions and norms can stand in building relations to (mental, phys-
ical, bodily, etc.) states of individuals.
In order to develop this argument, I rely on Karen Bennett’s account
of building.14 Bennett argues that one should not separate causation from
building relations and spells out a diagonal relation (rather than separ-
ating vertical causation and horizontal causation). For example, a cake is
made from eggs and so they “feature in a special way in the cake’s causal
history” (Bennett 2017, 89). They are not part of the cake as eggs, but
“parts of the eggs became parts of the cake” (Bennett 2017, 89). A Lego
castle that is built with Legos also has Legos in its causal history, but
they are still included as Legos. It is made of Legos. In contrast, Bennett
observes, a cake is made from or made out of eggs, flour, butter, etc. It is
not made of eggs, flour, butter etc. Parts of these constituents make up
parts of the cake.
The same applies to ignorance: Ignorance is made from doxastic
components, agential components (e.g., virtues or vices, habits, perception,
memory, behavior) and structural components (e.g., institutions, laws).
They figure in a special way in the causal history of ignorance. Ignorance
is built from these components and thus we need to also mention them in
defining ignorance or developing a conception of ignorance. When Peels
relegates these factors to causes, he does not succeed in excluding them
from the conception.
Note that when Peels turns to more real-​life instances of ignorance,
such as group ignorance, he also seems to acknowledge that ignorance
is determined by factors outside the purely cognitive and doxastic realm.
For example, he puts forward the “dynamic account of group ignorance”
on which

a group G is ignorant of a true proposition p if and only if (i) either

a significant number of G’s operative members are ignorant of p or
enough operative members of G know/​truly believe that p but G as a
group fails to know/​truly believe that p, and (ii) this is the result of a
 Conceptions of Ignorance 63

group dynamic, such as group agency, collective epistemic virtues or

vices, external manipulation, lack of time, interest, concepts, resources,
or information, or a combination of these.
(Peels 2023, 117)

In other words, group dynamics are required for a group to be ignorant.

Why doesn’t he see that similar dynamics are also involved in the indi-
vidual case? Such dynamics could be psychological processes, structures,
etc. Peels might reply that we need the dynamics to get group ignorance
rather than distributed ignorance, but this reply seems ad hoc. Especially
once we have Bennett’s theoretical framework in shape to provide the
philosophical background for the role of processes and influences that
Peels reduces to mere causes and contingent features.

3.6 Two Objections against the Integrated Conception

Before I look at facets of ignorance that help shape the picture of ignor-
ance, I want to discuss two objections against the Integrated Conception
of Ignorance. The first objection holds that ignorance does not always
contain structural components. There can be benign ignorance that is not
structural. For example, there are no structural components in someone
not knowing the birthday dates of their colleagues. The second objection
accepts that all ignorance contains structural components, but notes that
not all structures are as pernicious as, for example, in white ignorance.
First, ignorance that looks benign at first glance may reveal structural
components at second glance. In addition, the term is ambiguous. “Benign
ignorance” can refer to ignorance that is trivial and to ignorance that is
not objectionable. And in both cases we can find structural components.
In the example from the objection someone does not know the birthday
dates of their colleagues. If this is trivial ignorance, there are still structural
components in this ignorance and they contribute to making it benign or
trivial. Such structures may be that in this society having knowledge about
the birthday dates of one’s colleagues is not particularly important, or that
there is a strict distinction between private and work-​related interactions.
Those structures co-​constitute the person’s ignorance. The same holds for
ignorance that is not objectionable. Objectionability only works against
the background of norms, society and structures. The complex phenom-
enon “ignorance” can only be grasped with structures as co-​constituents.
Second, ignorance that seems benign at first glance may in fact turn
out to be problematic. And we can only understand these dynamics if
we understand that ignorance is constituted by structures.15 For example,
some people construe white ignorance or ignorance about inclusive lan-
guage as benign ignorance, and they can only do so because ignorance
64 What Is Ignorance?

is co-​constituted by structures. And someone’s ignorance about their

colleagues’ birthday dates can also be problematic, for example, if they
know the birthday dates of their peers but are ignorant about the birthday
dates of the administrative staff because they believe that they are inferior.
We cannot capture ignorance if we ignore these structural components.
In responding to the first objection I have already given the beginnings of
a response to the second objection, too. I agree with the objection’s obser-
vation that not all structures in ignorance are pernicious. Structures are also
constitutive of benign or trivial ignorance. And not pursuing a particular
research direction, say, because it would improve biological weapons is also
structurally co-​constituted ignorance since it does not simply amount to or
reduce to “We do not know how these bacteria become heat resistant” nor
“We do not want to know how these bacteria become heat resistant.” And
this ignorance about making bacteria heat resistant is not pernicious. So
not all structures are constitutive of pernicious ignorance.
Now that the basic conception of ignorance is clear, I want to look at
further facets of ignorance that help us get a clearer grasp of what ignor-
ance is. These explorations are important because they keep us from being
tempted to reduce ignorance to mere lack of knowledge or lack of true
belief or a lack of awareness and reveal more about the nature of ignorance.

Notes
1 As I have noted in the Introduction (Chapter 1), revisionary epistemology
makes similar claims (cf. Fassio and McKenna 2015).
2 I have changed the example; Le Morvan and Peels talk about King Herod I being
ignorant about a falsehood about the most popular iOS app in 2014.
3 See also Peels (2023, 56) for further criticism of the Falsehood Argument.
4 Nottelmann (2016) observes that Goldman (1999), even before Peels, has
claimed that ignorance is lack of true belief (1999, 5). For a discussion of some
issues with Goldman’s view, see Nottelmann (2016, 33).
5 Such an argumentation would work like Greco’s competence and environment
solution to Gettier cases and cases of environmental luck (cf. Greco 2009).
6 In their joint paper on the dispute, Peels and Le Morvan also introduce the
following argument for the New View: If the Standard View were correct, we
would have to find cases of factive ignorance, objectual ignorance and proced-
ural ignorance –​corresponding to the three different kinds of knowledge: fac-
tive knowledge, objectual knowledge and procedural knowledge (know-​how)
(Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 30f.). But there are no cases of objectual ignor­
ance nor cases of procedural ignorance; thus, the Standard View is false. Le
Morvan and Peels are open in admitting the limited scope of this argument:
If certain cases of objectual knowledge do not have objectual ignorance as
their contradictory or complement, the Standard View is in trouble, but it
does not follow that the New View is correct; more work would be needed
 Conceptions of Ignorance 65

for that, namely that every case of seemingly objectual or procedural ignor-
ance is in fact a case of factive ignorance.”
(Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 31)
But we do not need this explicit qualification to reject the argument. Again, it
is not clear why the Standard View should come with the distinction of factive,
objectual and procedural knowledge and ignorance, nor is it clear why the
Standard View is committed to the claim of a unified account of knowledge
and ignorance. As I have noted before, we see in Haas and Vogt (2015) that
one can explicate knowledge in a different way. On their view, knowledge is
not jtb +​x but instead knowledge “includes elements of concept-​possession,
grasping, understanding, as well as a range of related cognitive achievements”
(Haas and Vogt 2015, 19). This is a viable explication of ignorance as lack/​
absence of knowledge, and Le Morvan and Peels would have to show that their
way of explicating knowledge is better or even best.
It is thus not clear that the argument shows that “the Standard View is in
trouble.” Maybe “Le Morvan’s version of the Standard View” is in trouble, but
this is not the Standard View. One can agree that ignorance is lack/​absence of
knowledge, a position that prima facie deserves being called “Standard View” –​
on the assumption that there is something like a Standard View –​without
accepting that one should go for a unified account of knowledge and ignor-
ance, or that such an account is even appropriate to the phenomenon.
7 Another way to escape the “lack or absence of knowledge (true belief)” struc­
ture is to endorse Sylvain Bromberger’s approach to ignorance. Bromberger is
interested in determining how people decide which ignorance they want to alle-
viate and which they are going to ignore (Bromberger 1992, 128). Bromberger
makes the following stipulations:

Ignorance is the relationship between a person P and a set of questions Q,

when P does not know the correct answer to any of the members of Q and
has no strong views as to what the correct answer to any of them is.
(Bromberger 1992, 128)

To some extent Bromberger’s suggestion can be seen as a version of the

suggestion that ignorance is the absence of “the answer to a question” (Haas
and Vogt 2015, 18) that Haas and Vogt consider. Haas and Vogt reject the
suggestion because it does not avoid the problem that is relevant in the
context of their article, namely that ignorance is not lack of propositional
knowledge.
But it is still possible that conceiving of ignorance as a relation between a
person and questions is a good approach. It looks promising because it avoids
using the contentious terms knowledge, lack and absence. Yet, there are other
considerations that speak against this question-​based conception. First, it is
not clear that all ignorance indeed is related to an unanswered question. An
ignorant subject might not even be able to formulate the relevant question
to which she does not know the answer, for example, as in a case of deep
ignorance (cf. Wilholt 2019). Bromberger could follow Goldman in rejecting
66 What Is Ignorance?

this observation and note that the question does not have to be explicit but
can simply be implicit (Goldman 1999, 89), but that seems ad hoc, and
Bromberger’s talk of a relationship between a person P and a set of questions
seems to prohibit this move. Can there be a relationship between a person P
and an implicit question? As a third-​personal descriptive stance, this may be
possible, but not for a first-​personal ignorance ascription.
So Bromberger’s stipulation seems to amount to a description of ignorance,
not to a claim about what ignorance is. What is the use of the relationship
between P and the set of questions Q? The relationship is a higher-​level descrip-
tion that is not needed to capture manifestations of ignorance simpliciter. It
might be relevant if one wants to capture ignorance in the context of investi-
gation and sciences: it is a special instance of P not knowing the answer to any
question from a set of questions, where P stands in a conscious relationship to
those questions. But maybe Bromberger’s statement should not be read in such
a strict way since he later groups questions and, what he calls p-​predicaments,
as objects of nescience –​countable objects of not knowing. P-​predicaments are
introduced as follows:

A person is said to be in a p-​predicament with regard to a question Q if,

on that person’s assumptions and knowledge, Q is sound and has a correct
answer, yet that person can think of no answer, can conjure up no answer to
which, on those assumptions, there are no decisive objections.
(Bromberger 1992, 108)

But p-​predicaments in effect are questions, too. So there is still the problem: Is
ignorance a relation to a question?
  I suggest that we should say that ignorance can be a relation to a question
or a set of questions, but that there is another level in addition to this level on
which ignorance does, after all, consist in something else, including absence of
knowledge, in the sense of not knowing what the answer to the question is. In
the context of a scientist’s investigation, one may want to emphasize that they
are ignorant with an investigative attitude toward their ignorance, and, thus,
that they stand in a relation to the set of questions Q for which they do not
know the answer. The question-​based approach thus has general limitations
and is not enough. Ignorance may consist in a relation between a person and
a set of questions, but that is just one variety of ignorance that can be traced
back to other elements of ignorance, and thus it is not suitable to be a first sen-
tence that captures manifestations of ignorance generally.
8 Note that these abstractions also locate Meylan’s approach in the camp of ideal
theories (cf. Mills 2017, McKenna 2023, El Kassar fthc).
9 Cf. McKenna (2023).
10 But see also (Bailey 2007) for the strategic usefulness of ignorance for oppressed
groups.
11 Note that I read Mills’ remarks about white ignorance as making claims about
the nature of ignorance that hold for other kinds of ignorance, too.
 Conceptions of Ignorance 67

12 Philosophers who are critical of Mills’ cognitivist take on ignorance, for

example, Bailey (2007), might reject this extension, but I think that Mills’ later
notion of white ignorance as a “pervasively deforming outlook” (Mills 2015,
217) suggests that he could go beyond the notion of ignorance as false belief.
13 Think of discriminatory housing policies, the effects of inheritance on con­
tinuing financial injustice, or also of unjust legal conditions, as outlined by
Bright and Kwak (2023).
14 Thanks to Martin Kusch for introducing the account at a workshop at the
University of Freiburg.
15 Cf., e.g., Wekker (2016).
4 Facets of Ignorance

The aim of this chapter is to review different typical facets of ignorance

and on that basis develop a systematic picture of the symptoms of ignor-
ance. This review is informed by current philosophical literature on ignor-
ance but also adds symptoms that are not mentioned in the philosophical
literature, but are still highly relevant for ignorance. By collecting various
symptoms, I will home in on cardinal signs of ignorance and present
paradigms of ignorance with which I can examine the different proposals
for dealing with ignorance.
Most of today’s philosophical taxonomies of ignorance (Le Morvan and
Peels 2016, Nottelmann 2016, van Woudenberg 2009) presuppose a prop­­­
ositional or doxastic conception of ignorance and are, therefore, inad-
equate for getting a full overview of symptoms of ignorance. They offer
plausible distinctions, for example, doxastic ignorance, alethic ignorance,
justificational ignorance and Gettier-​type ignorance (Le Morvan and Peels
2016), but because of their propositional approach they are restricted to
symptoms in the subject’s belief set. Yet, as I have argued, ignorance can
also be manifest in the subject’s attitudes. I, therefore, do not introduce
their taxonomies in detail and only refer to the labels when they are rele-
vant for discussing symptoms in the belief set.
In contrast, Haas and Vogt (2015) put forward a taxonomy that also
includes the subject’s attitudes and motivation. Their approach is, thus,
much more appropriate for ignorance as a real-​world phenomenon and
respects the role of epistemic subjects in instances of ignorance. Ignorance
is always someone’s ignorance and a taxonomy of ignorance as a real-​
world manifestation must include whatever components constitute the
different instances of ignorance.1
As I show in this chapter, Haas and Vogt’s taxonomy distinguishes
important forms of ignorance, but it is not complete as a list of symptoms
of ignorance –​admittedly, they do not claim that the list is exhaustive.
Haas and Vogt’s taxonomy focuses mainly on reflective forms of ignorance,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-5
 Facets of Ignorance 69

instances in which a subject has some doxastic attitude toward her ignor-
ance, but there are, crucially, also non-​reflective forms of ignorance. My
study of the symptoms of ignorance further examines these non-​reflective
forms of ignorance, and their relation to reflective forms of ignorance and,
thereby, enhances Haas and Vogt’s taxonomy. In order to reach this result,
I first introduce Haas and Vogt’s taxonomy and then go through symptoms
of ignorance in the belief set, the epistemic attitudes and a subject’s affects
to develop a more complete picture.
Haas and Vogt’s (2015) taxonomy of ignorance is amenable to the
Integrated Conception of Ignorance because, unlike the taxonomies
of propositional conceptions of ignorance, it focuses on the subject’s
attitudes and motivations. Haas and Vogt distinguish Preferred Ignorance,
Investigative Ignorance, Complete Ignorance, Presumed Knowledge.
In a case of preferred ignorance a subject does not know something and
prefers not knowing. Haas and Vogt’s example is of Socrates who does not
know about fashion, and, in addition, Socrates does not care about not
knowing about fashion. He prefers ignorance. Preferred ignorance itself
can be blameworthy or “unobjectionable” (Haas and Vogt 2015, 20). In
order to evaluate an instance of preferred ignorance, one needs to look at
the particular circumstances.
Investigative ignorance consists in “attitudes” (Haas and Vogt 2015,
20) which a subject that is involved in inquiry takes up. The subject does
not know something but wants to find out about it. For example, Socrates
does not know what the good is, but attempts to find out and engages in
investigation (Haas and Vogt 2015, 17).
Complete Ignorance is different from investigative and preferred ignor-
ance because the subject does not hold a doxastic attitude toward her
ignorance. Haas and Vogt distinguish

a ignorance of something of which the subject has never heard –​this

could be deep ignorance as on the propositional conception (cf. Haas
and Vogt 2015, 21);
b ignorance because the object about which the subject has beliefs does
not exist (cf. Haas and Vogt 2015, 21);
c incomplete complete ignorance in which the subject has some beliefs
about some state of nature/​fact but her beliefs are hazy, not complete,
for example, inchoate beliefs about evolutionary biology (cf. Haas and
Vogt 2015, 22).

Such incomplete complete ignorance amounts to a “mental blank”

(Haas and Vogt 2015, 21) of which the subject is aware. It consists in
“attitudes that delineate the domain where a reflective cognizer perceives
gaps” (Haas and Vogt 2015, 22). The German expression Halbwissen
70 What Is Ignorance?

(literally translated: Half-​Knowledge) might capture this variety of ignor-

ance. The subject knows some things but does not possess the relevant
background knowledge and interconnected knowledge to really under-
stand the topic or the fact.
The term Halbwissen can be neutral, but it can also have a marked
negative connotation when the half-​knowing subject presumes that she
has the same entitlements as a full knower and underrates her own ignor-
ance –​I return to a more detailed discussion of Halbwissen in Section 4.5.
In these cases Halbwissen is also closely related to what Haas and Vogt
call presumed knowledge. In addition to some true beliefs about a subject
matter, the subject also holds a false belief (or several false beliefs) to be
true, but she does not know that she is wrong, she thinks that she is right,
that she knows that p. The term presumed knowledge fits this type of
ignorance very well because “from the inside, this kind of ignorance feels
like knowledge” (Haas and Vogt 2015, 19). In cases of presumed know­
ledge, the subject is “not motivated to inquire, qualify her views as tenta-
tive, or anything of that sort” (Haas and Vogt 2015, 19).
I will employ the terminology and distinctions that Haas and Vogt have
introduced to illuminate the nature of ignorance, looking at symptoms of
ignorance and at various manifestations of ignorance. These manifestations
may sometimes appear too complicated or too fine-​grained, but they are
necessary for really getting at ignorance as real-​world phenomenon that is
not too idealized to be relevant for human epistemic lives. On the basis of
these manifestations, I paint a richer picture of types and kinds of ignor-
ance at the end of this chapter.

4.1 How Widespread Is Ignorance?

An encyclopedia article on a syndrome contains a section on how preva-
lent and how frequent the syndrome is –​its epidemiology. So: how wide-
spread is ignorance? This includes questions such as: who is affected by
ignorance? Who is ignorant? Who can be ignorant? To some extent the
answer is very easy: ignorance is widespread among all human beings.
Every human being can be ignorant and, in fact, every human being is
ignorant. Ignorance, according to St. Augustine, is one of the primordia
naturalia, all human beings are born with it (Fuhrer 2010).2 That is what
I call the “trivial answer” to how widespread ignorance is –​even though,
of course, St Augustine’s view is far from trivial. The main claim is simply
trivial because it says that every human being is ignorant.
But there are more nuanced answers. Even though ignorance is a normal
state for human beings, one can specify particular kinds of ignorance that
are somehow more relevant or pertinent than others. And second, when
people say that all human beings are ignorant, that ignorance is widespread,
 Facets of Ignorance 71

the claim can be critical of humanity at large or a mere description without

a judgmental undertone. We find the later, for example, in medicine, there
are areas like genetics, in which there is also widespread ignorance because
researchers and practitioners do not know enough about the exact working
and effects of manipulations of genes (cf. Doudna 2015 on CRISPR CAS-​
9) or how the brain and the intestines affect each other (cf. Carabotti et al.
2015). Or there is ignorance about the origins of the earth in physics that
does not come with a judgmental undertone. There are models and pos-
sible explanations, but no one knows for sure. Let’s look at the different
facets of the epidemiology of ignorance.

4.1.1 The Trivial Answer

The trivial answer is: All human beings are ignorant and so ignorance is
universal. There are three routes to the trivial conclusion that all human
beings are ignorant. First, an Argument via Non-​omniscience. Second, an
Argument via Ignorance of the Humanly Knowable. Third, an Argument
via Fallibility and Limited Cognitive Capacities of Human Beings.
The first suggestion is that every human being is ignorant because no
living human being is omniscient. I presuppose this definition of omnis-
cience: “S is omniscient =​Df for every proposition p, if p is true then S
knows p” (Wierenga 2018).3 But we can be more precise regarding who
is ignorant and why. What I have just said is trivially true. No human
being is omniscient so all human beings are ignorant. Since this claim is
trivial, it is doubtful whether much is gained by saying that subjects are
ignorant in this respect. Human beings cannot attain omniscience and so
it does not seem helpful to say that human beings are ignorant in the sense
of not being omniscient.4 The statement is informative only under certain
conditions.
But epistemic subjects are not just ignorant relative to all possible know-
ledge (omniscience), they are also ignorant relative to what human beings
in general can know, and ignorant relative to what they individually can
know. “What human beings in general can know” is ambiguous between
“what is knowable and is known by at least one subject” and “what is
knowable.” And in the individual case there would also be conditions of
the individual’s context that might make something unknowable to her
and, thus, make her ignorant.
Kant’s observations published in the Jäsche Logic provide a helpful
framework for setting out the different routes to determining ignorance of
what is knowable.5 I return to Kant on error and ignorance in more detail in
Section 9.5 and Chapter 10; here I just want to introduce Kant’s notion of a
horizon and the related distinctions between an absolute/​universal horizon
and particular/​conditioned horizon to understand the different levels of
72 What Is Ignorance?

“what is knowable.” Kant develops the notion horizon on the basis of

Georg Friedrich Meier’s notion of the concept, as developed in Meier’s
Doctrine of Reason (Meier 1752/2015).6 A horizon relates all Erkenntnis
with the “capabilities and ends of the subject” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 40).
The horizon determines and judges (evaluates, we may say) what man
can know, what man is permitted to know and what man ought to know.7
And so ignorance is determined in relation to the horizon. There are three
ways of determining the horizon. The horizon is logically determined if
it is related to the “interest of the understanding” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 40).
The relevant questions for this approach are: How can far we go in our
Erkenntnis? How far do we have to go in our Erkenntnis? How can cer-
tain cognitions be logical means for our more general principles of cogni-
tion? The horizon is aesthetically determined if the cognition are related
to taste, and if one looks at the “interests of feeling” (Kant, JL, AA IX,
40). On this approach, science is put in relation to the taste of the public,
and to the unlearned. This approach determines what man is permitted to
know. And, finally, the horizon is practically determined if it is related to
the “interest of the will” (Kant, JL, AA IX 40–​41). In the practical deter-
mination, cognition captures what effect “a cognition has on our mor-
ality” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 41). This approach determines what man ought
to know.
In addition, there are two ways for logically determining a horizon: deter-
mination from the object’s perspective, determination from the subject’s
perspective. If the horizon is determined from the object, there is a histor-
ical horizon and a rational horizon. Kant notes that the historical horizon
is infinite because our historical cognition is unlimited. The rational limit
is determined by the limits of the objects of cognition of reason, or math-
ematical cognition.
If the horizon is determined from the subject’s perspective, there is the
absolute/​universal horizon and the particular/​conditioned horizon. The
absolute/​universal horizon is determined by the limits of human cogni-
tion in general. The particular/​conditioned horizon is what Kant calls
the private horizon, and this horizon is determined by an individual’s
gender, class, standing, etc. The private horizon can also be generalized
to a horizon of science and a “horizon of healthy reason” (Kant, JL, AA
IX, 41).
We can use these distinctions to rephrase my above claims about the
different ways of being ignorant: A subject can be ignorant relative to the
absolute horizon, or she can be ignorant relative to the private horizon.
And she does not know what is knowable to human beings (in general)
because of her private horizon, or she does not know because human
beings have limited cognitive capacities. Psychological research provides
 Facets of Ignorance 73

another route to these human limitations. Issues of necessary unknow-

ability concern the rational horizon that is determined from the object’s
perspective.
Kant summarizes his insights as follows: “What we cannot know is
beyond our horizon, what we do not need to know is outside our horizon”
(JL, AA IX, 42). And what we ought not know because it would be harmful
is beneath our horizon.8 The two latter differentiations are always relative
to the individual.
Kant’s observations about the absolute and the private horizon lead
us to the third way of supporting the claim that all human beings are
ignorant: Human beings have limited cognitive capacities and therefore
they are bound to be ignorant (relative to the absolute horizon). These
limitations affect the scope and the performance of the subject. A subject’s
knowledge and ignorance are determined by what is relevant for her and
what she can remember given her situation (private horizon) and they are
determined by how much a human mind can store, process, remember etc.
Imagine Tina who has lived in Switzerland all her life, she has never
heard of the 17th-​century feminist intellectual Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,
and inter alia she does not know that de la Cruz wrote poems. But we can
explain this by Tina’s circumstances and conditions. Tina is well read in
European literature, but she is a physicist by training and not a literary
scholar, she has a full workday and rich social life and she does not have
time to read and study literary works from other continents. That is just a
natural restraint: there is only so much time in a day, and there are infin-
itely more things to know than an individual can possibly take time to
know (cf., e.g., Innerarity 2013). This natural time constraint is related to
a cognitive restraint: there is only so much that a human mind can store
and consider and this is a natural limitation to knowledge that leads to
ignorance. Human beings are necessarily ignorant.
Note that the constraints on cognitive capacities only entail necessary
ignorance, but do not entail claims about necessary unknowability. They
only entail that a human being is necessarily ignorant, even if one does
not take omniscience to be the standard. Irrespective of the possibility
of omniscience, human beings are ignorant because their capacities are
limited.
Necessary unknowability introduces another way of determining ignor-
ance that does not relativize ignorance to knowledge. Instead, ignorance
in the sense of necessary unknowability is explained and determined by
necessary limitations of human cognitive capacities and the objects of cog-
nition –​this approach is reminiscent of what Kant calls the rational deter-
mination of the horizon by looking at the object of cognition (JL, AA
IX, 41). Nicholas Rescher studies this kind of ignorance, “those aspects
74 What Is Ignorance?

of ignorance that betoken inherent limits to human knowledge” (Rescher

2009, 3). The necessarily unknown is “that which cannot be known at all”
(Rescher 2009, 4). Knowledge about past events that one did not attend,
for example, is necessarily unknowable. The important difference to the
other approaches to determining ignorance is that ignorance is determined
by saying what cannot be known, not by saying what can be known but
is in fact not known or unknown. Necessary ignorance and necessary
unknowability must be kept separate: the one is a statement about epi-
stemic subjects, the other is a claim about epistemic subjects and objects.
Observing that all human beings are fallible –​they all make mistakes
and errors, some conscious, some not conscious –​is a related route to
saying that all human beings are subject to ignorance, and this route, too,
leads to a trivial ascription of ignorance that must be distinguished from
particular instances of ignorance that can be examined in more detail.
I restrict fallibility to cognitive and epistemic fallibility, but, of course, it
may be extended to practical cases, too. Like in the case of deducing ignor-
ance from non-​omniscience, the claim at first glance looks trivial. Humans
are not infallible, so they are necessarily bound to be ignorant –​in some
sense. But again, if we look at the explanations of the fallibility, such as
that human beings are prone to systematic error in judgment (Kahneman
and Tversky 1974), or that the judgments and beliefs of human beings are
influenced by surrounding conditions (Gigerenzer 2002), we see that the
observations about human fallibility are by no means trivial, nor are they
self-​evident.
Before I turn to introducing evidence from psychology on human fal-
libility into the picture, let me emphasize with a view to the question of
how one should deal with ignorance, that in all four versions of the trivial
ignorance claims the details of an instance of a mistake or an error, or
types of mistakes and errors, matter for determining the reaction to the
particular instance of ignorance or kinds of ignorance. A false belief based
on a prejudiced judgment calls for another assessment and another remedy
than a false belief based on an honest mistake.

4.1.2 Psychological Research on Human Limitations and Fallibility

Research on ignorance in psychology undergirds and elaborates the

trivial ignorance claims. They study ignorance by studying human cog-
nitive limitations and fallibility. In this section I introduce work on meta-​
ignorance, on human irrationality, self-​evaluation biases and studies on
deliberate ignorance. I also return to this topic in Chapter 5 on causes of
ignorance.
The Dunning–​Kruger effect refers to a form of meta-​ignorance (cf. Fine’s
second-​order ignorance, Fine 2018) which affects incompetent subjects:
 Facets of Ignorance 75

In short, those who are incompetent, for lack of a better term, should
have little insight into their incompetence –​an assertion that has come
to be known as the Dunning–​Kruger effect.
(Dunning 2011, 260)

Dunning and Kruger, in a number of studies, asked participants who had

just completed a test of “intellectual expertise” (Dunning 2011, 260) to
assess how they had performed on the test. Participants whose results were
in the lowest quarter of performance overestimated their results by up
to 45 percent –​over the years they have conducted these studies with
relative and absolute scales. Their explanation for this radically mistaken
evaluation is that someone who is incompetent faces a “double burden”
(Dunning 2011, 260): they do not know the answers to the questions and
they lack the expertise to determine whether they gave the right answers
to the questions on the test (Dunning 2011, 260f.).9
Research on human irrationality by Tversky and Kahneman may be
cited as further evidence against the reliability of human cognitive cap-
acities and their problems with ignorance: human beings use cognitive
heuristics to draw conclusions and answer questions. But they frequently
use faulty heuristics, that is, most famously they resort to beliefs that are
easily available (availability heuristic), they use features that they take
to be representative of categories (representativeness heuristic), and they
use arbitrary numbers that they have just encountered as anchors when
making estimates (anchoring and adjustment heuristic) (Tversky and
Kahneman 1974, Kahneman 2013). Human beings are prone to making
these mistakes, they are prone to be irrational.
The interpretation of these results has been challenged by Gerd
Gigerenzer. He notes that most remarks about heuristics are set within
a particular theoretical framework that presupposes a Bayesian ration-
alist model of inferences and starts with an ideal omniscient rational agent
and aims to account for the rationality of finite non-​omniscient human
beings via “optimization under constraints” (Gigerenzer 2008a). On this
setup, human beings systematically deviate from laws of logic and opti-
mization and therefore are irrational. Against this, Gigerenzer argues that
human beings are finite limited thinkers and, therefore, we should not
use a Bayesian rationalist model of inferences nor try to study or under-
stand their actions and behavior starting from an ideal omniscient rational
agent, and laws of logic and optimization. We should work with “eco-
logical rationality” that acknowledges the limited capacities of human
beings and use standards that are relevant, that is, attainable, for human
beings, starting with “mind and environment” (Gigerenzer 2002, 57).
Then one understands that it is not at all irrational how human beings are
influenced by ecological circumstances.
76 What Is Ignorance?

Further psychological findings that are relevant in this foundational pro-

ject concern self-​evaluation bias. Participants in various studies tended to
overestimate their prospects, their control over their own actions, their own
performance or qualities in various fields, such as intelligence, character
traits, abilities. For example, Dunning et al. found that all participants tend
to judge their own performance as “above average,” the so-​called above-​
average effect. There are several other varieties of self-​evaluation bias, for
example, “self-​serving causal attributions” in which one accepts respon-
sibility for successes and rejecting responsibility for failures (cf. Brown
and Rogers 1991, Hazlett 2013, 45, Fiske and Taylor 2013), “selective
inquiry” (Hazlett 2013, 46, Dunning 2012), avoiding negative informa­­
tion about oneself, or “biased social comparisons” (Hazlett 2013, 47).10
The omnipresence of such self-​ evaluation biases, in effect, means
that human beings have all these false beliefs about themselves: they are
ignorant about the reality of their abilities, traits etc. The tough call though
is between the Dunning–​Kruger effect and the benefits of self-​enhancing
biases. How is one to determine whether one is affected by a beneficial
variety of ignorance, rather than in a state of delusion as in the Dunning–​
Kruger effect? The results of the psychological studies and the perceived
worry may lead one to self-​doubt or certainly into realizing a tension
that Adam Elga expresses well when he notes that we are left “with an
uncomfortable tension in our beliefs: we knowingly allow our beliefs to
differ from the ones that we think are supported by our evidence” (Elga
2005, 115).
There is another sense in which psychological research complicates
things for epistemologists looking to discuss ignorance as a real-​world
phenomenon: There is (empirical) evidence that false beliefs (and thus,
ignorance) may have beneficial effects on the subjects that hold those false
beliefs, and that they are not detrimental for them (Taylor and Brown 1988,
McKay and Dennett 2009) –​thus messing up the view that ignorance is
always bad. The most well-​known example are “positive illusions,” for
example, patients who have a negative prognosis for recovery but believe
that they will recover are more likely to recover. Psychological research
may thus provide motivation for the view that ignorance is not all bad
after all; it may in fact even be healthy.
Another particularly striking kind of ignorance studied in psychology is
so-​called “deliberate ignorance”. Hertwig and Engel define deliberate ignor-
ance “as the conscious individual or collective choice not to seek or use
information (or knowledge; we [Hertwig and Engel, N.E.] use the terms
interchangeably)” (Hertwig and Engel 2021, 5). They emphasize that
they “are particularly interested in situations where the marginal acquisi-
tion costs are negligible and the potential benefits potentially large, such
 Facets of Ignorance 77

that –​from the perspective of the economics of information … –​acquiring

information would seem to be rational” (Hertwig and Engel 2021, 5).
Deliberate ignorance can be chosen for several reasons, for example, as
a “emotion-​regulation and regret-​avoidance device” (Hertwig and Engel
2021, 6) –​choosing not to know to avoid particular emotions –​or as a
“suspense-​and surprise-​maximization device” (Hertwig and Engel 2021,
6) –​choosing not know in order to keep up the suspense, for example,
when reading a crime story –​or as a “strategic device” (Hertwig and Engel
2021, 6) –​choosing not to know in order to avoid responsibility –​or as a
“cognitive sustainability and information-​management device” (Hertwig
and Engel 2021, 6) in order to avoid cognitive overload in the face of
too much information and limited human mental capacities.11 In these
contexts deliberate ignorance is valuable –​but Hertwig and Engel also
emphasize that these studies are undecided on the dimensions in which
the value of ignorance is determined (Hertwig and Engel 2021, 11f.). Is it
valuable with regard to the individual’s well-​being or with regard to epi-
stemic standards? What does it even mean that ignorance is disvaluable
or vicious?

4.1.3 Widespread Vicious Ignorance

When people say that ignorance is widespread, they often do not mean
the trivial sense of that statement that I have discussed so far, but instead
express concern about some problematic dimension of ignorance: there
are epistemic agents who do not know something or have false beliefs, and
their epistemic situation has bad effects for the agents, their environment,
their community, the world, etc. The statements about widespread ignor-
ance in other individuals or groups often implicitly judge those people who
are said to be ignorant. Their ignorance is evaluated negatively. –​There
are also cases of widespread ignorance in areas where this ignorance does
not reflect badly on the ignorant subjects. But I first start with the variety
that comes to mind more easily, especially in current times, where this
non-​trivial ignorance claim has turned into a complaint that also express
profound worries.
Of course, in a sense, these cases of ignorance are also covered by the
trivial ignorance claims, but the trivial claim is trumped by the negative
evaluation and related worries. The underlying claim is that there is wide-
spread ignorance that is not necessary and that things should be different.
I call this “widespread vicious ignorance.” People do not know, but they
should know. Unlike in the trivial ignorance claims, the statements are
complaints or laments that concern particular topics or subject matters,
for example, climate change, politics, economy.
78 What Is Ignorance?

Instances of the widespread vicious ignorance claims are legion. One

important and complex case of non-​trivial ignorance claims is the claim
that a large number of people –​worldwide –​are ignorant about climate
change, very generally speaking.12 And studies on voter ignorance in pol­
itics reveal that citizens lack the requisite political knowledge, that is, they
do not know fundamental facts about politics in their country, their state
or worldwide (e.g., Weinshall 2003, 42, Brennan 2016, 25f. for overviews).
They are ignorant about political issues, players, and what Delli Carpini
and Kelter call “rules of the game” (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, 65).
But so far these claims about trivial and vicious widespread ignorance
have only addressed the doxastic level of ignorance and neglected the
agential and structural components. How does the agential and structural
components feature in the epidemiology of ignorance? We need to say
more about how widespread close-​minded ignorance, open-​minded ignor-
ance, humble ignorance, curious ignorance, etc. are. And there are some
such considerations, e.g. in studies on politics and climate change.
And research on biases that I have just cited in discussing psychological
research on limitations in human cognitive capacities and their fallibility
may claim to provide evidence that close-​ mindedness based on faulty
reasoning and heuristics, such as motivated reasoning (e.g., Kunda 1990)
and intergroup bias (e.g., Hewstone et al. 2002, Dovidio et al. 2017), is
widespread, thus bringing agential components into the picture.
Taber and Lodge (2006) observe that people with strong views on par­
ticular issues –​they examined affirmative action and gun control –​treat
arguments for and against, say, affirmative action differently, depending
on their own previously held view. They are “are biased-​ information
processors” (Taber and Lodge 2006, 755). For example, they rate
arguments that confirm their own view stronger than opposing arguments
(prior-​attitude effect), they think more about arguments from the opposing
side (disconfirmation bias), they choose more arguments from their own
side (confirmation bias), their attitudes become more extreme after reading
pro and con arguments (polarization effects).13
The “nature of times” heuristic identified by Philip Converse (Converse
2006[1964], 16, cited in Weinshall 2003, 38) as well as the “issue public”
heuristic might also evince widespread instances of ignorance that expli-
citly includes both the doxastic and the attitudinal component. In the
“nature of the times” heuristic

[the subject] bases his voting decision on a candidate’s “temporal asso-

ciation in the past with broad societal states of war or peace, pros-
perity or depression.” Thus if the economy is performing well or the
 Facets of Ignorance 79

country has been successful in a war, then this type of voter will typic-
ally support the incumbent.
(Weinshall 2003, 3, my addition)

The “issue public” heuristic finds that people vote on the basis of just one
issue of concern to them, disregarding any connections to other issues and
not building up a “global perspective on politics” (Weinshall 2003, 3).
Finally, Kruglanski’s work on the extrinsic need for nonspecific closure –​
“a desire for an assured opinion on a topic, as opposed to uncertainty and
ambiguity” (Kruglanski and Boyatzi 2012, 220), in addition to an intrinsic
goal of believing what is true, may also be cited as evidence in trying to
answer the question of how widespread ignorance as a multi-​component
state is. These needs translate into varying degrees of open-​mindedness or
close-​mindedness, depending on whether the information is conducive to
closure or not.14 This need for closure might be seen to lead people to pre­
cipitate conclusions that include false beliefs and are lacking in detail, and
thus increase the likelihood and presence of ignorance. This holds both for
the doxastic and the attitudinal level.

4.2 Ignorance as Absence of Belief

The most obvious symptom of ignorance in the belief set is the absence15 of
a true belief, or of a set of true beliefs.16 Rachel does not know that there
are sand beaches in Japan. Sam does not know what the functions of the
diaphragm are. Tom does not know how algorithms work. If the three of
them are aware of their own ignorance, they are reflectively ignorant; they
have some beliefs about the relevant topic, but they lack particular true
propositions, for example, that there are sand beaches in Japan. Note that
workarounds, as they are used in sciences, for example, proxies developed
in paleoclimatology, are also symptoms of ignorance that are connected to
being reflectively ignorant –​knowing that one does not know some fact to
the matter. Most absence of a true belief (or true beliefs) is not reflective
but non-​reflective.
Ignorance as absence may also consist in the absence of a false belief,
since one can be ignorant of falsehoods, for example, if one does not
know what conspiracy theories about 9/​11 claim. Critics of this view, for
example, defenders of the New View like Peels, hold that one can only
be ignorant of truths, and that ignorance of falsehoods really amounts to
lack of awareness of false claims. But it is conceivable that ignorance of a
false belief also amounts to lack of awareness of the relevant true belief, so
this objection is not decisive. The critics’ position might be shaped by the
strange ring to sentences like “Aristotle did not know that the University
of Lucerne is located in Zurich.” (which is a falsehood). But if we said,
80 What Is Ignorance?

Aristotle was ignorant of the falsehood that the University of Lucerne is

located in Zurich, or Aristotle was ignorant of the false belief that the
University of Lucerne is located in Zurich, the strangeness vanishes.17
So, I take it that ignorance can also have absence of false belief as one of
its symptoms. Epistemically, it is valuable to know of false beliefs, both of
my own false beliefs and of other people’s false beliefs, for example, in order
to be able to work against these false beliefs, to avoid any disadvantages
because of those false beliefs, to convince other people that these beliefs
are false, or to acquire true beliefs instead. We find evidence for the epi-
stemic value of knowing about (or: of) false beliefs in discussions of error
in history of science. Jutta Schickore has shown that scientific researchers
examine errors in order to avoid errors and to understand “potential
sources of error” (Schickore 2005, 552). Her analysis of a dispute between
microscopists in the 1830s shows that the participants discuss “arguments
about error,” the epistemological and methodological effects of errors, as
well as “arguments from error … to indicate that their research took the
potential sources of error into account” (Schickore 2005, 554).

Simple Propositional Ignorance

The idea of ignorance as the absence of a (true or false) belief –​simple

propositional ignorance –​seems to fit with Peels’ disbelieving ignorance
and also with deep ignorance, but as we will see, there is much more to say
about this seemingly simple absence of belief.
Picture this case. Rachel is disbelievingly ignorant if she does not
believe that Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy were siblings.
But if she was told that Fanny Hensel’s maiden name was Mendelssohn​
Bartholdy and that they were in fact siblings, she would understand the
statements and grasp the evidence and would then believe, and even know
that Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy were siblings.
Since the focus on propositional knowledge and propositional ignor-
ance is too limited to capture ignorance, simple propositional ignorance is
but one facet of being ignorant about a fact. Such cases of purely simple
propositional ignorance are rare on the Integrated Conception because
agential and structural components also contribute to ignorance –​and that
includes Rachel’s ignorance. But in discussing the symptoms of ignorance
on the level of the subject’s belief, it is useful to look at the doxastic com-
ponent in more detail and learn more about the background conditions of
ignorance at the level of the subject’s beliefs. The Integrated Conception
must not neglect the doxastic level. Moreover, in the case I have sketched,
the doxastic level is primary and most relevant.
If someone is simply ignorant about some fact, or some proposition, or
some phenomenon or some concept, she can know it, if she learns of it, as
 Facets of Ignorance 81

in the above case of Rachel. Ascribing simple propositional ignorance to

Rachel presupposes that Rachel has some knowledge of Fanny Hensel and
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. She has heard of Fanny Hensel and Felix
Mendelssohn ​Bartholdy, she might know that they were composers who
lived in the 19th century, who composed classical music, she might have
played pieces composed by the two when she was taking piano lessons.
She knows that female composers were often underestimated and con-
tinue to be lesser known and underrepresented. She knows about struc-
tural constituents to ignorance about female composers, we might say. But
this knowledge is not relevant for this case, because this is just about not
knowing about the personal relation between these two individuals. Her
ignorance can be alleviated by being told that they were siblings. And if
she possesses a conceptual framework in which she can first disbelieve that
Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy were siblings or related,
she can understand and incorporate the correcting information that they
were siblings. This is simple propositional ignorance.

Deep Ignorance and Cluelessness

If Rachel had never heard of Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn​

Bartholdy, did not know that they were composers, when they lived, had
never even heard the names, had no beliefs about them, she would be com-
pletely ignorant (Haas and Vogt 2015) or deeply ignorant (van Woudenberg
2009, Le Morvan and Peels 2016) about the fact that Fanny Hensel and
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy were siblings.18 If, under these conditions,
Rachel was told that Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn ​Bartholdy were
siblings, she would not know what to make of this piece of information.
She might guess that this is a statement about a man and about a woman,
and about their status as siblings, but she would not understand any of
the implications, or why this fact is relevant or interesting. Thus, upon
receiving this one piece of information, she would not anymore be deeply
ignorant but clueless.
Let’s focus on the symptom cluelessness. We would not understand
cluelessness appropriately if we only focus on the doxastic component of
ignorance, and, thus, I now also include epistemic attitudes to describe the
symptom cluelessness. The crucial characteristics of cluelessness come out
more clearly in another example: Picture Rachel talking to Tom about her
field of research and she says “I’m working on the NAO.” Tom has never
heard of NAO, he does not know what the abbreviation stands for, he has
no idea what Rachel is talking about, he is clueless. If Rachel started to
explain what the NAO is, initially, Tom might have trouble understanding
what she is talking about, if he does not possess the conceptual framework
to be able to understand NAO and related concepts such as atmospheric
82 What Is Ignorance?

pressure at sea level. He would not just be ignorant, but clueless. This is
more consequential than simple propositional ignorance because simple
propositional ignorance is an issue of not being aware of some piece of
knowledge that one would be able to understand quite early if one learned
of it. With cluelessness there is a gulf between the subject and the know-
ledge that would replace her ignorance.
The idea of ignorance as a relation to a question (cf. Bromberger 1992)
is helpful for capturing cluelessness. Before talking to Rachel, Tom does
not know that there is a question “What is the NAO?” to which he does
not know the answer. He is deeply ignorant (van Woudenberg 2009, 374).
And when he has heard of the NAO and therefore is able to formulate
the clarificatory question “What is the NAO?” he has no idea, what the
answer might be. If he knows that Rachel is a meteorologist, he might
guess that it is some weather phenomenon, so he has some leads, but as
to the NAO itself, he has no ideas. A patient who is told that they suffer
from aortic stenosis might also, at least initially, be cluelessly ignorant, for
example, if the disease was found in a routine checkup and they did not
experience any bodily signs of being sick. Like Tom they would only be
able to ask “What is an aortic stenosis?”
Cluelessness can manifest itself in different ways, for example, the sub-
ject may be confused when faced with a knowledge claim that someone
utters or with true sentences about the topic that she is clueless about,
or she may be caught unawares, she may be genuinely surprised. Tara
Westover in her autobiographical memory vividly captures her reaction
when she hears of Martin Luther King Jr. for the first time and hears, for
the first time, that he was killed. She writes, “I was still ignorant enough
to be surprised” (Westover 2018, 179). Confusion and surprise, thus, are
further possible symptoms of ignorance. They may appear together with
cluelessness but do not necessarily co-​occur. I return to “surprise” later.
Paradigmatically, cluelessness is non-​reflective: the clueless subject is
often unaware of her ignorance, and, in addition, would be unable to
frame any questions regarding the fact that she is ignorant of because she
lacks the requisite conceptual framework and background knowledge.
The relevant topic is remote to her. Admittedly, cluelessness may also be
somewhat reflective, namely, once one has become aware of an instance
encompassing, broad ignorance on one’s part. Think of Tom when he
realizes he has no idea what NAO is and does not understand Rachel’s
attempts at explaining the North Atlantic Oscillation. One would not ad
hoc understand any explanation into the details of what one is ignorant of
but one is aware that there is this topic that one is clueless about. As you
might expect, there are degrees of cluelessness and thresholds at which clue-
lessness turns into another form of ignorance. And reflective cluelessness
 Facets of Ignorance 83

may develop in various ways. It may lead to investigative ignorance, but it

may also turn into preferred ignorance.
Cluelessness appears to be related to Halbwissen, but cluelessness is less
concrete and more fuzzy and blurred than Halbwissen. With Halbwissen
there are more building blocks for understanding and the subject does
know some facts and propositions about the relevant topic but does not
have substantial knowledge or comprehensive knowledge.

4.3 Ignorance as Suspending Belief

Le Morvan and Peels describe suspending ignorance as “one suspend[ing]
belief and disbelief on p while p is true” (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 26).
One example for this doxastic attitude is found in Descartes’ Meditations
when he suggests that one should suspend judgment if one does not know
whether the statement is true. In doing so one can avoid error.

What is more, even if I have no power to avoid error in the first way
just mentioned, which requires a clear perception of everything I have
to deliberate on, I can avoid error in the second way, which depends
merely on my remembering to withhold judgement on any occasion
when the truth of the matter is not clear. Admittedly, I am aware of a
certain weakness in me, in that I am unable to keep my attention fixed
on one and the same item of knowledge at all times; but by attentive and
repeated meditation I am nevertheless able to make myself remember it
as often as the need arises, and thus get into the habit of avoiding error.
(Descartes 2017, 49, AT 61-​62)

Descartes himself notes that this suggestion is not practicable: one mostly
cannot stop and examine whether one’s belief is true or not because “the
pressure of things to be done does not always allow us to stop and make
such a meticulous check” (Descartes 2017, 71, AT 116). And the stance is
not just not practicable, it is also not a stable state located between belief
and disbelief.
Friedman proposes an alternative conception of suspension: We are
suspending on a question, not suspending belief (2013). Suspending, thus,
is an interrogative attitude and presupposes that the subject does not
know the answer to a question. Friedman notes the following “Ignorance
Norm”: “Necessarily, if one knows Q at t, then one ought not have an IA
[interrogative attitude, N.E.] towards Q at t” (Friedman 2013, 10). Thus,
an interrogative attitude requires not knowing Q at t, it requires being
ignorant. And so suspending as an interrogative attitude is a symptom of
ignorance.19
84 What Is Ignorance?

On Friedman’s reconstruction we can see that suspending is not the

result of a deficient epistemic standing, because if a subject had defi-
cient epistemic standing, she would not form or hold a belief, whereas
suspending is an attitude toward a belief. Someone who suspends on a
question is also an inquirer. Suspending on a question as a symptom of
ignorance thus leads us back to investigative ignorance.
Suspending ignorance on this construal would also go together well
with open-​mindedness and curiosity as additional symptoms of ignorance.
If one is able to formulate a genuine question in a certain domain, one is
ignorant, but one has a reflective attitude toward the ignorance, and such
reflective ignorance –​awareness of one’s ignorance –​often comes hand in
hand, maybe even presupposes, open-​mindedness, curiosity, investigation
and an inquiring stance.20

4.4 Questions as a Symptom of Ignorance

We can generalize the insights about questions as symptoms of ignorance
in suspension and cluelessness. If someone does not know something, they
may ask about it –​if they are aware of their own ignorance and sometimes
also if they are not aware of their own ignorance. Scientists also formulate
questions to address their own ignorance in their research (cf. Bromberger
1992, Firestein 2012). For those in the know, questions can also be a sign
of the degree and depth of someone’s ignorance. I might go to a bike mech-
anic and pretend to be knowledgeable about bikes, but the way that I am
formulating my questions gives me away as a novice. But in other cases,
questions may also implicitly show the inquirer’s expertise in the field.
Questions as symptoms of ignorance are also compatible with the
Integrated Conception of Ignorance because they bring together the
different components. They may be indicative of the details of the state of
ignorance. Hence, a particular question may indicate that one is ignorant
but in an open-​minded way. And a question can also indicate that one is
ignorant in a close-​minded way. The following scene that Cassandra Byers
Harvin describes in her article “Conversations I Can’t Have” (1996) is an
example for a question as a symptom of close-​minded, vicious ignorance.

In front of a computer in the public library, I try mightily to meet a

writing deadline. But being incurably gregarious, I stop to listen to a
white woman, early-​50s-​looking, introduce herself as a writer and ask
what I am working on. Putting it simply, I say, “Raising black sons in
this society.” “How is that any different from raising white sons?” she
replies without taking time to blink, her tone making clear that she just
knows I am making something out of nothing. I politely make clear that
 Facets of Ignorance 85

we are not going to have that conversation. I can say it is because I am

running out of time. The truth is that I am out of patience.
(Harvin 1996, 16)

The woman who asks this question, in asking that question reveals her
own ignorance, but it is a vicious variety of ignorance.21 In the USA in
1996, this woman should and could be clear that the lives of Black chil-
dren, teenagers, especially boys and adults are difficult. And even if she
was indeed ignorant of what raising Black sons in the USA in 1996 is
like, there would have been a more open-​minded versions of her question,
for example, “Oh, that’s interesting. What’s the focus of your research?”
Clearly, her question as a symptom of her ignorance is also influenced
by structural components, whether the public discourses address the
experiences of Black boys, teenagers, adults or not, whether, for example,
books like Ta-​Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me (2017) are avail-
able or not. There is much more to the structural constituents of individual
and collective ignorance, but I cannot address them in this context.
For questions as symptoms of ignorance we can see that the context
and the formulation of a question are indicative of the state of ignorance
that the person who asks the question is in. “Is the question appropriate
to ask?” “Is the formulation charitable?”22 –​these questions are good
indicators for whether it is an instance of open-​minded ignorance or close-​
minded ignorance.23
If a particular question presupposes the right conceptual framework for
the topic, the person is most certainly not cluelessly ignorant, and prob-
ably not deeply ignorant. And if the person asks a (clarificatory) question
about some topic, she is most probably aware of her own ignorance. Note
that you might be aware of your ignorance and still be cluelessly ignorant.
However, awareness of one’s ignorance and deep ignorance are not com-
patible in the same way; by definition, in being deeply ignorant you are
totally unaware of some fact and the background assumptions of this
fact.24

4.5 Holding a False Belief as a Symptom of Ignorance

The other facet of ignorance that we may encounter in a belief set is the
presence of a false belief or of a set of false beliefs. In other words: a false
belief in a belief set is a symptom of ignorance. In addition to itself being
a symptom of ignorance, a false belief is indicative of other symptoms
of ignorance. In some cases, a false belief may indicate the absence of
the corresponding true belief. But not all false beliefs have one particular
corresponding true belief, and so a false belief might be related to a cluster
86 What Is Ignorance?

of incomplete belief sets or of other false beliefs. For example, the belief
that parallels do not meet does not simply correspond to the belief that
parallels do meet because one needs to modulate the beliefs and their
truth value relative to the space in which the parallels are set (Euclidean
or non-​Euclidean).
Or take this example: Rachel might believe that Japan does not have
any sand beaches. That is a false belief, but this false belief is also indi-
cative of a wider gap in her belief set: she has no idea that Japan has
sand beaches, and she has no idea of Japan’s landscapes. She is deeply
ignorant, but she is not clueless. When Rachel goes to Japan and sees the
beaches in Okinawa she is surprised –​but unlike in a case of cluelessness
she is not confused, or cannot understand what it is that she sees. Rachel’s
false belief may be similar to Haas and Vogt’s incomplete complete ignor-
ance: Rachel has some inchoate ideas about Japan’s landscape, but that’s
at most just Halbwissen.
At the same time, she is not simply propositionally ignorant. Rather,
since she holds a false belief to be true, she is also misinformed. Being
misinformed is different from being merely ignorant because there is a
presence rather than an absence –​there is a false belief present in her belief
set rather than a true belief absent. Of course, holding a false belief to be
true and having it in one’s belief set is more likely than not to go together
with lacking a related true belief. In these examples we find old and new
symptoms of ignorance: Possessing Halbwissen, being misinformed and
being surprised upon learning something new or being corrected.

Error as a Symptom of Ignorance

But false belief can also indicate more: an error in reasoning, for example,
drawing a wrong conclusion, or an error in the process of belief acqui-
sition; for example, basing one’s belief on misleading or false evidence.
A false belief is the result of a flawed epistemic process, and an error
occurs within the epistemic process. Someone who commits an error in
her reasoning process but accidentally reaches a true belief may also be
manifesting ignorance. For example, the Ptolemaic geocentric system did
lead to some correct predictions of the movements of planets and astro-
nomical observations although it is overall a false model of the universe.25
Peels and Le Morvan’s example of Alfred who thinks that he will be the
next president of the USA and, on the basis of this false belief, deduces the
true belief that the next president of the USA currently lives in Columbia,
Missouri (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 27), demonstrates how both an
error in belief acquisition and starting one’s reasoning from a wildly false
belief are symptoms of ignorance.26 Alfred might end up with a true belief,
but we still call him ignorant because he has acquired the belief that he will
 Facets of Ignorance 87

be the next president of the USA, and he maintains this belief, even though
this belief is neither supported nor substantiated nor confirmed by further
evidence or other relevant beliefs.
There is not much work on error in philosophy –​a situation very similar
to ignorance. And even if authors talk about error, they do not define error,
as Giora Hon, one of the few philosophers studying error, notes (Hon
2009).27 Hon makes a similar claim about studying error as I have made
about ignorance in general –​we cannot understand error if we simply
regard it as the privation of knowledge.

[The] implied view that the problem of error is some sort of a mirror
image of the problem of knowledge is misleading if not mistaken. To be
sure, error is an epistemological phenomenon that in the final analysis
has to be analyzed with the tools of a theory of knowledge. However,
nothing in such a theory reflects directly the phenomenon of error and
it is clear that a special inquiry has to be undertaken.
(Hon 2009, 13)

I suggest that in Kant’s Jäsche Logic error is discussed as a phenomenon

in its own right. And we find a definition of error that serves as an entry
point for this section on why error is a form of ignorance. Kant explains
that error (Irrtum) is “falsehood, which … is taken for truth” (Kant, JL,
AA IX, 53, emphasis deleted). An error includes a falsehood, that is, a
false belief, that is taken to be a truth, and every error necessarily includes
these two elements that can be separated into an objective and a subjective
element.28
Michael Gamper also emphasizes the objective/​ subjective double-​
structure that any conception of error that is similar to Kant’s identifies:

Error is an objectively false sentence that is subjectively held to be true

by the originator or an adherent. We can talk of error when the identi-
fiable falsity of a sentence and the belief of a speaker that the sentence
is true co-​occur.
(Gamper 2010, 93, my translation)

But both Gamper’s and Kant’s conceptions do not pick up on an ambi-

guity in the term error: error can be taken in the procedural sense and
denote some flaw in a process, or it can be understood in the product sense
and denote the result of an epistemic process that is in some way flawed,
where the issue can be either in the process or in the circumstances. The
latter sense of error may be captured by talking of false belief. In the case
of epistemological error, the object of an error is standardly taken to be
a statement, a belief, or a proposition (cf. Gamper 2010, 93, Schwarz
88 What Is Ignorance?

1976, Schwarz 2009, Schüling 2009) since error is in a judgment or is

at least based on a judgment. Most authors agree that error includes a
judgment, for example, Kant in the Jäsche Logic statement that I have
given above, or also in The Critique of Pure Reason (Kant, KrV, AA III,
234–​235, A293–​A295).
And Kant also offers an explanation for error: sensibility influences us
so that we conflate subjective and objective reasons (cf. also Kant, JL, AA
IX, 53–​54). In the Jäsche Logic, Kant explains that it is illusion that causes
the confusion between subjective and objective judgment: “What makes
error possible, then, is illusion, in accordance with which the merely sub-
jective is confused in judgment with the objective” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 54).
I suggest that we should explicitly distinguish the process-​sense of error
and the product-​sense of error because each has a different focus –​process vs.
a false belief –​and each calls for a different remedy. Therefore, I use “error”
to refer to the procedural sense, and “false belief” for the product of error.29

Halbwissen as Symptom of Ignorance

Halbwissen also qualifies as a symptom of ignorance. And it comes with

a combination of true belief and false belief –​like error. Since there is
no adequate English translation of this telling label for this special com-
bination of true and false beliefs, I continue using the German term.
The literal translation would be “half-​ knowledge.” The German dic-
tionary Duden defines Halbwissen as “deficient, superficial knowledge”
(Dudenredaktion n.d., my translation). As I have noted earlier, such
Halbwissen is closely related to presumed knowledge.30 But Halbwissen
is not always (epistemically or morally) negative. First of all, it can take
different forms, (a) it can come with incomplete knowledge of a phenom-
enon, (b) it can be manifest in true belief without justification, or (c) it can
be true belief without what one may call background knowledge, know-
ledge that allows one to weight, structure, organize and order one’s beliefs.
Remember the NAO example: Tom might know that the NAO is a wea-
ther phenomenon and that it is related to El Niño. But he does not know
much more. That is Halbwissen because it includes true beliefs, and rele-
vant concepts, but it is not proper knowledge because it is neither well jus-
tified, nor extensive. Tom knows that there is a relation between El Niño
and NAO, and he knows he has learnt about it in school and at university,
but he cannot recall the relation, nor explain it. He cannot say what the
relation between El Niño and NAO is.
But, again, Halbwissen is not enough to fully determine a subject’s
ignorance: first, it is but one of the symptoms in a cluster of symptoms of
ignorance, and second, it is also further influenced by doxastic attitudes
of the subject. That is also why the term Halbwissen itself does not
 Facets of Ignorance 89

automatically yield a negative evaluation. We evaluate Tom’s epistemic

state –​he believes that the NAO is a weather phenomenon and that it is
related to El Niño –​very differently, depending on whether Tom is just
about to start reading scientific articles about the NAO, or whether he
has, say, watched a 10-​minute documentary about the effects of El Niño
and boasts that he is well informed about El Niño. Both cases of ignorance
are instances of Halbwissen, but it is central whether, for example, Tom
humbly admits to his ignorance or whether he arrogantly claims that he
is well informed despite being largely uninformed. In other words, Tom’s
attitudes toward his beliefs are crucial for determining his ignorance.
Depending on Tom’s attitudes and epistemic behavior, his Halbwissen can
be a case of presumed knowledge or it can be a case of what Haas and
Vogt call investigative ignorance.
In differentiating kinds of ignorance in this section, I have fre-
quently used virtues and vices, such as humility or close-​mindedness.
The framework of epistemic virtues and vices is clearly helpful for
understanding ignorance better and it also provides further symptoms
of ignorance.

4.6 Virtuous and Vicious Ignorance

4.6.1 Being Open-​Mindedly Ignorant

Picture Rachel –​she was misinformed about Japan having sand beaches –​
and Kim –​they do not hold any beliefs about sand beaches in Japan. Both
are ignorant about sand beaches in Japan. But that is not all there is to their
ignorance. Let’s assume that they are ignorant and open-​minded. When
they are open-​mindedly ignorant, they are able to accept new evidence,
or choose situations in which they acquire knowledge. For example, we
can imagine either choosing to go to Japan for their holidays and learning
about the sand beaches in Japan while planning their vacation. Or they
can learn about it by reading a book about Japan or watching a documen-
tary. They are ignorant and open-​minded.
Upon learning a new fact about Japan, Kim, who did not hold a belief
about sand beaches in Japan, could take up the attitude of investigative
ignorance toward Japan’s landscape. They have realized that there is a
gap in their belief set that they want to fill. They take up a complex epi-
stemic attitude toward their own ignorance: they know that they are
ignorant about Japan’s landscape, they are reflectively ignorant, and they
want to learn more about the landscape, so they are also investigatively
ignorant. Both attitudes go together with Kim being open-​minded. Open-​
mindedness and investigative ignorance are most obviously manifested by
asking questions concerning the topic one is ignorant about, so here we,
90 What Is Ignorance?

again, encounter asking questions as a symptom of ignorance and as a

means to identifying ignorance.31
Asking questions also directs us to the different facets of investigative
ignorance. Investigative ignorance is not restricted to something like a
scientist’s approach to ignorance, carefully and in an organized way scru-
tinizing the topic of one’s ignorance. Nor is it restricted to what one might
call a private detective approach to ignorance. The investigatively ignorant
subject may take simpler and less systematic approaches. Everybody can
be investigatively ignorant as long as they are aware of their ignorance and
want to know more about the field. What unites systematic approaches to
ignorance, as the scientist’s approach and the private detective approach,
with an everyday approach to conscious ignorance is the subject wanting
to find out about what it does not know, wanting to know.
What does the virtue open-​mindedness entail? Wayne Riggs describes
open-​mindedness as follows:

Being open-​minded is popularly associated with many other positive

qualities like curiosity, fairness, and thoughtfulness. An open-​minded
person doesn’t jump to conclusions, but considers alternatives carefully.
An open-​minded person is interested in learning new things; willing to
cast aside cherished beliefs if new and better possibilities are on offer.
An open-​minded person doesn’t discredit an opinion because of whom
it comes from, but rather judges it on its merits.
(Riggs 2018, 141)

There are further complications in relation to open-​mindedness and

ignorance that make the picture more complicated. First, note that
open-​ minded ignorance is not necessarily reflective ignorance and
investigative ignorance, that is, a form of conscious ignorance. This
is because open-​mindedness as an epistemic virtue is both an under-
lying trait –​a disposition –​that may (or may not) be actualized in the
right contexts and an attitude that is actualized in particular contexts.32
So one may be open-​mindedly ignorant before one knows that one is
ignorant whether p, but also when one is actually aware that one is
ignorant whether p. I call such non-​reflective open-​minded ignorance
Open-​minded Ignorance Simpliciter, in contrast to investigative ignor-
ance and Socratic ignorance.
Second, note that these virtues are contextual and domain-​sensitive in
the sense that someone who is open-​mindedly ignorant regarding one field,
may not display this open-​mindedness in other fields. Rachel might be
open-​mindedly ignorant with respect to her ignorance about sand beaches
in Japan, but she may be close-​mindedly ignorant with respect to the
reality of climate change.
 Facets of Ignorance 91

That is also one explanation for why open-​mindedness is primarily

inherently good or epistemically virtuous. Critics of open-​mindedness
will remind us that open-​mindedness is often accompanied by a gullible
and naïve attitude, and that one may be open-​minded toward faulty infor-
mation (e.g., Kruglanski and Boyatzi 2012). Despite these complications,
I think that, ultimately, virtuous (good) open-​minded ignorance is pri-
mary because instances in which open-​minded ignorance is gullible or
naïve are most likely cases in which we can broadly say that externally
something goes wrong with open-​minded ignorance. For example, one
may be open-​minded toward inaccurate information, or more generally
open-​minded ignorance is perturbed by other factors and motivations.
This possibility does not impugn open-​ mindedness and open-​ minded
ignorance itself, it just shows that open-​mindedness can lead to bad epi-
stemic results if it works with faulty material or is actualized in pernicious
circumstances or co-​constituted by bad structures. And conversely, as we
will see, close-​mindedness may lead to good epistemic results and also
to good moral results. Incidentally, that is also why merely looking at
the consequences of one’s beliefs (and epistemic conduct) is not enough
for rationally dealing with ignorance, a problem for the consequentialist
approach.
Another independent reason for why open-​ mindedness is inher-
ently epistemically virtuous is that open-​mindedness goes together with
accepting that human knowledge is limited, that is, that there is more to
know, as well as human fallibility and one’s own fallibility. Someone who
is open-​minded may simply allow that one is factually ignorant or that
one holds a false belief to be true, and attend to new or contrary evidence.

4.6.2 Being Close-​Mindedly Ignorant

We could just as well attribute other epistemic attitudes to Rachel and Kim
and thus have them react in a different way. They are both ignorant about
the landscape of Japan, they learn that Japan has sand beaches, but Rachel
holds on to her belief that Japan does not have sand beaches, and Kim is
not interested in Japan’s landscape and so they do not go on to investi-
gate Japan’s landscape –​not so much in the private detective sense, just in
the sense of searching out more information. Rachel and Kim would be
ignorant and close-​minded. Theirs would be cases of preferred ignorance
(Haas and Vogt 2015). Their preferred ignorance may be either conscious
or unconscious, reflective or non-​reflective.
Evaluating close-​minded ignorance is more difficult than it seems, just
as we saw in the case of open-​mindedness. In philosophical discussions of
epistemic virtues and vices, close-​mindedness is standardly regarded as a
vice. On this standard reading, close-​minded ignorance can go together
92 What Is Ignorance?

with various forms of (vicious) epistemic conduct, broadly construed,

that will also constitute symptoms of ignorance. For example, ignoring
valid evidence, shying away from searching out situations in which one
learns new facts, in which one is able to acquire knowledge, shying away
from talking to people with another background, not reading newspapers,
reading books, watching documentaries,33 etc. These symptoms belong
with preferred ignorance.
Nancy Tuana’s taxonomy of ignorance highlights that preferred ignor-
ance may also refer to wanting others not to know: “They do not want
us to know –​the ignorance of certain groups is systematically cultivated”
(Tuana 2006, 9), in addition to typical self-​directed preferred ignorance in
the shape of willful ignorance: “they do not know and they do not want to
know” (Tuana 2006, 10).34
Such vicious epistemic conduct, and preferred ignorance, in general, can
be reflective or non-​reflective and conscious or non-​conscious. And it may
seem that in either variant close-​minded ignorance entails dogmatism –​
stubbornly and inflexibly holding on to one’s beliefs and views. Moreover,
in avoiding new facts, additional evidence, opposing views, one implicitly
claims that one’s own epistemic position is sufficient, if not superior.
Non-​reflective close-​minded ignorance leads to a special form of ignor-
ance that does not feel (appear) like ignorance from the first-​person per-
spective; it is what Haas and Vogt call Presumed Knowledge. The subject
disbelieves that p –​she believes that p when p is false –​she holds a false
belief to be true, but she believes that she knows, and, therefore, presumes
that she is a knower. In cases of presumed knowledge the subject is “not
motivated to inquire, qualify her views as tentative, or anything of that
sort” (Haas and Vogt 2015, 19). Her assumption that she knows justifies
her not inquiring, not viewing her views as tentative. In contrast to non-​
reflective open-​minded ignorance the subject believes that she knows and
does not consider the possibility that her beliefs are false. As I said earlier,
open-​minded ignorance comes with accepting the fallibility of human cog-
nitive capacities. Open-​mindedness (as a state, not as a trait) and presumed
knowledge in one domain are, thus, most probably incompatible.
But the term dogmatism that I have used for preferred ignorance comes
with a negative connotation that is not appropriate for all preferred ignor-
ance. There is a variety of preferred ignorance that I call Well-​Informed
Preferred Ignorance and which does not entail dogmatism. For example, a
scientist may choose to be ignorant about racist anthropology because she
finds the consequences of the theories dangerous, and because she rejects
the fundamental premises of this research. Biologists may not want to inves-
tigate into the mechanism of how bacteria become more resistant to heat
because they want to avoid providing results that could be used to improve
biological weapons. They could close this field of research because the
 Facets of Ignorance 93

potential consequences conflicted with their practical values.35 A related

form of preferred ignorance is cognitively preferred ignorance where one
does not want to know irrelevant true beliefs because knowing them
would clutter one’s mind with irrelevant material and detracting energy
from valuable epistemic endeavors (Cf. Harman 1986, 15).36
Critics might object that well-​informed preferred ignorance does not
belong with close-​ minded ignorance because the subject did inquire
into facts, circumstances, consequences of the topic in question before
becoming close-​minded, so she was open-​minded, and there is reason to
suggest that dispositionally she is still open-​minded.37 Nevertheless, I think
we need to group well-​informed preferred ignorance with close-​minded
ignorance because close-​minded ignorance, even if well argued for, is close-​
mindedness toward possible evidence and arguments from opponents. The
subject may also avoid encounters with opponents because she does not
want to know more about that topic. Of course, there will be different
degrees of open-​mindedness and close-​mindedness in well-​informed pre-
ferred ignorance, but for the sake of simplicity I ignore those.38
I propose to add another type of ignorance in addition to close-​minded
and open-​minded ignorance since there are cases of ignorance that look
like close-​minded ignorance –​not wanting to know –​, for example, I do
not want to know how many buildings are on Clausiusstrasse in Zurich,
I do not want to know what my colleagues had for lunch on each day
of their lives, I do not want to know where the other people who are
boarding the same train as I am are going. I am not going after evidence
on these questions to overcome my ignorance. But, unlike in the case of
close-​minded ignorance, I do not necessarily reject hearing anything about
these and similar facts –​I just do not care and therefore do not investigate
into the topic. Moreover –​and this is also different to close-​minded ignor-
ance –​I do not actively avoid any evidence that I stumble upon. These are
cases of what I call Indifferent Ignorance. Just as in Tuana’s category of
“Knowing that we do not know, but not caring to know –​[because it is]
not linked to present interests” (Tuana 2006, 4).
Not going after evidence might suggest that I am close-​ mindedly
ignorant, but it would be an exaggeration to call me close-​ mindedly
ignorant when my ignorance concerns these facts that are irrelevant to
me –​and to most other people, too. In cases of close-​minded ignorance,
the topic is in some way or other relevant, with indifferent ignorance it
is not. Unless some change of circumstances and facts makes the topic
relevant. If the agent is aware of her own ignorance and she judges that
ignorance to be irrelevant for herself, then she is indifferently ignorant.
She does not care about her own ignorance, she is indifferent. Indifferent
ignorance is not the same as preferred ignorance because there is less of
a motivation in indifferent ignorance. Preferred ignorance translates into
94 What Is Ignorance?

Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” (cf. Melville 1985) and Indifferent
Ignorance translates into “I don’t care.”39 Indifferent ignorance refers to
facts and topics that are simply not relevant and not interesting. They are
like the so-​called fun facts that scientists, experts and enthusiasts will blurt
out upon on cue.
Of course, a subject’s ignorance is not solely determined by one epi-
stemic attitude. Other epistemic virtues are more likely to appear together
with open-​mindedness than others. Promising candidates are, for example,
humility and curiosity, the other two virtues that Medina refers to as being
central for epistemic resistance (Medina 2013). These candidate virtues
are also discussed in relation with the topic “virtues and education” (e.g.,
Baehr 2016).
Close-​mindedness, too, has like-​minded vices that are likely to appear
in unison with it. Again, Medina’s list is helpful: epistemic arrogance
and epistemic laziness are promising candidates, and as my examples of
epistemically vicious, ignorant conduct indicate, they are well suited for
complementing close-​mindedness. Let’s look at these other virtues and
vices and their relation to ignorance in more detail.

4.6.3 Curiosity and Laziness, Humility and Arrogance

We find the same opposite structure as with open-​mindedness and close-​

mindedness in these two other sets of epistemic attitudes: curiosity v. lazi-
ness, and humility v. arrogance. But it is less obvious that laziness and
arrogance can also have positive sides to them than it was for close-​
mindedness. Let’s work again with Rachel and Kim and their ignorance
regarding Japan having sand beaches. As I’ve said earlier for open-​
mindedness and close-​mindedness, each attitude can be manifested before
they learn that Japan has sand beaches, when they learn that Japan has
sand beaches, and after they have learnt that Japan has sand beaches.
Curiosity and humility –​two attitudes that are also generally taken to
be epistemic virtues in the current epistemological literature –​can come
in exaggerated forms and in appropriate forms.40 One can be extremely
curious, in the sense of nosy, for example, if one wants to know the details
of another person’s private life and is obsessed with this interest. Or one
can be too humble, self-​ deprecating when making exaggerated claims
about one’s ignorance.
I focus on Rachel and Kim after they have learnt that Japan has sand
beaches. Curious Rachel and Kim will want to know more, after having
experienced their ignorance about Japan’s landscape. Whitcomb argues
that “curiosity is a desire at questions for knowledge” (Whitcomb 2010,
673). Their curiosity is a desire that consists in questions about Japan’s
landscape, and this desire will be sated by knowledge about Japan’s
 Facets of Ignorance 95

landscape. Note that Whitcomb’s definition of curiosity refers to a par-

ticular desire to know something, but as he notes, it also fits for curiosity
as a character trait (Whitcomb 2010, 672).
Lazy Rachel and Kim might not even be interested in the new piece of
information about Japan, they might be not interested in Japan, or any
foreign country –​What’s this distant country to me? And even if they were
interested in Japan or foreign countries, they would be too lazy or maybe
otherwise distracted to focus their epistemic capacities to follow up on the
new information. They would be ignorant about knowledge (topics) that
they might learn about and lazy in not striving for this new knowledge.
This description might also fit for Rachel and Kim before they learn about
Japan’s sand beaches. In their lazy personas the two would not seek out
information about a distant country that they have not been to.
Laziness can go together with the kind of ignorance that Haas and Vogt
have called presumed knowledge: the subject holds a false belief, but she
believes that her belief is true. A lazy subject will not inquire into the
credentials of her belief. And presumed knowledge also goes well with
close-​mindedness and arrogance –​if Rachel believes that she knows that
Japan does not have any sand beaches, and if she takes herself to be well
informed, she might also avoid and ignore other evidence.
But note that presumed knowledge does not have to go together with
laziness, close-​mindedness or arrogance. It is conceivable that Rachel has
made an honest mistake in acquiring the belief that Japan does not have
any sand beaches, and that she is actively going for new information and
experiences –​open-​minded, curious, inquiring –​but accidentally does
not get to the right information and does not learn that Japan has sand
beaches. Again, we find that ignorance is compatible with very different
attitudes.
Humility and arrogance seem more prevalent in the subject’s reac-
tion to being confronted with her own ignorance or to new information.
A humble subject might know about the limits of her knowledge, she is
aware of shortcomings in everybody’s belief set, of systematic error in
reasoning, and of the fact that we all have false beliefs in our belief set, or
misuse concepts etc. When faced with her own ignorance, she accepts it, or
aims to overcome it, or work around it, and when faced with new evidence
(etc.) she might check it, and take it up, when it is convincing. Humility,
thus, is also a possible symptom of ignorance. A being who is omniscient
would probably not (have to be) humble.
Someone who is ignorant and epistemically arrogant (cf. Medina 2013,
43f.) rejects new evidence, or new information, challenges the authority
of her interlocutor who gives her new information, avoids encountering
interlocutors who would be able to tell her something that she does not
know, either filling a gap, informing her about a new concept, or correcting
96 What Is Ignorance?

a false belief. She does all of that because she thinks that her epistemic
status is superior to that of other epistemic subjects. Other symptoms of
ignorance might, thus, be rejecting new evidence, flat-​out questioning of
authorities or expertise, avoiding new evidence, not listening to testimony
by other epistemic subjects, silencing other epistemic subjects.41

4.7 Psychological States That Occur with Ignorance

When we look at symptoms of ignorance, we must not overlook that some
psychological states require ignorance. For example, as Cynthia Townley
has argued, trust requires some ignorance, understood as the absence of a
true belief. If you trust me that my testimony about the result of yesterday’s
football game is correct, that also requires you to not double check, and set
out for further information to back up my testimony (cf. Townley 2011,
27). In addition, Smithson notes that “hope, aspiration, curiosity, suspense,
thrill” (Smithson 2015, 398) all require ignorance. Surprise also requires
ignorance. A surprise birthday party for my partner is only a surprise if my
partner does not know that the party will take place and does not know of
my plans for the party. Remember also Tara Westover’s observation that
she “was still ignorant enough to be surprised” (Westover 2018, 179).
These states involve ignorance about some future state or event. Hope
is only appropriate if one does not know whether some desired future
state will obtain, or an event will occur. Curiosity also clearly involves
ignorance; there is some p (or some facts) that one does not know and one
wants to know, and goes after the information. Suspense is created if one
does not know something, say, who the murderer is, who is going to win
the game, how the committee is going to decide. Similarly for thrill. The
difference between suspense and thrill seems to be a matter of degree, with
thrill involving more intense happy excitement than suspense.
Trust, hope, etc. requiring or involving ignorance is ambiguous between
ignorance being causally related to these states and ignorance being con-
stitutive of these states. I submit that ignorance is not just causally related
but can even be constitutive of these states. Ignorance co-​constitutes trust,
hope, aspiration, curiosity, suspense, thrill. For these states and attitudes
to pertain the subject who is in these states must be ignorant of some fact
or subject matter. It is not just that being ignorant causes these states,
ignorance is one component of being in these states, albeit possibly just a
small one.
And, thus, we can identify trust, hope, aspiration, curiosity, surprise,
suspense and thrill as symptoms of ignorance. Ignorance is co-​constitutive
of these states and so it must be present for these states to obtain. But note
that although these psychological states indicate ignorance, the indicated
ignorance is not necessarily interesting or crucial. Trust indicates ignorance,
 Facets of Ignorance 97

but, by itself, this ignorance is not an interesting case of ignorance, because

trust is the more significant phenomenon in this context. A parent who
trusts their child saying that they went to school today and does not call
the teacher to check up is ignorant about some matters regarding the child’s
claim, but that is not what is interesting when we look at such a case; it is
the trusting attitude that is in the focus of attention. This may be because
ignorance is constitutive of trust, but trust is not necessary for ignorance.
Things are different in the case of curiosity: ignorance constitutes curi-
osity, and curiosity is a symptom of ignorance, but an individual state
of ignorance can also be constituted by curiosity. In addition, curiosity
comes with an awareness of one’s ignorance. Curiosity is only possible if
one really does not know some p, if one has a question (Whitcomb 2010)
and the subject wants to change this situation. In the case of curiosity,
ignorance is known ignorance, or reflective ignorance. Thus, the subject is
interested in overcoming her ignorance. Suspense and thrill also manifest
this pull toward wanting to know –​it is what makes readers of thrillers
read very fast, and what produces excitement –​and, therefore, in a similar
way they also presuppose known ignorance.42
Curiosity comes with the drive of wanting to know, but is often also
accompanied by the lingering feeling that you should not want to know,
for example, because by knowing one would intrude into someone else’s
privacy, or one would unveil a surprise, or one could learn something
about oneself that one would (should) rather not know.43 This two-​edged
composition is often even stronger in suspense and thrill –​knowing the
end of a thriller early on destroys the pleasant suspense, but at the same
time one wants to know how things go on –​that is part and parcel of
suspense.

4.8 The Affective Sides of Ignorance

The distinction between unknown ignorance and known (reflective)
ignorance is also central for analyzing affects and emotions that accom-
pany ignorance, that is, emotions that can occur together with ignor-
ance. Here, I focus on the perspective of the ignorant subject. Emotions
as symptoms of ignorance can play different roles in determining ignor-
ance, they can be strongly indicative of ignorance, or they can be weakly
indicative of ignorance, unassuming companions of ignorance, as we
might say. But let me emphasize that affects and emotions are not consti-
tutive of ignorance. They are symptoms of ignorance, but they are very
weak symptoms that appear further down on the list of symptoms in
identifying ignorance.
You might ask yourself why such very weak symptoms that might be
unassuming companions of ignorance still appear on the list of symptoms
98 What Is Ignorance?

of ignorance. They need to be included because they may be important for

distinguishing and identifying manifestations of ignorance. For example,
someone who is open-​mindedly ignorant may experience happiness or
anxiety. Both combinations are possible, and each would lead to different
instances of ignorance. Moreover, emotions and affects in ignorance may
be crucial for the lived experience of ignorance, and it is important to
insist that there can be –​and oftentimes is –​a lived experience of ignor-
ance. The lived experience of ignorance also importantly influences, and
even explains, why ignorance matters to us and how ignorance matters to
us. Of course, ignorance may be without an affective component but not
all cases of ignorance are without affective component and, as I have said,
the affective, experienced side of ignorance matters to us. Which emotion
is present in a particular case of ignorance is also relevant for the reaction
to that case of ignorance. Thus, we need to take that affective component
seriously.
One such weakly indicative emotion is the emotion that most people
will intuitively associate with ignorance: bliss or happiness. This intuitive
link can be traced back to the pervasiveness of the saying “Ignorance is
bliss.” In the primary cases to which the saying refers, the ignorance is most
probably unknown ignorance because the idea is that people are happy (in
bliss) if they do not know something that might worry (etc.) them. This
is most probably also the sense in which one sometimes says that chil-
dren are happily ignorant, they do not know troubling and worrying facts.
Another way of expressing their “happy ignorance” is to call them naïve
and innocent. There are many examples of this combination of happiness
and unknown ignorance in the Arts, think, for example, of Parsifal the
ignorant, innocent and happy main character of the Parzival narrative of
Wolfram von Eschenbach and Richard Wagner’s opera. Parsifal does not
know his name, he does not know who his father is, and he grows up in
isolation, he is ignorant, but he is said to be innocent and happy.44
But reflective ignorance can also be accompanied by happiness.
A researcher who has found a new question on which she wants to work
knows that she is ignorant but may be happy about this ignorance. Or
think of the anger of readers in the case of a journalist who unveiled the
real name behind the pseudonym Elena Ferrante. The readers knew that
they did not know who Elena Ferrante really is, and they liked this ignor-
ance, and were angry when the journalist alleviated them of their ignor-
ance.45 If not knowing something is related to the subject’s well-​being, then
this ignorance can also come with happiness. Such happy ignorance can be
contentious if it takes the form of self-​deception, but the contentiousness
is not relevant in this section because I am not interested in assessing any
states of ignorance, and rather want to look at emotions as symptoms of
ignorance.46
 Facets of Ignorance 99

Another large field of emotions related to ignorance are shame, embar-

rassment and fear. When one is told that one holds a false belief, that
one does not know something or when one realizes that one holds a false
belief, one often experiences shame and embarrassment.47 And because
shame and embarrassment are unpleasant emotions, subjects can also be
afraid of being embarrassed about being ignorant, afraid of something
finding out that they don’t know some fact.
This fear of embarrassment may also lead subjects to pretend to know
when they do not know. For example, in Jimmy Kimmel’s “Lie Witness
News” at the festival South by Southwest in which people were asked to
say what they thought of the music some new band and people related
their impressions and experiences of concerts etc., even though the band
was made up by the interviewer and did not really exist (Jimmy Kimmel
Live 2014). Leah Hager Cohen (2013) relates her husband’s experience
as a kindergarten teacher for similar evidence: when he asks 3–​4-​year-​old
children whether they can see and read the letter on the board, the children
who cannot read the letter will often affirm that they can read it, but if he
asks for details they cannot specify what letter it is. As Cohen notes, there
is shame involved in admitting ignorance, both in the sense of lacking
knowledge and in the sense of having held a false belief to be true (Cohen
2013, 15ff.).
Of course, shame is not the only way for reacting to experiencing ignor-
ance: the ignorant interviewees and the children could have admitted their
ignorance and asked for clarification, they could respond to the revelation
of their ignorance by taking up an inquiring attitude, wanting to know
more, being curios. But as Cohen emphasizes, such a reaction requires
a special background, in particular, self-​confidence and privilege (Cohen
2013, 50–​52). One needs a respectful context in which one’s ignorance is
not treated as negative, in which one does not have to be afraid of being
judged or regarded as stupid, uninformed, incompetent, etc.48
Ignorance can also be connected to existential fear. Patients waiting
for important test results can be in such a state; they know that they do
not know what the test results are going to say, and until they receive
the results there is no information to alleviate their ignorance. As Kerwin
(1993) and reports of patients’ experiences show, in the case of particularly
crucial tests, for example, cancer, such ignorance is often accompanied by
fear and anxiety. This emotional reaction is an instance of fearful ignor-
ance: the unknown causes fear in the subject. This may be because the
unknown itself qua unknown is intimidating, or because the unknown
may turn out to be disagreeable or harmful, for example, a medical diag-
nosis of a severe disease, or also just the first day in school, at a new job,
in a new town. In less life-​threatening or less unsettling instances, con-
scious ignorance –​uncertainty –​that does not come with a solution can be
100 What Is Ignorance?

accompanied by curiosity (again) and by excitement and aspiration –​think

again of scientists’ excitement about a new field that they are starting to
study. – I return to ignorance in medical contexts in Chapter 12.
Let me briefly point to another emotion that can be linked to ignorance.
Another alternative to shame may be anger –​the experience of ignorance may
lead the subject to be angry with themself, or with others who have pointed
out their ignorance or who sustain a particular state of ignorance. But again,
as in the case of happiness –​possibly an opposite of anger –​, anger is not
constitutive of ignorance, or necessary or sufficient for ignorance to obtain.
It is just an emotion that may (and does) accompany reflective ignorance.
Clearly, ignorance can be accompanied by several and very diverse
emotions. But this long and diverse list does not mean that emotions are
irrelevant to ignorance, it shows, yet again, that ignorance is a complex
state and that the conception of ignorance and our conceptual tools must
be able to capture this complexity.

4.9 Overview of Symptoms of Ignorance

The examination of the different symptoms of ignorance has revealed a
wide range of different belief states, dispositions and attitudes that occur
in instances of ignorance and can be counted as symptoms of ignorance.
In the case of epistemic attitudes and virtues we even saw that opposites
could be symptoms of ignorance, for example, open-​mindedness and close-​
mindedness. This does not mean that the idea of putting together a list of
symptoms of ignorance is useless. It does deliver central insights about ignor-
ance. First, a manifestation of ignorance cannot be fully captured by one
single component; it also requires looking at the beliefs of the subject, the epi-
stemic attitudes of the subject, and the affects of the subject. Second, ignor-
ance can be epistemically valuable and epistemically bad, and it can be related
to responsible epistemic behavior and irresponsible epistemic behavior.
But the list of symptoms does not deliver a collection of cardinal signs
of ignorance that one might have wanted to gain and compile. The main
obstacle is that ignorance is too complex and too multifaceted to be redu-
cible to anything general and at the same time specific other than the
constituents of ignorance: doxastic, attitudinal, affective and structural
components. Neither of the more detailed specifications are necessary or
sufficient for ignorance per se.
This result should not be surprising given the broad scope of my con-
ception of ignorance and given the nature of ignorance itself. We can, how-
ever, collect cardinal signs of particular kinds of ignorance, for example,
reflective ignorance, preferred ignorance, close-​minded ignorance, and in
doing so we can collect standard paradigms which we need to consider in
the attempt at dealing with ignorance in Part 2 and 3. In compiling these
 Facets of Ignorance 101

paradigms, I will also conclude my attempts at improving the taxonomy

of ignorance that I have started with at the beginning of this chapter.
The different paradigms will be specified by doxastic attitudes, epistemic
attitudes, epistemic virtues and vices, and affective components.
I have neglected the structural component of ignorance and only
mentioned them in few cases of ignorance. This does not mean that this
component is superfluous or not part of the nature of ignorance. But always
including structural constituents would make this overview even more
complicated and confusing. And sometimes the structural constituents
are not as central as the other constituents. They will come up in the
next chapter on causes of ignorance –​and remember, they can be causal
and constitutive of ignorance. Spelling out the structural constituents as
symptoms of ignorance will then be for another occasion.
The non-​exhaustive list of paradigms of ignorance that matter for how
one should deal with ignorance is now complete:

A. OPEN-​MINDED IGNORANCE
Open-​minded ignorance simpliciter –​The epistemic agent does not
know something (e.g., some proposition p, or the details of some topic
T), she is not aware of her particular ignorance but she is aware of her
own fallibility, and therefore would be open to learning the proposition
p and finding out about the topic T once she becomes aware of the par-
ticular instance of ignorance.

Investigative ignorance –​The epistemic agent does not know something

(e.g., some proposition p, or the details of some topic T), she is aware of
her ignorance, and wants to learn and find out about it. The agent may
also hold false beliefs to be true that are pertinent to her investigation
and she may or may not be aware of those false beliefs.49

B. CLOSED-​MINDED IGNORANCE
Preferred ignorance (reflective) –​The epistemic agent does not know
something (e.g., some proposition p, or the details of some topic T) and
she does not want to know about the proposition p or the topic T. The
agent is aware of her ignorance and of her not wanting to know and
pursues these aims in her epistemic conduct.

Preferred ignorance (non-​reflective) –​The epistemic agent does not

know something (e.g., some proposition p, or the details of some topic
T) and she does not want to know about the proposition p or the topic
T. The agent is not aware of her ignorance nor of her not wanting to
know and she (implicitly) pursues these aims in her epistemic conduct.
102 What Is Ignorance?

Presumed knowledge –​The epistemic agent holds a false belief to be

true, and she does not know that she is wrong, she believes that her
belief that p is true. She behaves like a knower, and does not pursue
inquiry nor regards her respective beliefs as fallible.

C. COMPLETE IGNORANCE (DEEP IGNORANCE)

Cluelessness –​The epistemic agent does not know some proposition p or
the details of some topic T either because she lacks the conceptual reper-
toire required for holding the relevant beliefs or because she does not know
that the requisite objects exist. The agent is not aware of her ignorance.

D. ALMOST COMPLETE IGNORANCE

Halbwissen –​The epistemic agent has some beliefs about some state of
nature/​fact but her beliefs are hazy, not complete, e.g., inchoate beliefs
about evolutionary biology, and she is aware of the gaps in her beliefs.

Presumed knowledge with some knowledge –​The epistemic agent has

some beliefs about some state of nature/​fact but her beliefs are hazy, not
complete, e.g., inchoate beliefs about evolutionary biology, in addition
she also holds some false beliefs to be true. She is not aware of the gaps
in her beliefs and believes that she possesses knowledge.

E. INDIFFERENT IGNORANCE
Indifferent ignorance simpliciter –​The epistemic agent does not know
some proposition p or the details of some topic T, she is aware of her
own ignorance but she has determined that this ignorance and the
related knowledge is irrelevant to her and, therefore, is indifferent to
her ignorance and the related knowledge.

Passive ignorance –​The epistemic agent does not know some propos-
ition p or the details of some topic T, she is unaware of her own ignor-
ance, but this ignorance and the related knowledge is irrelevant to her
and she would not actively pursue inquiry in the relevant field if she
became aware of her ignorance.

Before I end this chapter on the symptoms of ignorance let me discuss an

important objection that will be looming after this host of distinctions
of and variations into ignorance. A critic might reject my analysis as
useless because it leads to a confusing particularist picture of ignorance.
We cannot say anything principled about ignorance and symptoms of
ignorance. I have collected all these different parameters and symptoms of
ignorance, but they only lead us into a particularist mess.
 Facets of Ignorance 103

The critic is right in noting the highly complex nature of the symptoms,
and of ignorance itself, but that is just what ignorance is like. Ignorance
is complex and nuanced, and that is also why the conception is complex
and why dealing with ignorance is a demanding task. In addition, studying
the symptoms of ignorance and compiling an improved taxonomy does
equip us with more relevant types of ignorance that we can employ in
understanding ignorance and in discussing how one should deal with
ignorance.

Notes
1 Nancy Tuana’s taxonomy of ignorance is even more empirical because she
acknowledges that ignorance “intersect[s]‌with power.” On that basis she
develops the following distinctions:
“Knowing that we do not know, but not caring to know –​[because it is] not
linked to present interests” (Tuana 2006, 4).
“We do not even know that we do not know –​[because] current interests/​know-
ledge block such knowledge” (Tuana 2006, 6).
“They do not want us to know –​the ignorance of certain groups is systematic-
ally cultivated” (Tuana 2006, 9).
“Willful ignorance –​they do not know and they do not want to know” (Tuana
2006, 10).
“Ignorance produced by the construction of epistemically disadvantaged iden-
tities” (Tuana 2006, 13).
“Loving Ignorance –​accepting what we cannot know” (Tuana 2006, 15).
I stick with Haas and Vogt’s taxonomy because it is broader and less focused on
motivational influences, but I will refer to Tuana’s distinctions when discussing
preferred ignorance.
2 Cf. St Augustine 1976, I.9, section 6. On St Augustine’s conception, only God
can save human beings from their ignorance (e.g., St Augustine 1941, §§52–​
57, 34).
3 I bracket any issues relating to whether omniscience also includes knowledge
of all false propositions that they are false propositions, etc., because I do not
think they are relevant to the current point of how widespread ignorance is (cf.
Wierenga 2018).
4 This observation is parallel to Aristotle’s observation that we do not call inani­
mate objects and children ignorant: they do not have the corresponding positive
capacities, so it is inadequate to call them ignorant (Topics VI.9, 148a 2–​8).
5 Since it is controversial how much of the claims are by Jäsche rather than
Kant (cf., e.g., Conrad 1994, 62–​65, Prien 2006), I was first inclined to talk
of “Kant/​Jäsche” as making these claims. But the Jäsche Logic passages on
ignorance and error that are most central for my argumentation also appear
in Kant’s handwritten notes (Kant, HN, AA XVI), sometimes even verbatim
(e.g., Kant, HN, AA XVI, 170–​218, 282–​294). Therefore, I talk of Kant
making these claims.
104 What Is Ignorance?

6 Apparently, Kant brought his own copy of Meier’s Excerpt of the Doctrine of
Reason to his Logic Lectures and so it is no surprise that Kant’s Logic Lectures
address a number of issues from Meier’s Vernunftlehre, including the horizon
(Pozzo 2015, 17*f., Conrad 1994).
7 It is striking that Kant combines determination and judgment of the horizon,
but I cannot follow up on this connection.
8 But logically perfect cognition can always turn out to be useful “for no cogni­
tion is, absolutely and for every purpose, useless and unusable, although we
may not always be able to have insight into its use” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 42).
9 The studies on which the Dunning–​Kruger effect is based and the effect itself
have been met with ever-​growing criticism but continue to have a wide popular
appeal (cf. e.g., Ackerman et al. 2002, Gignac and Zajenkowski 2020, Gelman
2021, Hofer et al. 2022, but see also Anson 2018). I won’t be able to enter
into these discussions in this context but do want to point to these recent
developments for further critical discussion of the effect in philosophical
discourses.
10 For a general overview of self-​enhancement bias, see, e.g., Krueger (1998),
Weiner and Günther (2018).
11 See Hertwig and Engel (2021, 6f.) for further rationales.
12 Marshall (2015) even argues that our brains are wired to ignore and miscon­­
strue the evidence on climate change.
13 Cf. Kruglanski and Boyatzi (2012, 218).
14 See, e.g., Kruglanski, Webster and Klem (1993).
15 The discussion could also be led using the term lack, instead of absence,
without any major effects.
16 One might suggest that suspending judgment also belongs with no belief-​
ignorance, because in suspending, the epistemic subject neither believes that
p nor does not believe that p, so there is no belief. But I think that (a) there is
a difference between no belief and a suspension of belief, because no belief is
nothing (a blank), whereas suspension of belief is something, namely suspen-
sion; (b) suspension is a doxastic attitude, and so I want to discuss it in the
section on issues in the doxastic and epistemic attitudes.
17 Distinguishing pre-​conceptual ignorance –​the subject does not have command
over the requisite conceptual repertoire (Le Morvan and Peels 2016, 23) –​and
post-​conceptual ignorance –​the subject possesses the relevant concepts but has
not formed an attitude toward the proposition (Le Morvan and Peels 2016,
23) –​may further reduce the strangeness.
18 Wilholt argues that in scientific cases deep ignorance is mostly conscious ignor­
ance “where we do not even know any candidate answers yet (or none to
which there do not seem to be immediate and decisive objections)” (Wilholt
2019, 214). The equivalent term to van Woudenberg et al.’s deep ignorance
would probably be “opaque ignorance,” “what we don’t know we don’t
know” (Wilholt 2019, 197).
19 Let me emphasize that suspending as a symptom of ignorance only refers to
ignorance as absence of true belief, and not to ignorance as false belief. The
 Facets of Ignorance 105

subject may have false beliefs, but she does not have a false belief about Q; she
doesn’t know Q.
20 Ignorance with these symptoms would also tie in with Gross’ conception of
ignorance as knowledge of the limits of knowledge (Gross 2010).
21 The white woman may actually know and at the same time not really want to
know that raising Black sons in the USA is different from raising white sons.
This would make hers a complicated –​but realistic –​case of preferred ignor-
ance in which her preferring to be ignorant involves denying any knowledge
and true beliefs that she actually possesses. This is related to the difficult issue
of ignorance ascriptions from the third-​person perspective.
22 This question goes back to something along the lines of Davidson’s Principle
of Charity or, as he calls it, the principle of ‘rational accommodation’ (e.g.,
Davidson 2001a, 197, and 2001b).
23 For the sake of simplicity, I have identified open-​minded ignorance and vir­
tuous, good ignorance, versus close-​minded ignorance and vicious, bad ignor-
ance. My discussion of the attitudes open-​mindedness and close-​mindedness in
Section 4.6 reveals more nuances.
24 For more on the philosophy of questions, see Cross and Roelofsen (2018).
25 One might want to object that the last claim is unjustified because the acci­
dentally true belief that is based on a faulty deduction is still true and so
it should not count as a case of ignorance. But this objection is based on a
misunderstanding of what my aim is in this chapter: I do not simply want to
describe instances of ignorance, but rather, I examine ignorance on the model
of a syndrome. And syndromes are special in that not all of the symptoms
have to be manifested for the syndrome to obtain, and it is not the case that
every single symptom, independently of other symptoms, is enough to vindi-
cate the diagnosis of the syndrome. A symptom indicates the syndrome, but
the syndrome can only be identified by a conjunction of symptoms. Thus, I am
not claiming that an error in a reasoning process always is an instance of ignor-
ance; it is just a one possible indication of a manifestation of ignorance, a
symptom of ignorance.
26 Le Morvan and Peels in introducing this example do not recognize that Alfred
can be faulted for acquiring a false belief and for reasoning from a false belief.
27 In the history of philosophy, Hon mentions Descartes, Spinoza and St Augustine
(Hon 1995, 5–​6).
28 Locke in his chapter “On Wrong Assent, or Errour” defines error as “a Mistake
of our Judgment giving Assent to that, which is not true” (Locke 1979, IV.xx
§1). I do not employ this conception because it does not highlight the helpful
objective-​subjective structure. Locke also discusses error in his Of the Conduct
of the Understanding (1996).
29 The term “error” is also prevalent in philosophy of perception, for example,
the Argument from Error, and other discussions of misperception. I will not
discuss this notion of error because it would lead us into different discussions.
Perceptual error can be the reason for a false belief, but I won’t say anything
about the details of perceptual error.
106 What Is Ignorance?

30 And the German idiom “gefährliches Halbwissen” also highlights the threats
that are perceived to come from Halbwissen.
31 But asking questions itself is not enough for determining whether the subject
is open-​mindedly ignorant or not. Remember Harvin’s case of a white woman
asking her how raising Black sons in the USA is any different from raising
white sons. The woman asks a question but, as I have suggested in Section 4.4
on questions, her ignorance is not obviously open-​minded.
32 Whitcomb, similarly, points out that curiosity can refer to “some character-​
constitutive way disposed to be curious” (Whitcomb 2010, 672) but also to an
actual instance of ignorance where “to be curious is to have a certain sort of
desire the contents of which are questions” (Whitcomb 2010, 672–​673).
33 Kahan et al. have approached science curiosity by studying participants’
reactions to high-​quality science documentaries (Kahan et al. 2017).
34 Cf. also Pohlhaus’ study of willful hermeneutical ignorance (Pohlhaus 2012).
35 Thanks to Jérôme Léchot and Lutz Wingert for providing this example.
36 But see also Friedman (2018) for a critical discussion of the principle and its
connection to interests.
37 For example, see Cassam (2019).
38 Empirical evidence in political studies shows that knowledge and dogmatism
are closely connected. As noted before, Taber and Lodge find that “people are
often unable to escape the pull of their prior attitudes and beliefs, which guide
the processing of new information in predictable and sometimes insidious
ways” (2006, 767). They had participants who had strong views on gun con­
trol and affirmative action, read pro-​and-​con texts on these topics and found
the prior-​attitude effect, disconfirmation bias, confirmation bias, as well as a
polarization effect in the participants’ reactions to texts that did or did not fit
their own views (Taber and Lodge 2006, see also Kruglanski and Boyatzi 2012).
These biases and effects combine to being in a state of close-​minded knowledge,
but note that “knowledge” in these contexts probably refers to prior beliefs,
independent of whether they are true or not. My examples for well-​informed
preferred ignorance that is based on one being true to one’s principles (being
principled) are better examples for the relation between knowledge and some
form of dogmatism. One is dogmatic because one rejects the premises and/​or
the consequences of the topic or claim that one is ignorant about.
39 Non-​reflective indifferent ignorance does not include explicitly taking up an
indifferent position since the epistemic agent is not aware of her own ignor-
ance. Passive ignorance best captures this implicit attitude; the agent is not
aware of her ignorance, and she is also, we might say, in no relation to that
ignorance. If she was to become aware of her own ignorance, she would not
reject the evidence or try to avoid it; she would listen to it, shrug her shoulders
and perhaps forget about the fact or the topic quickly.
40 Hans Blumenberg’s overview of the history of curiosity from antiquity
through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment until the early 20th century is an
inspiring and rewarding read (Blumenberg 1985, part 3). Unfortunately, for
reasons of space, I can only briefly refer to his work in this footnote. One of
Blumenberg’s many fascinating observations concerns curiosity’s ambiguous
 Facets of Ignorance 107

status in medieval philosophy. On the one hand, curiosity as wanting to know

was a virtue on the Aristotelian framework. On the other hand, St Augustine
grouped curiosity with vices. This dilemma has shaped much of medieval dis-
course on knowledge and epistemology (Blumenberg 1985, 336ff.). Nicholas
of Cusa’s De docta ignorantia (1440/​1994) can also be read as an attempt to
grapple with the two forces by combining the human natural desire to know
and the humility of human finiteness (Blumenberg 1985, 355ff). More on curi-
osity in Inan (2012).
41 This list might strike some as too long and too extensive; why would a subject’s
behavior in discourse be relevant for ignorance? Is it even a symptom of ignor-
ance? But in capturing ignorance as a state of a subject that is manifested in
reality (as a real-​world manifestation), I do not think we can restrict ourselves
to only looking at a subject’s belief set and her epistemic attitudes. An epi-
stemic subject is also an epistemic agent, and epistemic agency is also found
in discourse, in exchanges, in communication. And the symptoms that I list
can be found in communication between epistemic subjects, and they ground
or justify ascriptions of ignorance to subjects. Rejecting new evidence is a
symptom of ignorance. Rejecting new evidence is not enough to ascribe ignor-
ance or to identify ignorance, but it is one symptom of ignorance. Rejecting
new evidence without good reason may be an even stronger symptom of
ignorance.
42 I discuss curiosity again because juxtaposing it with other affective components
leads to new facets that the virtue-​perspective does not provide as easily.
43 Blumenberg’s (1985, part 3) history of curiosity as vice might also explain the
lingering feeling of doing something bad that may accompany curiosity. You
want to know, but you know, you should not want to know.
44 See Wekker (2016) on the pernicious side of allegedly innocent ignorance.
45 Cf., e.g., Schwartz (2016).
46 According to Ravetz (1993), pride is another attitude or affective state that
may accompany unknown ignorance. At first glance this seems like a plausible
claim; someone who manifests presumed knowledge, that is, someone who
believes she knows and is unaware of her lack of knowledge, will take herself
to be a knower and assume the status and privileges that come with being a
knower. But presumed knowledge itself is not enough to lead to pride; it is also
compatible with happiness; one thinks one knows and therefore is happy even
though one really does not know. Pride requires additional epistemic attitudes
of the subject that cause her to manifest pride and ignorance. Pride, thus, just
often occurs together with ignorance, but I do not think we can argue for a
more systematic connection and should not include pride in the list of even
weakly helpful indicators of ignorance.
47 See Graham (2015) on the function of such social emotions.
48 See Habgood-​Coote, Ashton and El Kassar (2024) for receptive publics as
spaces in which individuals can learn new concepts, ask questions without
having to be afraid of being told off.
49 This addition is crucial so I can cover scientific error and ignorance (cf.
Schickore 2005).
5 Causes of Ignorance

5.1 Getting a Clear(er) Picture of Causes of Ignorance

Getting a clear picture of the causes of ignorance is difficult because they
are so diverse, as diverse as the manifestations of ignorance themselves,
and they can be sorted in different ways. There are individual causes and
structural causes: causes that can be traced back to issues in the subject
and causes that can be traced back to social structures. In addition, the
causes can contribute to the evaluation of an instance of ignorance –​is it
innocuous ignorance, is it pernicious ignorance, etc.? But as we will see,
one cannot produce a clear and encompassing conception of the relation
between causes of ignorance and the evaluation of ignorance. This task is
just too complex since the evaluation of ignorance and the causes of ignor-
ance are just too complex for a generalizable account. One can just talk
about certain causes and potential instances of ignorance.
The different components of ignorance add further layers and
complications to the initial picture. For example, for the belief compo-
nent, the causes can be found in the process of belief acquisition, in the
grounding of the belief. For example, the cause may be faulty evidence or
faulty inferences. And the epistemic attitude of a subject may also be a
cause of ignorance. In addition, the subject’s motivation, interests, desires
and emotions may also be causes of ignorance; for example, in instances
of motivated ignorance the subject’s conscious or unconscious desires and
interests are causes of her ignorance.
As one might expect with these different possible causes of ignor-
ance, ignorance is rarely, if ever, mono-​causal. There is also no perfectly
determined fact of the matter as to the complete picture of the causes
of this-​or-​that particular instance of ignorance. We can just suggest an
interpretation that may be more or less likely but the causes of real-​world
instances of ignorance will hardly ever be exhaustively covered. My over-
view over causes of ignorance is also not exhaustive, I only aim to present

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-6
 Causes of Ignorance 109

a list of the most relevant causes of ignorance because they are crucial for
understanding ignorance and dealing with ignorance.1
Let’s look at an earlier example to find causes of ignorance. Rachel does
not know that Japan has sand beaches. To be precise, she does not have
any belief about Japan having sand beaches, and she is open-​minded and
curious. What is the cause of her ignorance? Why doesn’t she know? What
explains her ignorance? The most obvious cause are the natural limitations
of human cognitive capacities: Rachel’s cognitive capacities are limited
for practical and performative reasons and for reasons of time –​there
is too much to know and too little time: the geography of Japan has not
been in Rachel’s focus of attention, and she does not have time to acquire
knowledge about places of the world that are not immediately relevant to
her life.
In the case of such ignorance of a simple factual matter, we can also
cite lack of contact or interaction as a cause of her ignorance. Rachel
does not have the requisite evidence. Let’s assume that Rachel lives in a
remote village and she has not met a Japanese citizen in her life, and she
is also not interested in watching documentaries about other countries,
nor in Japanese literature. The geography of Japan has also not been
taught in school, or maybe she has forgotten about these lessons. This
leads us to two further causes of ignorance: education and forgetting
or limited memory. Limited memory, clearly, is an instance of limited
cognitive capacities: there is only so much that the average human being
can store and remember. Possible lapses in Rachel’s education may lead
us to structural causes of ignorance: Rachel’s school may have been
in a city that does not have enough teachers to cover all classes. Or
for other cases of ignorance, there may be a deliberate decision not to
teach particular topics in school or to propagate alternative narratives
instead. Studies in how the Armenian genocide is denied and retold in
Turkish history books are but one well-​known example of such struc-
tural influences on ignorance and knowledge (cf., e.g., Çayir 2014,
Altanian 2021).
Contrast these examples with Rachel having a false belief about Japan’s
sand beaches, she believes that Japan does not have sand beaches. This
instance of ignorance has another set of causes than the first instance,
because the causes for a lack of knowledge differ from the causes for
holding a false belief to be true. But, of course, there is some overlap in
causes: no contact with entities relevant to the subject matter, lapses in
education and memory, as well as, natural cognitive limitations can also
be causes of Rachel’s false beliefs. Unlike in the “no belief at all” con-
dition, however, the “false belief” condition requires that something has
110 What Is Ignorance?

gone wrong with the subject’s belief. The cause for the false belief may be
some issue in the belief acquisition, or in the grounding of the false belief,
or it may be partly caused by issues in the subject’s epistemic attitudes, or
in her motivation. As I said, this list is by no means exhaustive nor defini-
tive. I just want to develop the relevant areas in which we may find causes
of ignorance. Rachel’s false belief that Japan does not have sand beaches
can be caused by faulty evidence; for example, Rachel might have read
a website with wrong information about Japan, or she might have been
given wrong testimony. Or maybe she has misheard someone as saying
that Japan does not have sand beaches, when the person said that Japan
does have sand beaches. In these instances, the cause of ignorance is an
issue in belief acquisition: faulty evidence.
Another central issue in belief acquisition that may be a cause for false
belief-​ignorance are faulty inferences, or more broadly faulty reasoning,
for example, wrong conclusions, unwarranted generalizations. Rachel
might hold the belief that European tourists generally do not go to Japan
for beach vacations, and from this observation she deduces that Japan
does not have sand beaches. This conclusion is neither well grounded nor
justified, and so Rachel’s inference is faulty.
Faulty inferences and mistakes in the exercise of one’s faculties are
crucial for John Locke’s conception of error, for what he calls “wrong
assent.” Locke holds that Reason cannot make mistakes, it is the faculties
that condition the mistakes. Among all errors, Locke distinguishes four
causes of error:

1. Want of Proofs.
2. Want of Ability to use them [i.e., proofs, N.E.].
3. Want of Will to use them [i.e., proofs, N.E.].
4. Wrong Measures of Probability.
(Locke 1979, IV, xx, 2)

Locke observes that people have different levels of understanding and

therefore may have false beliefs (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 5), and some may
lack “abilities to use proofs” (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 1). These limitations
may also be due to individuals not having time to think because they need
to attend to urgent matters and ensure the standard of living for themselves
and their family (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 2). Others may face these limitations
because they live in oppressive systems that do not allow them to develop
and use their faculties adequately (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 4). They do not have
the relevant “proofs” or, we might say, evidence. This is another cause of
error: “want of proofs” (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 2–​4), the subjects lack the
evidence (material) not the skills, we might say. Locke also acknowledges
 Causes of Ignorance 111

that people may be too lazy, may lack interest in books and study, and
therefore are unable to “use proofs” (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 6).
In his Of the Conduct of the Understanding (1996) Locke presents
a related list of three errors which I include at this point because I will
return to the list in Part 2 when discussing suggestions for dealing with
ignorance, in particular Locke’s and Kant’s suggestions.2 But first, this is
Locke’s list:

Besides the want of determined ideas and of sagacity and exercise in finding
out and laying in order intermediate ideas, there are three miscarriages
that men are guilty of in reference to their reason, whereby this faculty is
hindered in them from that service it might do and was designed for. And
he that reflects upon the actions and discourses of mankind will find their
defects in this kind very frequent and very observable.
1. The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think
according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors,
ministers or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an
implicit faith in for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of
thinking and examining for themselves.
2. The second is of those who put passion in the place of reason and,
being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, nei-
ther use their own nor hearken to other people’s reason any further
than it suits their humour, interest or party ; and these, one may
observe, commonly content themselves with words which have no
distinct ideas to them, though in other matters that they come with
an unbiased indifference to they want not abilities to talk and hear
reason, where they have no secret inclination that hinders them from
being tractable to it.
3. The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason
but, for want of having that which one may call large, sound, round-
about sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question
and may be of moment to decide it. We are all shortsighted and
very often see but one side of a matter; our views are not extended
to all that has a connection with it. From this defect I think no man
is free. We see but in part and we know but in part, and therefore
it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views. This
might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts how useful it
is to talk and consult with others, even such as came short of him in
capacity, quickness and penetration; for since no one sees all and we
generally have different prospects of the same thing according to our
different, as I may say, positions to it, it is not incongruous to think
nor beneath any man to try whether another may not have notions
112 What Is Ignorance?

of things which have escaped him and which his reason would make
use of if they came into his mind.
(Locke 1996, §3, my emphases)

So people commit errors because they do not think for themselves and just
follow the opinions of others (Cause 1), or because they let their reasoning
be influenced by emotions (Cause 2), or because they draw conclusions
on an incomplete basis of evidence (Cause 3). Locke’s fourth cause neatly
connects with heuristics and biases as we discuss them today: people use
“wrong measures,” such as inadequate heuristics and biases, in deter-
mining which proposition they should assent to and, thereby, acquire false
beliefs. They accept doubtful propositions as principles, they assent to
merely received hypotheses, they are led by their inclinations and passions
and succumb to authority (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 7–​17).
The literature on heuristics provides further details to issues of faulty
reasoning. I have mentioned Tversky and Kahneman’s research on the
availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic, and anchoring and
adjustment heuristic above (1974). Human beings resort to beliefs that are
easily available, they use the features that they take to be representative of
categories, and they use arbitrary numbers that they have just encountered
as anchors when making estimates (cf. Tversky and Kahneman 1974).
Such heuristics may feature as causes of Rachel’s false belief.
Note that such faulty reasoning can lead to what one may call “benign
ignorance,” as in Rachel’s cases, but, of course, it can also lead to ignor-
ance with much more severe effects. (And remember that benign ignor-
ance may only seem to be benign, Section 3.6.) Especially, if the beliefs
are beliefs about other people and uttered in interaction. Cognitive biases
can also be causes of ignorance. Elizabeth Anderson’s list of biases that
explain discrimination and stigmatization of Blacks in the USA provides
an overview of causes for faulty inferences in practical real-​world situ-
ations (2010, 46):

(1) Ingroup favoritism (ethnocentrism) –​favouring the members of one’s

group, (2) shared reality bias –​aligning one’s perception and beliefs
with those of other in-​group members, (3) illusory correlation bias –​
the disposition to develop stereotypes about other groups on the basis
of singular events, (4) stereotype incumbency bias –​developing a bias
about a person based on the job she holds, (5) power bias –​the inclin-
ation of people in power to stereotype their subordinates, (6) system
justification bias –​the inclination to regard one’s society as just.

These biases partly constitute and cause instances of preferred ignorance

and presumed knowledge.3
 Causes of Ignorance 113

Additionally, a subject’s interests, desires and emotions may be causes

of their ignorance. These causes may be closely connected to cognitive
biases and heuristics of subjects. One’s ignorance may be motivated by
wanting to protect oneself from unwanted knowledge/​information. As
I mentioned before, many readers of Elena Ferrante’s novels did not want
to know the real name of Elena Ferrante, they were angry at an Italian
journalist who set out to find out who Ferrante really is and came up with
the name of the author. They did not want to know because they wanted
to keep the mystery alive, or because they did not care about this piece
of information –​they were deliberately ignorant as Hertwig and Engel
would say (Hertwig and Engel 2021). As Locke notes for the causes of
(erroneous) beliefs: “What suits our wishes, is forwardly believed” (Locke
1979, IV, xx, 12). We influence our knowledge and assent by pausing our
inquiry and not conducting it adequately. Once we have knowledge we
cannot “hinder” it (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 16).
Or think of a subject who wants to protect themselves from harrowing
war pictures and, therefore, say, do not attend the screening of a film on the
Genocide in Ruanda. Similarly, many contemporary art museums inform
guardians if the gallery room contains imagery that may be shocking to
young children. Protecting someone else may also be a cause for keeping
them ignorant and, thus, a cause for their ignorance.
Such protection of someone else or of oneself from unwanted know-
ledge can be well intended but also paternalistic or malicious and egoistic.
If I think that I need to protect someone else from unwanted knowledge,
I may be guilty of paternalistically interfering in another person’s epi-
stemic life. And by excessively protecting oneself from unwanted know-
ledge, one may be acting maliciously. For example, in an unjust society,
members of the privileged group protect themselves from information that
would disturb their view of their society, and that would require them to
review and change the workings in their society –​cf. the system justi-
fication bias. This ignorance has practical and structural consequences
because the members of the privileged group are partaking in keeping
alive an unjust society. This is where benign ignorance and harmful ignor-
ance are very close. And this is why we cannot come up with a simple,
generalizable conception of the evaluation of ignorance and the causes of
ignorance, as I have noted at the beginning of this section.
What we should do instead, is try to understand particular forms of
ignorance in which causes and evaluations overlap and to some extent
even fold into one. This is what happens in deliberate ignorance and, in
particular, for motivated ignorance. The term “deliberate ignorance” is
more neutral than the term “motivated ignorance” and not all deliberate
ignorance is motivated ignorance. So, what is motivated ignorance? And
what does it reveal about causes of ignorance?
114 What Is Ignorance?

5.2 Motivated Ignorance

Motivated ignorance is a particularly complex phenomenon that brings
together a number of causes of ignorance; individual interests and desires,
as well as heuristics and cognitive biases also cause motivated ignorance.
I further illuminate the nature and causes of motivated ignorance by
analyzing an interaction that Cassandra Byer Harvin (1996) relates that
I have introduced before and by citing current psychological research on
motivated ignorance.
Let’s go back to the encounter that Byer Harvis relates:

In front of a computer in the public library, I try mightily to meet a

writing deadline. But being incurably gregarious, I stop to listen to a
white woman, early-​50s-​looking, introduce herself as a writer and ask
what I am working on. Putting it simply, I say, “Raising black sons in
this society.” “How is that any different from raising white sons?” she
replies without taking time to blink, her tone making clear that she just
knows I am making something out of nothing. I politely make clear that
we are not going to have that conversation. I can say it is because I am
running out of time. The truth is that I am out of patience.
(Harvin 1996)

In addition to the obvious insult that the woman delivers by asking this
question, the question is also a clear manifestation of the white woman’s
ignorance: she does not know how raising Black sons in the US American
society is any different from raising white sons, and she does not know
that raising Black sons in the US American society is any different from
raising white sons. We may say: she does not know whether p and she does
not know that p, where p is “raising Black sons in the US American society
is different from raising white sons.”
But in analyzing this instance of ignorance it is not enough to look at
the propositional level and at single propositions because it is not enough
to capture the nature of that woman’s ignorance. Instead, we need to see
that her ignorance goes beyond not knowing that single proposition p, and
we need to see that there are social and individual arrangements that foster
her ignorance.
First, the woman’s ignorance also extends to the everyday reality of
Black lives in the USA, she does not know about the reality of raising Black
sons, and she does not know about the reality of lives of Black sons in
the USA. Second, in not knowing that raising Black sons is different from
raising white sons the woman shows herself to be color-​blind, since she
does not see that race does make for a difference in real-​world experiences.
Her color-​blindness may to some seem laudable because one might think
 Causes of Ignorance 115

that the woman is not racist, but treats everyone justly, yet her question
and Harvin’s reaction is a vivid argument for the observation that color-​
blindness is not laudable, it does not lead to less stigmatization, less dis-
crimination, less segregation (cf. Williams 1998, Anderson 2010, 155,
Medina 2013, 209–​224).
What is the basis for this woman’s ignorance? Of course, one cannot
know for sure, since I am working only from the short question, but
we can still uncover likely candidates. Anderson’s analysis of segrega-
tion delivers plausible substantive suggestions for causes of the woman’s
ignorance. The bridging assumption is that the woman’s ignorance is
caused by effects of segregation, stigmatization and discrimination against
Black people. The epistemic effects of segregation do not just concern the
disadvantaged group but also the dominant group; the members of the
dominant group become insular, complacent and ignorant because “they
lose personal contact with the problems of the disadvantaged” (Anderson
2010, 98). Medina (2013) and Pohlhaus (2012) also point to the specific
ignorance, including self-​ignorance (Medina 2013, 161–​185), of members
of dominant groups. They do not know what the world really is like, what
their role in that world is, how other individuals experience that world.
For example, there is no contact between Black and White people that is
not infused with stereotypes –​either because the stereotypes are “practic-
ally engaged” (Anderson 2010, 62) or because the agents are inhibited by
fear of the efficacy of the stereotypes. Harvin’s interlocutor may not know
what the lives of young Black men look like because she does not know
young Black men growing up in the USA. There is a gap and Anderson
is right to emphasize that this gap does not remain open but is filled. It is
filled by stereotypes which again are shaped by segregation, stigmatiza-
tion and discrimination, and by the media, social media, online discourses,
films, etc. that again are shaped by segregation, stigmatization and dis-
crimination. –​Filling the gaps in this way is a very real way of human
beings dealing with ignorance. –​The woman’s question thus is explained
both by individual and structural causes, including biases in individuals’
minds and public discourse (Anderson 2010, 64). And her ignorance is not
just explained by these causes, it is also fostered by them.
Stereotypes and stigmatization can also work together in building up to
ignorance, as this example from a school in Germany shows. A biology
teacher asks a student whose parents were born in Turkey about transpor-
tation between cells, the topic of the previous lesson. The teacher asks what
the name of transportation between cells is and the answer that the student
is supposed to give is osmosis. The student has no idea what the right answer
is, and the teacher wants to give him a hint by saying “Sieve. Sieve” (“Sieb.
Sieb.” in German). The student does not understand the hint and when he
still cannot answer the question, the teacher says in fake broken German
116 What Is Ignorance?

something along the lines “You should learn German first.” Mind you, this
is a German advanced high school, a Gymnasium, the student, thus, must
have had fairly good grades to be attending this school, and he did not just
join the school but had been attending it for some years. The teacher’s reac-
tion is obviously inappropriate. It is highly unlikely that the student does not
speak enough German to answer the question and infinitely more likely that
the student, like other students, was simply not paying attention during the
previous lesson and that is why he did not know the answer. Moreover, the
teacher’s supposedly helpful hint was not particularly good.
What is particularly crucial for the claim that ignorance is fostered by
individual and social arrangements is that the teacher is ignorant about the
reality of his students’ lives; he is misinformed about what is the reason for
the student being unable to answer the question (the student’s ignorance),
and he fills the gap by means of “stereotypic cognitive processing.” To the
teacher’s mind the student fulfills the teacher’s stereotype of a migrant stu-
dent from Turkey who does not speak proper German: he “exaggerate[s]‌
the conformity of [the student to the] group stereotype” (Anderson 2010,
45). And it is clear that the teacher is “more receptive to and better able to
recall stereotype-​confirming than disconfirming evidence [and] overlook[s]
stereotype-​independent individuating information about group members”
(Anderson 2010, 45). Pragmatics might pose a problem for the example,
since the teacher was speaking sarcastically, but the fact that he even
suggests that the student’s issue could have been not speaking proper
German clearly betrays his stereotypes and biases toward this student.
Anderson suggests integration as a means to reducing segregation and
its correlate effects. I submit that her suggestion can also be applied to the
case of ignorance in general. If the lives of people from different commu-
nities were more integrated, they would not lack contact with another and
could have normal interactions, not just out-​of-​the-​ordinary interactions.
These are steps toward dealing with ignorance and I will turn the question
of how one should rationally deal with ignorance in the next chapter. But
before I close this chapter and Part 1 of this study I want to mention
an obvious branch of motivated reasoning that I have not discussed so
far: politically motivated reasoning.
There are myriads of studies on politically motivated reasoning and
I return to some insights when discussing the relevance of ignorance in
democracy (Chapter 11). That is why, in this section, I only highlight
one important finding: Beliefs that are constitutive of the subject’s iden-
tity are particularly resistant to countervailing evidence. So much so that
research shows that high levels in what is called Actively Open-​Minded
Thinking (Baron 2008, Stanovich and West 1997) do not lead participants
to be open-​minded to counter-​evidence, but instead lead them to further
endorse the view that comes with their political identity, for example, deny
 Causes of Ignorance 117

climate change when one is Republican and accept it when one is liberal
or Democrat. Dan Kahan in his work with Jonathan Corbin and other
authors conjectures that actively open-​minded thinking enables one to rec-
ognize those beliefs that are constitutive of one’s identity and where chan-
ging the beliefs would come with high “reputational cost” (Kahan et al.
2017, 181), and that this is why people who score highly in actively open-​
minded thinking do not change their views on identity-​related beliefs.
Motivated political reasoning, thus, evinces cases in which one’s polit-
ical convictions influence one’s reasoning process. And Kahan and Corbin
suggest that

‘beliefs’ about human-​caused climate change and a few select other

highly divisive empirical issues are ones that people use to express who
they are, an end that has little to do with the truth of what people, ‘lib-
eral’ or ‘conservative,’ know.
(2016, 4)

Other such contested issues are gun control, abortion, immigration,

nuclear energy.
This concludes the first part, the study of ignorance. We have gained
an overview of different constituents of ignorance and recognized the
complexity and intricacies of ignorance. I have argued for the Integrated
Conception of Ignorance, according to which ignorance is a disposition
that is constituted by doxastic, agential and structural components.
Various doxastic states, epistemic attitudes, emotions, environmental
conditions, structures can take the place of these components. That means
that the suggestion for rationally dealing with ignorance must be able to
include these details and complexities. For example, dealing with ignor-
ance cannot be limited to dealing with an information deficit. There must
be tools for dealing with the attitudes accompanying instances of ignor-
ance. So let’s turn to look for the most promising way for rationally dealing
with ignorance.

Notes
1 Epistemologist theories bring another cause of ignorance on the field: doubt
and contradictory evidence. I may be ignorant because I cannot decide, because
I do not know whether p or not p. Or I may be ignorant because I cannot rule
out that defeaters apply to my case. Let me briefly note two such causes of
ignorance: epistemic closure and defeaters.
Regarding epistemic closure I can be ignorant because I cannot know all
that is entailed by my knowing. This point is brought up by the Harman–​Vogel
paradox. Imagine Tom who has parked his car on Broadway at the corner of
118 What Is Ignorance?

96th Street at 9 a.m. He knows that his car is on Broadway at the corner of 96th
Street. But just one question may rob him of this knowledge. Does Tom know
whether his car has been stolen in the meantime? He does not know whether
his car has been stolen in the meantime, and ergo he does not know that his car
is parked on Broadway at the corner of 96th Street. He has lost his knowledge
by the addition of alternative possibilities and he is to some extent ignorant of
whether his car is parked on Broadway at the corner of 96th Street. Strictly
speaking this is not a cause of ignorance, but I still wanted to introduce these
considerations here because the issue does look like a case of ignorance and I
think we may learn from looking at the problems next to each other, see their
similarities and their differences.
Epistemic defeaters can also be causes of ignorance. Say, you believe that
the dress you see in a shop window is blue, but then you are told that the dress
really is black; it is just the lighting conditions that make it look blue. Then your
belief has been defeated by an epistemic defeater. There are also misleading
defeaters, and for those defeaters it is epistemically better to be ignorant of
those misleading defeaters, as Pritchard (2016) has argued. Defeaters are a
popular topic in contemporary epistemology (Moretti and Piazza 2018) and it
might be interesting to examine their role in epistemology of ignorance. In this
study I have to postpone any such discussion for another occasion.
2 Brandt (1981) points to an interesting connection between Locke’s list of errors
and Kant’s maxims of the sensus communis as presented in Kant’s Anthropology
(Kant, Anth, AA XV, 200). Brandt suggests that Locke’s mistakes are “similarly
structured as the Kantian maxims” (Brandt 1981, 39, my translation). I return
to this connection later because Kant’s maxims will figure prominently in Part 2
(Section 9.5 and Chapter 10).
3 There is a lively debate about whether there is something like implicit bias or
not and how to conceptualize it, etc., but these details are irrelevant for the
current issue and so I will not include the debate and its details.
Part 2

Rationally Dealing
with Ignorance
6 The Framework II

What are the next steps in this project? I will now focus on the question
of how one should rationally deal with ignorance. I turn to the history of
philosophy for directions in how one should rationally deal with ignor-
ance, carving out answers and testing them for their suitability. In asking
how one should rationally deal with ignorance we can distinguish a first-​
person and a third-​person perspective on the issue: How should I ration-
ally deal with (my own) ignorance? How should we rationally deal with
(our own) ignorance? And, how should other people rationally deal with
(their) ignorance? I will mostly take up an involved first-​person perspec-
tive on the issue: How should we rationally deal with our own ignorance?
I have two reasons for that. First, the project of dealing with ignorance is
not an individualistic project. And, second, a third-​person perspective may
become too detached from the issues at hand and it is always in danger of
becoming a paternalistic project.
I work with suggestions and ideas from the history of philosophy
because there are interesting suggestions around and –​more importantly –​
because these suggestions contain many assumptions and beliefs about
ignorance that shape our perception of ignorance. The prime example
is Socrates’ attitude toward ignorance, so-​called Socratic ignorance. My
aim does not lie in developing faithful interpretations of the accounts
of these philosophers, rather I employ and develop the notions so that I
can develop interesting and fitting suggestions for rationally dealing with
ignorance.
I develop different suggestions from remarks that involve ignorance
and error. Most of the texts do not aim to provide suggestions for ration-
ally dealing with ignorance, but, as the following chapters demonstrate,
they can be taken to provide directions and suggestions. The first set of
suggestions are broadly virtue-​ theoretical: Suggestions developed from
Aristotle’s remarks on the nature of human beings (Metaphysics) and
Socrates’ remarks on ignorance (Apology). The second set of suggestions

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122 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

are consequentialist: Suggestions from William James’ Twin Goals. The

third set are deontological suggestions developed from William Clifford,
John Locke, Sanford Goldberg and Immanuel Kant. The order is not
strictly historical but rather thematic.
What are rational ways for dealing with ignorance? I suggest that we
should not separate epistemic and practical rationality and we should not
attempt to keep epistemic and moral considerations separate. For human
beings qua epistemic and moral agents these considerations will neces-
sarily overlap.1 And so what does rational mean? In the first instance I take
rational to mean that something is well justified, that it comes with good
reasons (cf., e.g., Gosepath 2002). But there are further facets of rationality
that need to be included, too.2 Something can be instrumentally rational,
rational from a social perspective and intrinsically rational (cf. Gosepath
2002, Tugendhat 2010). Something that is instrumentally rational is
rational because it contributes to achieving one’s ends. Something that is
rational from a social perspective is rational for specifically social reasons,
for example, specific social values, but also social emotions. It might be
rational in order to further social values such as honesty, or it might be
rational in order to avoid such emotions such as shame. Something that is
intrinsically rational is rational for its own sake, in other words: its ration-
ality cannot be explained in terms of instrumental or social value, and
it cannot be communicated to someone who does not see its rationality.
I return to these distinctions later.
Since I have taken up an involved first-​person perspective on dealing with
ignorance, the answer that I am looking for faces a number of challenges
(or must meet some adequacy conditions). First, it must be implementable
from the first-​person perspective. It must be formulated so that the sub-
ject can employ it for their own ignorance. That means that the answer
must provide the subject with all the tools they need for addressing ignor-
ance. This includes diagnosing ignorance and, perhaps also, equipping the
subject with reactions to their ignorance. –​These standards may sound
abstract, but in my discussion of the different proposals, these demands will
be illustrated. Second, the answer must be for human beings as they are,
non-​ideal, real beings who are located in the world, not idealized creatures.
And third, the answer must work for reflective and non-​reflective ignor-
ance. Here’s why. Remember the obstacles that human beings face in
dealing with self-​evaluation bias and related types of ignorance and error
in judging oneself. Adam Elga (2005) provides a vivid insight into the dif­
ficulties of reacting to the evidence on self-​evaluation bias:

I was convinced that most people overrate themselves, and had no

reason to think I was an exception. I mouthed the words “I’m not as
good as I thought I was.” But they didn’t sink in. As soon as it was time
 The Framework II 123

to make dinner, write a paper, or see a friend –​indeed, as soon as it was

time to do anything but sit in my office brooding about the positive
illusion literature –​the impact of that literature on my self-​evaluations
completely evaporated.
Try it yourself. If you were at all convinced by the above summary
of the positive illusion literature, see if it lowered your estimate of how
good a writer you are. … It is tough to make a sustained change in one’s
self-​evaluations. Just learning that people overrate themselves does not
automatically effect such a change.
(Elga 2005, 118)

Elga is bothered by the fact that in not changing one’s beliefs about one-
self, one goes against the following rationality norm: “One ought not have
beliefs that go against what one reasonably thinks one’s evidence supports”
(Elga 2005, 116). But the problem is even more basic than that: One does
not even know when one has “beliefs that go against what one reasonably
thinks one’s evidence supports” (Elga 2005, 116). The proposal for ration­
ally dealing with ignorance should provide a solution for such issues. It
should not require the subject to be mindful and reflective 24/​7 since that
would be highly unrealistic for human beings. But it should still consider
cases of non-​reflective ignorance and try to account for them. And, this is
a fourth challenge, the proposal must not work with an unrealistic notion
of ignorance that does not fit with ignorance in the real world. There will
be idealizations, there is no avoiding them in developing general accounts,
but these idealizations should be kept at a minimum and should only be
justified idealizations.

Notes
1 I share Fricker’s intuitions regarding the connections between ethical and epi­
stemic considerations (Fricker 2007).
2 I employ Tugendhat’s distinction of different motivations for being moral to
develop these facets of rationality (Tugendhat 2010).
7 Virtue-​Theoretical Answers

7.1 The Aristotelian Answer: “All Men by Nature Desire to Know”

(Suggestions 1 and 2)
Even though it does not mention ignorance, the first paragraph of
Aristotle’s Metaphysics entails a straightforward suggestion for the lead
question of Part 2 –​how should we rationally deal with ignorance –​both
our own ignorance and other people’s ignorance.

All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we

take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved
for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only
with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything,
we prefer sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most
of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences
between things.
(Aristotle, 980a22–​a27)

If, as Aristotle claims, all men by nature desire to know, then once one
realizes that one does not know, that is, that one is ignorant, one’s desire
to know will kick in. On a more radical interpretation, one’s desire to
know may be said to kick in even before one realizes that one is ignorant,
that one does not know some proposition p or facts in some field, but I do
not think we have to ascribe this radical interpretation to Aristotle. And
my critical questions for the answer developed from Aristotle’s conception
appear for both interpretations.
The striking implication of Aristotle’s claims is that there is not much to
do –​epistemically or agentially –​in dealing with ignorance for a subject
that is ignorant because her natural desire to know will kick in when-
ever it is appropriate. There is, we might say, an in-​built natural mech-
anism for rationally dealing with ignorance since human beings desire to
know. The underlying assumption is that this natural desire is rational.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-9
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 125

And being in a state of ignorance triggers this desire to know. Because this
mechanism is natural to all human beings –​and here and in what follows
I read Aristotle’s claim about all men as referring to all human beings –​all
human beings will rationally deal with ignorance, since they all desire to
know. The claim applies to human nature in general and therefore also to
each human being individually (cf. Cambiano 2012, 2).
Consequently, Aristotle’s claim also provides material for an answer to
how one should rationally deal with other people’s ignorance –​for them
the same “natural tendency” (Cambiano 2012, 2) holds and, thus, they
also have the in-​built mechanism for rationally dealing with ignorance. As
I have noted earlier, it is an open question, that is, how one should proceed
from having observed another’s ignorance, what one should do about the
other’s ignorance. Aristotle’s conception can be read as entailing that one
should not and does not have to interfere with other people’s ignorance
because one may trust their natural desire to know. On the other hand,
Aristotle’s pragmatic remarks in the Nicomachean Ethics about how edu-
cation and personal experiences may impede one’s development may entail
that Aristotle acknowledges that not all human beings do in fact develop
this in-​built mechanism nor the desire to know. Thus, how one should
deal with other people’s ignorance in these circumstances remains an open
question.
To develop the Aristotelian suggestion for one’s own ignorance, we must
look at the passage starting the Metaphysics in more detail. How does
Aristotle explain the fundamental claim that “all men desire to know?” Why
does the claim hold? –​We desire to know why “all men desire to know.”
As Hermann Bonitz notes, the knowledge that Aristotle introduces in
this quotation is knowledge in a loose sense, not some specific scientific
knowledge or the like (Bonitz 1849, Cambiano 2012, 3). Moreover, this
knowledge is an end in itself, not just an instrumental end. As such, it
is “not an object of choice and deliberation” (Cambiano 2012, 5). Pace
Eudoxus, you do not choose to know (Nicomachean Ethics X 2, 1172b9–​
15; cf. Cambiano 2012, 5). Our desire to know is a natural tendency, and,
therefore, it is objectively good and does not just appear to be good.
But what is the basis for Aristotle’s claim that all men desire to know?
As Cambiano points out, Aristotle does not present the claim as endoxon,
that is, as reputable opinion, nor as phainomenon, that is, as an observed
fact. He also does not apply the method of the Nicomachean Ethics that
suggests that one should first discuss the difficulties of the phenomena and
then try to prove the truth of as many reputable opinions about the phe-
nomenon as possible (Nicomachean Ethics VII 1, 1145b2–​7). Instead,
Aristotle offers a justification for the claim by pointing to an “indication,”
what Cambiano calls a “sign,” for the truth of the claim. The delight that
we take in our senses, as well as the fact that we value them independently
126 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

of any instrumental value is an indication for the truth of the claim. We

particularly cherish sense perception by sight.1 For the argument to work,
we need to regard perception as a form of knowledge (eidenai).
Cambiano puts forward the following reconstruction of the argument:

1) sight brings to light many differences; 2) sight, bringing to light many

differences, makes us know more than the other senses; 3) sight, even
when pursued for its own sake, as it makes us know more than the
other senses, is accompanied by delight and is preferred by us to the
other senses; 4) the fact that all men take delight in perceptions and,
above all, in sight is a sign that all men desire to know.
(Cambiano 2012, 8)

The first sentence does not present a definition of a human being in terms
of genus and differentiae (cf. Posterior Analytics 97a23–28, II.13). Rather,
it concerns what Cambiano calls “propert[ies] pertaining only to man”
(idion) (Cambiano 2012, 11). In the Topics, Aristotle explains that a prop­
erty is “something which does not indicate the essence of a thing, but yet
belongs to that thing alone, and is predicated convertibly to it” (Topics
102a18–​ 19). On Aristotle’s conception other such properties include
“laughing, language, erect posture, happiness, praxis, deliberation”
(Cambiano 2012, 11).2
Let us try to understand Aristotle’s claim better and develop suggestions
for dealing with ignorance from it. Aristotle’s claim can be read as saying
that the relation between human beings and knowledge is like the relation
between amoebae and light. Amoebae naturally turn into the direction of
light and in the same way human beings naturally turn from ignorance
to knowledge. There is nothing that anyone has to do about or under-
take in that process, that is, in rationally dealing with ignorance. The first
suggestion for rationally dealing with ignorance thus can be formulated
as follows:

Suggestion 1: Rationally dealing with ignorance comes natural for

human beings since they naturally desire to know.

But this cannot be right. The claim is easily called into question by our
everyday experience, by historical events, by empirical observations. There
are a sufficient number of instances in which human beings do not desire
to know even though they could desire to know because there is something
they do not know. This holds irrespective of whether it is in one way or
another important that the subjects know or not.
One might also raise doubts about the suggestion by arguing that
human beings have limited cognitive capacities and, therefore, there
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 127

are natural limits to their desire to know. But this observation does
not affect Aristotle’s claim because he only comments on human beings’
desire to know, not on their wanting to know everything. They take
delight in their sense perceptions, despite their limitations, and, thus, in
knowledge.
But the claim and the suggestion are unspecific and, thus, criticizable
in another respect. Aristotle does not specify what kind of knowledge he
talks about. As I said earlier, Bonitz suggests that eidenai should be read
as referring to a loose understanding of knowledge, but this addition does
not make the claim more specific. In fact, it becomes even more unspecific
because we are led to count the input of our sense perceptions as know-
ledge, too. And then there are even more counterexamples available. Just
think of the last time you saw something that you did not want to see
because what you saw spoilt a pleasant surprise or, more harrowingly,
because it was disturbing, for example, the picture of a child killed in a
war torn country, or the images of people jumping from the windows of
the burning World Trade Center on 9/​11. You did not desire to have this
perceptual input, this knowledge.
We could make the claim more specific and less prone to counterexamples
by specifying what it is that human beings desire to know. The claim is
intuitively true for all cases in which the subject is interested in knowledge,
that is, in the particular piece of knowledge. In fact, this formulation comes
close to a tautology because it is that obvious: All human beings desire to
know what they are interested in. The claim is almost tautological because
one’s desires are intimately connected to one’s interests. But we can ignore
the tautology worry because the new formulation is more fruitful for
our lead question than Aristotle’s original claim and it gets us to another
suggestion for how one should rationally deal with ignorance:

Suggestion 2: Desire to know all that is interesting to you.

But merely desiring to know may be too weak as a suggestion for ration-
ally dealing with ignorance since there may be a disconnect between one’s
desire and one’s (epistemic) actions.3 One may, therefore, be inclined to
modify the second suggestion:

Suggestion 2*: Try to know all that is interesting to you.

But this adaption loses the attractions of the original Aristotle-​inspired

suggestion and it does not overcome its problems. Trying to know is just
as open to not succeeding and has a similar disconnect. And it loses the
human desire to know, a significant feature of Aristotle’s first sentence.
There is a desire to know things. And this property of human beings is
128 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

indisputable. It is just the scope that is in question and whether it is helpful

for finding a way for rationally dealing with ignorance.
So let us return to Suggestion 2. How does it fare as a suggestion for
how one should deal with one’s ignorance? There is the worry of the dis-
connect between desire and action, but we can turn this worry into an
advantage of the suggestion. We desire to know what is interesting to us,
but we can always double check whether to pursue that desire in particular
instances. In fact, it is part and parcel of the natural human desire to know
to be able to step back and reflect on the desire and whether to pursue it. It
comes with the human buildup as a rational being. Because human beings
have rational capacities they can desire to know and they can step back
and reflect their desire to know and whether to pursue it.
But this is also why Aristotle’s original claim in its unrestricted form is
easily spoilt by our everyday experience and other empirical experiences
with human beings and their relation to knowledge. And it is why the rela-
tion between human beings and knowledge is not like the relation between
amoeba and light. Hans-​Georg Gadamer’s distinction between Welt and
Umwelt and John McDowell’s interpretation of the distinction between
first and second nature can help us understand this fundamental diffe-
rence. Amoebae live in their Umwelt and they cannot ever leave it, they are
inextricably bound to it. They cannot transcend the biological given, the
biological imperatives, they cannot not turn to light. In contrast, human
beings live in a Welt, more precisely they have a world, as Gadamer puts it
(1975/​2013, 460), and having a world means that one is able to distance
oneself from that world. Gadamer writes:

To have a world means to have an orientation (Verhalten) toward it. To

have an orientation toward the world, however, means to keep oneself
so free from what one encounters of the world that one can present it
to oneself as it is. This capacity is at once to have a world and to have
language. The concept of world is thus opposed to the concept of envir-
onment, which all living beings in the world possess.
(Gadamer 1975/​2013, 460)

Our relation to knowledge is not like the relation of amoebae to light

because we are able to reflect upon us, our thoughts, our desires, our
world. This status and the accompanying capacities are also natural to
human beings. They are, in McDowell’s terms, second nature, and second
nature is also nature (McDowell 1996, xx). Second nature refers to those
capacities that a being acquires in the course of a process of Bildung or
training (McDowell 1996, 84). And for human beings, part of their second
nature is to reflect in such ways. Possessing rationality is second nature to
us (McDowell 1996, xx, 84–​86, 91, 115–​119).
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 129

Adding the concept of second nature to the picture opens the path for
another look at Aristotle’s original claim. McDowell regards Aristotle’s
notion of phronesis as a prime example of second nature, and so one
might be inclined to argue that the desire of all human beings to know is
also second nature and from this develop an explanation for why not all
human beings manifest this desire at all times. It is only if one has gone
through the process of Bildung that one possesses this desire to know. –​
Since Aristotle does emphasize the significance of education in various
shapes and forms, the addition fits well with his other philosophical
claims (e.g., Aristotle 1995b, book 2 Nicomachean Ethics). –​Of course,
this would entail that the original statement does not really apply to all
human beings but only to those who have gone through the process of
Bildung. For them it holds that they all desire to know. The phronimos
and the phronime have undergone Bildung and so they have the desire
to know.
If this conjecture is correct, we can find more material for developing
the original claim and dealing with the empirical worries and objections.
Someone who has the desire to know will also be a phronimos/phronime
and, we may add, will have the capacities required for desiring to know
in the right way. We, thus, would not need to add the qualification that
human beings desire to know all that is interesting to them because the
ability to determine what is relevant to be known would be covered by
the other abilities acquired in the process of Bildung, that is, in becoming
a phronimos/phronime. Rationally dealing with ignorance would amount
to a human being who has gone through the process of Bildung desiring
to know. She would simply desire to know in the right circumstances only.
This interpretation looks interesting, but I do not think that Aristotle
had such restrictions and connections in mind when making the claim in
the first sentence of the Metaphysics. This definitely speaks against the
proposed interpretation as an interpretation of Aristotle’s first sentence of
the Metaphysics. Human beings can –​and maybe: should, to the degree
that is possible to them –​improve their natural desire to know, a human
being can become a phronimos phronime or sophos/sophe, but that does
not mean that the natural desire only exists in human beings who have
developed their natural tendency.
Robert Roberts and W. Jay Wood present another attempt at developing
Aristotle’s original statement into an epistemic theory. They helpfully dif-
ferentiate simple “natural appetite for knowledge” (Roberts and Wood
2007, 154) and the mature form in the shape of “love of knowledge.” In its
simple, rudimentary form, love of knowledge is “love of cognitive stimu-
lation,” a “natural faculty-​like disposition of the human will” (Roberts
and Wood 2007, 169) which we already see in infants. And Roberts and
Wood remark that “we are not likely to find many members of the human
130 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

race who lack interest in all kinds whatsoever of cognitive stimulation or

activity” (Roberts and Wood 2007, 169).
This natural faculty needs to be “matured, formed, realized, completed”
(Roberts and Wood 2007, 154) so that subjects may develop the rare virtue
of “love of knowledge.” Just as we have seen with Aristotle’s claim, their
argumentative basis is mainly empirical. Children growing up in a society
just naturally develop to mature their “natural appetite for knowledge.”
But note how Roberts and Wood assume that this development naturally
leads to an aversion of false beliefs and a desire for true beliefs:

And with further maturity, crucial distinctions come to guide the child’s
epistemic activities. She wants true perception and beliefs, not false
ones; she wants well-​grounded beliefs, not vagrant, floating ones; she
wants significant rather than trivial, relevant rather than irrelevant,
knowledge; she wants deep rather than shallow understanding; and she
wants knowledge that ennobles human life and promotes human well-​
being rather than knowledge that degrades and destroys; she wants to
know important truths.
(Roberts and Wood 2007, 154–​155)

Of course, their conjecture as to how the abilities of children develop is

very interesting for our lead question as to how one should rationally deal
with ignorance; they seem to suggest that there is an in-​built mechanism
for wanting knowledge, for wanting true belief and avoiding false belief.
But this answer has the same downsides as the Aristotelian answer. How
does this mechanism work, and how does it deal with instances in which
people do not want to know, and, in particular, instances in which it is
indeed better, more rational, not to know –​cases that are not unlike some
that we have seen in Part 1?4
Roberts and Wood would probably suggest that the mature lover of
knowledge inadvertently develops “practical wisdom of truthfulness”
(Roberts and Wood 2007, 166). And this practical wisdom consists in “a
sense of which falsehoods are important to avoid, or especially important
to avoid, and why, and which truths urgently need to be told” (Roberts
and Wood 2007, 166). Practical wisdom comes with the ability to distin­
guish which truths are to be told and which not. Maybe we need to add
wisdom to Aristotle’s approach in order to get to an answer to how one
should rationally deal with ignorance. This suggestion gets us directly to a
popular approach to answering the question of how one should rationally
deal with ignorance: Socratic wisdom.
Before I conclude this section on the Aristotelian Suggestion and turn to
the second approach in the next section, I want to explain why I started the
historical overview of answers with Aristotle’s text, and I want to highlight
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 131

what we have learned in examining Aristotle’s approach to rationally

dealing with ignorance.
I have started with Aristotle’s first sentence of Metaphysics because his
claim that all men desire to know fits very well with the widespread belief
that knowledge is valuable, and, in particular, more valuable than ignor-
ance. And it also fits with the first of the Jamesian twin goals “We must
know the truth; and we must avoid error” (James 2014, 24). As we will
see in the section on the Jamesian twin goals (Section 8.1), James him­
self describes “our belief in truth itself” as “a passionate affirmation of
desire, in which our social system backs us up. We want to have a truth”
(James 2014, 19). I wanted to start with Aristotle’s reply –​or rather a reply
inspired by Aristotle; after all, Aristotle himself does not explicitly address
our lead question –​since it captures and undergirds the standard reaction
to the lead question: ignorance should be turned into knowledge because
knowledge is more valuable than ignorance, because all human beings nat-
urally want to know.
If one reads Kant’s “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”
(Kant, WIE), one understands why Aristotle’s first sentence is still popular,
and why it fits with widely received epistemic norms, for example, the
Jamesian twin goals. Over the time Aristotle’s teleological conception of
human beings has fed into the notion of human progress. Kant writes:

One age cannot bind itself and conspire to put the following one
into such a condition that it would be impossible for it to enlarge its
cognitions (especially in such urgent matters) and to purify them of
errors, and generally to make further progress in enlightenment. This
would be a crime against human nature, whose original vocation lies
precisely in such progress.
(Kant, WIE, AAVIII, 39)

Kant’s claim is that making progress –​participating in the enlightenment –​

is built into human nature. This claim is a relative of, a version of Aristotle’s
first sentence. I have decided to start with Aristotle’s claim because it
expresses a fundamental assumption that can be found throughout philo-
sophical theories.
So, do Suggestions 1 and 2 provide a useful answer for how we
should rationally deal with ignorance? I do not think so. Suggestion 1 –​
“Rationally dealing with ignorance comes natural for human beings since
they naturally desire to know” –​is too broad and merely descriptive when
we are looking for normative guidance. And it is not clear that the claim
is correct. Desiring to know, Suggestion 2, is not enough for determining
how one should react to ignorance. We see this if we try to apply it to the
paradigms of ignorance that I have carved out in Part 1. How does desiring
132 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

to know help with dealing with presumed knowledge or with close-​minded

ignorance and open-​minded ignorance? One might say that Suggestion 2
implies that one should be open-​mindedly ignorant about those things that
may be interesting to one, and close-​mindedly ignorant about those things
that are not interesting to one. But I doubt that this presents a rational and
satisfactory way for dealing with this ignorance. There is also an intrinsic
limitation to Suggestion 2 because desire is an attitude that is directed
toward something that the subject regards as good, but it does not entail
any action. And relatedly, desiring to know on its own looks too weak as
a meaningful suggestion because we do not just want people to desire to
know more. Epistemically, we want them to do more than that.
The version “desire to know all that is interesting to you” requires the
epistemic subject to play a central role in determining how one should
rationally deal with ignorance. And then the subject fills the details of
rationally dealing with ignorance. That is also why desiring to know what
is interesting to one can only work as guide for reflective ignorance, not so
much for non-​reflective ignorance.
But Suggestion 2 is still useful for our project because we are starting
to see what we want from our answer, what it will have to include and
where we might find alternative answers. For example, we want an answer
that is determinate enough, both regarding the content and regarding the
expectations from the subjects. “Desiring to know all that is interesting to
you” is not enough for guiding our dealings with ignorance. In addition,
we may also want to be able to say that someone must know something,
someone should know something. We cannot make such claims about
duties and obligations when the suggestion for dealing with ignorance is
“Desire to know all that is interesting to you” (Suggestion 2). Duties and
obligations involve much more than simply expecting people to desire to
know. And, in particular, they involve more than simply expecting them to
desire to know all that is interesting to them.
In further determining the desire to know, the phronimos and the
phronime have played a crucial role because they have the ability to spe-
cify the content of the desire to know, so there is reason to suppose that
the subject, the individual, will be central in our answer to the question of
how one should rationally deal with ignorance. And, the suggestion that
the subject itself is central in how one should rationally deal with ignor-
ance may not be surprising at all: after all, Socrates’ “I know that I don’t
know” is based on carefully examining his own epistemic status and the
epistemic status of other epistemic subjects and it is frequently cited as the
number one philosophical reaction to ignorance.
So the next candidate suggestion for a rational way of dealing with
ignorance is Socratic wisdom. As we have just seen, the wise person is said
to know how to rationally deal with ignorance. Wise Socrates knew how
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 133

to deal with ignorance. Therefore, I turn to discussing wisdom as a reply to

the question of how one should rationally deal with ignorance in the next
section. Let us see where the second virtue-​theoretic approach leads us in
our quest for an answer to how one should rationally deal with ignorance.

7.2 Socratic Ignorance and Wisdom (Suggestions 3, 4, and 5)

The connection between wisdom and ignorance, and, in particular, the
idea that wisdom is the best method for rationally dealing with ignor-
ance –​or having rationally dealt with ignorance –​are commonplaces in
philosophy. This is due to Plato’s Apology, or rather due to Socrates being
said to be the wisest of all human beings by Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi.
And Socrates believes that he is the wisest of all because he is aware of his
own ignorance (Apology 23b 2–​4). Socrates knows that he is ignorant and
he does not claim to know what he does not know. This has led to the term
of Socratic ignorance, higher-​order ignorance that consists in knowing
that one is ignorant. Socratic ignorance is “ignorance as the sum of know-
ledge” (Ritter 1927, 1, my translation). And as Nikolai Nottelmann puts
it, Socratic ignorance is “first-​order ignorance without accompanying
second-​order ignorance” (Nottelmann 2016, 54).
Socratic ignorance is inextricably connected to wisdom. When talking to
one of the statesmen, Socrates realizes that he is wiser than the statesman:

So I withdrew and thought to myself: “I am wiser than this man; it is

likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he
knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, nei-
ther do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small
extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.”
(Plato 1997, 21d3–​7, my emphasis)

Socrates is wise because he knows that he is ignorant. In the terms of this

study, he seems to be able to rationally deal with his ignorance.
What does that mean for our lead question? Can we get another
Suggestion from Socratic ignorance and wisdom? The most obvious
suggestion is, that, trivially, wise people know how to rationally deal with
ignorance. That just comes with being wise.

Suggestion 3: Be wise (or: Become wise) because wise people know how
to rationally deal with ignorance.

But, of course, this suggestion is not particularly helpful for the non-​wise.
We have to unpack wisdom and being wise to get closer to the answers and
suggestions that we could gain from Socratic wisdom.
134 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

Socrates knows that he is ignorant, so another suggestion for rationally

dealing with one’s ignorance may be

Suggestion 4: Know that you are ignorant.

But this suggestion is hardly helpful because it presupposes that one is

knowledgeable and ignorant at the same time. And it does not specify the
object or topic of ignorance. Most importantly, it does not specify what
one should do based on that knowledge. Is it enough to be content with that
recognition? How should or would the recognition translate into dealing
with reflective and non-​reflective paradigms of ignorance? For reflective
preferred ignorance it seems to allow one to stay ignorant, similarly for
presumed knowledge. In other words: knowing that one is ignorant is
enough, according to that suggestion. But this is neither rational nor satis-
factory. The suggestion is too static and passive to be a helpful suggestion.
Another crucial feature of Socratic ignorance is that Socrates is humble.
He admits to his ignorance and he does not claim to be wise. Thus, the
rational way for dealing with ignorance may be to be humble.

Suggestion 5: Be humble.

But we may well want more than this because merely being humble is not
enough for the rational reaction to ignorance. Just like merely knowing
that one is ignorant is not enough. One will also have to know what one is
knowledgeable about, what one is not knowledgeable about, when to be
humble and when to acknowledge that one is indeed knowledgeable etc.
Again, this would be a demanding task for the epistemic agent, requiring
capacities similar to those of Aristotle’s phronimos and phronime. Simply
being humble, thus, is not enough for rationally dealing with ignorance, it
is a promising candidate, but it is not enough all by itself.
This is also why an adapted suggestion based on Duncan Pritchard’s
notion of intellectual humility is also not enough.

Suggestion 5*: Be intellectually humble.

Pritchard explains that intellectual humility “requires … that, in being

aware of one’s epistemic limitations –​in being aware of the general level of
one’s ignorance –​one is appropriately sensitive to the possibility of error,
and so revises one’ s beliefs accordingly” (Pritchard 2016, 141). But even
though Pritchard is more specific as to how intellectual humility is crucial
for ignorance and error –​namely, one should be aware of one’s ignorance
and “sensitive to the possibility of error” and one should “revise one’s
beliefs accordingly” (Pritchard 2016, 141), we are none the wiser because
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 135

mere sensitivity to the possibility of error does not mean that one finds one’s
errors, nor does awareness of one’s ignorance mean that one knows what
to do about it. “Revis[ing] one’s beliefs accordingly” presupposes that one
knows when and how to revise one’s beliefs. Pritchard’s suggestion is that
one should be what I have called reflectively open-​mindedly ignorant, or
that one should be in a state of investigative ignorance. The agent knows
that she is ignorant and attempts to address this ignorance. But Pritchard
himself also notes that sometimes reflective close-​ minded ignorance is
epistemically more valuable than unrestricted open-​minded ignorance: it
may be better to not (want to) know many trivial truths and to know only
one important truth about a subject (Pritchard 2016, 141). Generally, the
suggested attitude is rather defensive –​the agent is open for her own falli-
bility, for her having done something wrong epistemically, for her believing
wrongly. I do not think that this is a valuable, forward-​looking suggestion
for addressing ignorance. It may be a building block of a suggestion, but,
again, by itself it is not enough.
The problems of the suggestions from Socratic ignorance show that the
idea that Socratic wisdom and Socratic ignorance are good entry points for
how one should rationally deal with ignorance relies heavily on Socrates
and his wisdom. His humility is not as essential as it seems. Socrates’ par-
ticular epistemic and practical capacities and his wisdom do most of the
work in intuitively explaining why wisdom is the key to rationally dealing
with ignorance. So for the proposal to work we need to explicate these
capacities.
Ryan (2018) proposes two interpretations of the humility theory of
wisdom that say more about why Socrates is humble and wise, but as she
herself notes, they ultimately fail as explications of wisdom and as interpret-
ations of Socrates’ wisdom. Neither “S is wise iff S believes s/​he is not wise”
nor “S is wise iff S believes S does not know anything” (Ryan 2018) work as
a theory of wisdom. We should not yet give up on the Suggestions developed
from Socratic ignorance but try to develop them. Let us also check other
explications of wisdom and whether they offer any lead on why the wise
person (or: the sage) is supposed to be excellently equipped for dealing with
ignorance, and what capacities are required for this excellent position.
How do other authors explicate wisdom? Let me note at the outset
that it is surprising that few explications of wisdom (sophia) mention the
issue of ignorance, or suggest that wisdom involves knowing that one is
ignorant or humble about one’s cognitive capacities. The locus classicus for
wisdom is Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in which he distinguishes prac-
tical wisdom, consisting in techne and phronesis, and theoretical wisdom,
consisting in epistēmē and nous. Many authors focus on either form of
wisdom. It is not particularly clear whether Socrates’ wisdom is theoretical
wisdom or practical wisdom. Since it is concerned with epistemic matters,
136 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

one may suppose that it belongs with theoretical wisdom, but Aristotle’s
conceptions of epistēmē –​scientific knowledge or understanding –​and
nous –​grasp of first principles –​do not fit Socrates’ wisdom. This also
becomes clear in Metaphysics A (at the end of the section discussed in
the previous section on Aristotle’s suggestions) when Aristotle notes about
wisdom that “all men assume what is called wisdom to deal with the first
causes and the principles” (Metaphysics A 981b25). This is not what
Socrates’ wisdom consists in, at least not primarily.
But wisdom is not unique to Aristotle’s theory. Recently, the notion has
become more prevalent in contemporary epistemology, especially in virtue
epistemology. Jason Baehr helpfully distinguishes three interpretations of
wisdom (sophia):

a the explanatory understanding account of sophia

b the cognitive faculty conception of sophia
c the intellectual trait conception of sophia.

The explanatory understanding account regards wisdom as a cognitive

state that amounts to “deep explanatory understanding” (Baehr 2014,
312). To be wise is

to grasp, relative to a given “epistemically significant” domain D, (1)

that which is fundamental to D, (2) how the fundamental elements of D
stand in relation to each other, and (3) how they stand in relation to the
non-​fundamental elements of D.
(Baehr 2014, 312)

Wisdom here clearly is limited to theoretical wisdom and similar to

Aristotle’s conception.
On the cognitive faculty conception, sophia refers to the particular cog-
nitive capacities that make the particular knowledge available to the wise
subject (Baehr 2014, 313). Baehr does not go into much detail about this
conception, because he thinks that these capacities would still need to be
adapted to explain how they are a form of wisdom. They must be well-​
developed, educated capacities.
But Ryan’s conception of wisdom as deep rationality may be read as a
cognitive faculty conception that counters Baehr’s criticism of cognitive
faculty conceptions. Ryan suggests the following conception:

S is wise iff

1. S has a wide variety of epistemically justified beliefs on a wide variety

of valuable academic subjects.
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 137

2. S has a wide variety of justified beliefs on how to live rationally

(epistemically, morally, and practically).
3. S is committed to living rationally.
4. S has very few unjustified beliefs and is sensitive to her limitations.

(Ryan 2018)

Note that Ryan is one of the few authors who explicitly includes awareness
of one’s cognitive limitations, that is, Socratic wisdom, in her conception
of wisdom. Her conception also unites theoretical and practical wisdom.
On the third conception, the intellectual trait conception, wisdom

is a disposition to act or inquire in sophia-​relevant ways out of a desire

for “deep explanatory understanding of epistemically significant sub-
ject matters” and a belief that acting or inquiring in these ways is likely
to promote the goal in question.
(Baehr 2014, 315)

Wisdom is a meta-​intellectual virtue that involves a desire to know for its

own sake and “an understanding of how best to pursue deep explanatory
understanding or how best to negotiate the terrain and demands of inquiry
aimed at such understanding” (Baehr 2014, 315, emphasis in original) as
well as a disposition to act on this understanding.
This notion of wisdom may connect up nicely with Aristotle’s notion
of the human desire to know as discussed in Section 7.1. Zagzebski, for
example, explains sophia as a “firm and abiding desire for deep and signifi-
cant theoretical knowledge” that is accompanied by the “corresponding
disposition to pursue such knowledge in active and intelligent ways” (Baehr
2011, 308; cf. Zagzebski 1996). But, again, no mention of ignorance.
In contrast, the psychological approach to wisdom by Paul Baltes and
Ursula Staudinger and the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm do mention “the limits
of knowledge and the uncertainties of the world” (2000, 123) as a topic of
wisdom. This is not exactly ignorance but “limits of knowledge” is close
enough to ignorance. Baltes and Staudinger develop an implicit psycho-
logical theory of wisdom that is based on “cultural-​historical and philo-
sophical analyses of the wisdom concept” (2000, 123). Their list of seven
properties of wisdom mentions “knowledge about the limits of knowledge
and the uncertainties of the world” (Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 123) as
one of the properties of wisdom. Of course, this description is reminiscent
of Socratic knowledge of one’s own ignorance.
More particularly, Baltes and Staudinger suggest wisdom is expertise
in, what they call, the “fundamental pragmatics of life”: knowledge and
judgment about the essence of the human condition and the ways and
138 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

means of planning, managing and understanding a good life (Baltes and

Staudinger 2000, 124). Like some of the philosophical conceptions, their
psychological conception also locates wisdom on a meta-​level. Wisdom is
a meta-​heuristic, that is,

a heuristic that organizes, at a high level of aggregation, the pool

(ensemble) of bodies of knowledge and commensurate, more specific
heuristics that are available to individuals in planning, managing, and
evaluating issues surrounding the fundamental pragmatics of life.
(Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 132)

Wisdom, on this approach, has seven properties:

(a) Wisdom represents a truly superior level of knowledge, judgment, and

advice; (b) wisdom addresses important and difficult questions and strat-
egies about the conduct and meaning of life; (c) wisdom includes know-
ledge about the limits of knowledge and the uncertainties of the world; (d)
wisdom constitutes knowledge with extraordinary scope, depth, measure
and balance; (e) wisdom involves a perfect synergy of mind and character;
that is, an orchestration of knowledge and virtues; (f) wisdom represents
knowledge used for the good or well-​being of oneself and that of others;
and (g) wisdom, although difficult to achieve and to specify, is easily
recognized when manifested, although difficult to achieve and to specify.
(Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 123)

We have now seen different philosophical conceptions and one psycho-

logical conception of wisdom. Only one of the philosophical conceptions
(indirectly) mentions Socratic ignorance, and the psychological concep-
tion of wisdom mentions limits of knowledge. Can we gage any further
suggestions for how one should rationally deal with ignorance from these
conceptions, in addition to Suggestion 3 –​be wise (or: become wise)
because wise people know how to rationally deal with ignorance?
One option is to simply apply the different conceptions to the case of
ignorance. For example, the meta-​intellectual virtue wisdom that involves
an understanding of how to pursue inquiry aimed at deep explanatory
understanding may be read as also including the ability to address one’s
ignorance. But this proposal is not satisfying because it does not say in
more detail what is involved in addressing one’s ignorance. It is no better
than Suggestion 3. In addition, it is too restricted because it focuses on
“deep explanatory understanding” when we have seen in Part 1 that
ignorance is not just ignorance about first principles etc. We face the same
problems with the other conceptions. We need more details as to how the
wise person addresses her own ignorance.
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 139

A major issue for the question of what current conceptions of wisdom

have to say about rationally dealing with ignorance lies in whether these
conceptions separate moral and intellectual wisdom and moral and intel-
lectual virtues or not. Roberts and Wood (2007) suggest that there is no
strict separation between moral and intellectual virtue (Roberts and Wood
2007, 180) and, as we have seen earlier, they argue that “the practical
wisdom of truthfulness” (Roberts and Wood 2007, 166) is intimately
linked to dealing with falsehood and truth: “the practical wisdom of truth-
fulness is a sense of which falsehoods are important to avoid, or especially
important to avoid, and why, and which truths urgently need to be told”
(Roberts and Wood 2007, 166).
Nozick’s explication of practical wisdom as “what you need to under-
stand in order to live well and cope with the central problems and avoid
the dangers in the predicaments human beings find themselves in” (Nozick
1990, 267) provides much more details. Unfortunately, these details are
geared to practical wisdom only, but they could be translated into an
amended list of “what a wise person needs to know and understand”
(Nozick 1990, 269) that includes wisdom as truthfulness along the lines of
Roberts’ and Wood’s proposal. Nozick explains:

Wisdom is not just one type of knowledge, but diverse. What a wise
person needs to know and understand constitutes a varied list: the
most important goals and values of life –​the ultimate goal, if there
is one; what means will reach these goals without too great a cost;
what kinds of dangers threaten the achieving of these goals; how
to recognize and avoid or minimize these dangers; what different
types of human beings are like in their actions and motives (as this
presents dangers or opportunities); what is not possible or feasible to
achieve (or avoid); how to tell what is appropriate when; knowing
when certain goals are sufficiently achieved; what limitations are
unavoidable and how to accept them; how to improve oneself and
one’s relationships with others or society; knowing what the true and
unapparent value of various things is; when to take a long-​term view;
knowing the variety and obduracy of facts, institutions, and human
nature; understanding what one’s real motives are; how to cope and
deal with the major tragedies and dilemmas of life, and with the
major good things too.
(Nozick 1990, 269)

We would need some description like this one for getting helpful suggestions
for rationally dealing with ignorance like a wise person. But the philosoph-
ical conceptions that we have encountered, including Roberts and Wood’s
conception, do not provide any material for such suggestions.
140 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

The psychological conception by Baltes and Staudinger has more details

about the acquisition of wisdom based on their empirical work on what are
conditions of wisdom. Since wisdom is a multifaceted concept, it is based on
“microfactors” and “macrofactors” (Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 127) and
Baltes and Staudinger surmise that wisdom is not really a trait of an indi-
vidual but rather “collectively anchored” (Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 130).
For an individual to acquire wisdom they require “guidance by mentors or
other wisdom-​enhancing ‘voices’ of society [and] the experience and mas-
tery of critical life experiences” (Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 127) as well as
“the orchestration of several characteristics: cognitive, motivational, social,
interpersonal and spiritual” (Baltes and Staudinger 2000, 127).
This list seems helpful, but I surmise that these details are not too
helpful for a person who wants to become wise: First, she is dependent
on an intricate interplay between internal and external forces, second, she
must meet those “critical life experiences,” and whether she faces such
experiences is probably contingent. Third, it is not clear how wisdom as
“expertise in the fundamental pragmatics of life” (Baltes and Staudinger
2000, 124) translates into rationally dealing with ignorance. This ability
just seems to be a byproduct of becoming wise.
To some extent these issues seem to be inherent to wisdom and so
we will most probably not find a convincing detailed conception of
wisdom as a means for dealing rationally with ignorance and its acqui-
sition because wisdom is an abstract notion in which the development
of the wise agent and the actions of the wise agent do most of the work.
Similarly to Aristotle’s phronimos and phronime who just know what to
do in the respective situations. And Aristotle’s phronimos and phronime
are also somewhat dependent on happy conditions –​in addition to their
own involvement –​for becoming a phronimos or phronime. So we will
always be back to Suggestion 3: “Be wise (or: Become wise) because wise
people know how to rationally deal with ignorance.” We might rephrase
the suggestion as:

Suggestion 3*: Emulate the sage.

But this version, too, remains unhelpful as a suggestion for dealing with
ignorance. Like the other versions, it lacks the details that explain for the
non-​wise how to proceed. First, again, it is unclear what being wise entails
for dealing with preferred ignorance and presumed knowledge, open-​
minded and close-​minded ignorance. Should one act like a wise person, or
as one thinks a wise person would act? There is no obvious clue involved
in being wise. The guidance is now implicit in being wise.
Second, the unavoidable, unsurmountable issue for the non-​wise is, as
Julia Annas puts it, “How do we get from here to there?” (Annas 2008,
 Virtue-Theoretical Answers 141

12) For practical wisdom, once we recognize our defectiveness we can

develop “ethical aspirations which propel [us]” (Annas 2008, 27) and
choose the sage as our ideal.

The best life is one in which we are virtuously active, aspiring towards
an ideal as best as we can, not seeking to get there and then stop, but
finding the reward of virtue to be in the virtuous activity itself.
(Annas 2008, 27)

For theoretical wisdom this also means that we, the individual, the epi-
stemic agent have to have the impulse in ourselves. The epistemic agent
needs to do the work in getting closer to wisdom. She needs to initiate
the process. We do not know what this process would involve and we do
not know where it leads us. We are back to a process like Bildung that
is required for becoming wise. Kant’s suggestion for dealing with ignor-
ance will pick up on the problems that human beings have with acquiring
wisdom –​it is very difficult for them to become wise –​but he also has a
solution for the problem –​go for an alternative, the second best option,
the maxims of the sensus communis (cf. Kant, Anth, AA VII, 200). These
maxims are “1. To think for oneself. 2. To think oneself (in communica-
tion with human beings) into the place of every other person. 3. Always
to think consistently with oneself” (Kant, JL, AA IX 57). I return to this
suggestion in Section 9.5 and Chapter 10.
There are limitations to the Aristotelian approach and the Socratic
Wisdom approach, two central virtue-​theoretic approaches to the question
of how we should rationally deal with ignorance, so let’s look at a conse-
quentialist approach to rationally dealing with ignorance.

Notes
1 I will not enter into the discussion as to why we particularly value sight
according to Aristotle since this issue is not relevant for the leading question of
how one should deal with ignorance.
2 One might have expected that the Ergon argument plays a bigger role in
explaining Aristotle’s fundamental claim: The ergon of human beings is rational
activity and so the best human life is life lived according to reason (Nicomachean
Ethics I 1097b22–​1098a19). And the desire to know is one way of living life
according to reason, so it is part of fulfilling the human ergon. But Aristotle
does not make this connection. Zagzebski considers whether true belief could
be good for us and thus figure as a constituent of eudaimonia (Zagzebski 2003,
140–​141), but she notes that such claims would need to be adapted to inquiry
instead of Aristotle’s notion of contemplation, and so she concludes that “this
route has promise, but it is complicated” (Zagzebski 2003, 141). For a con­
vincing account that explains how theoria is the best mode of human life, see
Braun (2014).
142 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

3 One may want to suggest that desire and action are intrinsically linked –​simi­
larly to one’s aims and ones’ means on a Kantian instrumental conception (cf.
Kant, G, AA IV, 417; Korsgaard 1997; Kolodny and Brunero 2018) –​but I do
not think that this connection is plausible.
4 I will examine aversion to false belief and desire for true beliefs as suggestions
for rationally dealing with ignorance in the section dedicated to the Jamesian
twin goals (Section 8.1).
8 Consequentialist Answers

8.1 James’ Twin Goals: “Believe Truth! Shun Error!” (Suggestions

6 and 7)
Another (very) obvious candidate for providing us with a good suggestion
for rationally dealing with ignorance are James’ goals “We must know
the truth, and we must avoid error” (James 2014, 24), or more briefly
“Believe truth! Shun error!” (James 2014, 24).1 As Feldman notes, these
suggestions belong to the group of epistemic duties (Feldman 2002), but
they also determine the goals of epistemic activities and thus may lead to a
consequentialist answer for how we should rationally deal with ignorance.
That’s why they appear in this section on consequentialist approaches
rather than in the deontology section. Locke might be also studied in this
section, because, as we will see, he focuses on truth as the goal of epistemic
conduct. But since he formulates his conception in terms of obligations and
duties and has God and the natural endowed capacities as the background
to these duties, he fits better in the section on deontological answers.
These goals are often called “twin goals” suggesting that they belong
together, that they are separate but intimately connected. Some authors
even go so far as saying that believing truths or striving for truth is the
same as avoiding error. Clifford’s suggestion about carefully examining
evidence can be read as making such claims. This position is certainly a
minority view, and in introducing the two goals, James himself already
notes that the goals are “separable laws” and lead to differences in people’s
“intellectual li[ves]”:

There are two ways of looking at our duty in the matter of opinion –​
ways entirely different, and yet ways about whose difference the theory
of knowledge seems hitherto to have shown very little concern. We must
know the truth; and we must avoid error –​these are our first and great
commandments as would-​be knowers; but they are not two ways of
stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. Although

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-10
144 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

it may indeed happen that when we believe the truth A, we escape as

an incidental consequence from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever
happens that by merely disbelieving B we necessarily believe A. We may
in escaping B fall into believing other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad as B;
or we may escape B by not believing anything at all, not even A.
Believe truth! Shun error! –​these, we see, are two materially different
laws; and by choosing between them we may end by colouring differ-
ently our whole intellectual life.
(James 2014, 24, my emphases)

But nevertheless a majority of authors mentions the two goals in unison

and in conjunction, see these examples:

There is one and only one epistemic goal, and that is the dual goal of
attaining true belief and avoiding false beliefs.2
(Ahlstrom-​Vij 2013b, 277)

In short, our distinctively epistemic goal is to get at the truth, and so,
in the broadest terms, what promotes this goal has epistemic value. The
acquisition of true belief, and the avoidance of false belief, are thus two
core epistemic goods which determine epistemic value, in that whatever
promotes truth in one’s beliefs, and the avoidance of error, will have
epistemic value.
(Pritchard 2016, 135)

The book’s overarching ambition is to articulate and defend a picture

according to which the normativity in question reflects the sorts of social
expectations epistemic subjects are entitled to have of one another as
epistemic subjects –​as subjects who mentally represent the world as
being a certain way, and who aim in these representations at truth and
the avoidance of error.
(Goldberg 2018, 13)

These are just the standard goals that people (epistemic subjects) are said
to pursue naturally. Apparently, the descriptive variant of these views is
also standardly held in sociology. Linsey McGoey explicitly sets out to
argue against the widely held claim that social actors “have an obvious
interest in expanding knowledge and eradicating ignorance” (McGoey
2012, 571). And, remember also Hertwig and Engel who argue against the
focus on low-​cost knowledge in the “economics of information” (Hertwig
and Engel 2021). The next suggestion for our lead question thus is:

Suggestion 6: Strive for truth and avoid error.

 Consequentialist Answers 145

So, how does this popular suggestion fare as an answer to how one should
rationally deal with ignorance?
The twin goals appear to provide adequate detail for dealing with ignor-
ance, but, at second glance, one really does not know what one should do.3
A particular problem germane to the twin goals is that, as James notes, the
two goals are “materially different” (James 2014, 24) and, therefore, they
lead to two sets of epistemic behavior: On the one hand one may favor
truths, on the other hand one may find it more important to avoid error.
The person who favors truths, is “ready to be duped” (James 1979, 24) in
exchange for more truths. The person who fears error is willing to miss out
on some truths because she is afraid of getting falsehoods on her pursuit
of truths. Ultimately, she is afraid of “being duped” (James 1979, 24). In
a very fitting image James compares this paradoxical attitude to that of a
general who warns his soldiers of fights: “It is like a general informing his
soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single
wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained”
(James 2014, 25).
In effect, these issues show that the twin goals and, thus, Suggestion
6 –​“We must know the truth, and we must avoid error” –​are not helpful
as a suggestion for how one should rationally deal with ignorance. Its
two components are in tension and, therefore, cannot commend a certain
course of action.
But I do not want to give up on a twin goal-​related suggestion quite so
easily. I will discuss three suggestions for how we should weigh the two
goals, including James’ suggestion. Ultimately, the proposals do not get
us to one satisfying answer, but we do learn more about what constituents
the answer must have, and we find further inspiration for where we might
look for the best suggestion for how one should rationally deal with
ignorance.
James notes that one’s position toward risk is central in determining
how one reconciles the two goals. A skeptic wants to keep the risk down
and, therefore, does not want to make a decision. For science, James
suggests, the best approach is to have both an “eager interest” and a “ner-
vousness lest [one] become deceived” (James 2014, 26) which amounts
to the position of “dispassionately judicial intellect” (James 2014, 27). In
moral and personal relations James leaves room for passions, the heart
and the will to also decide what to believe. In these instances “faith in a
fact can help create the fact” (James 2014, 29, emphasis deleted) –​and we
can translate faith into the involvement of passions, heart, desire and will.
In religion, too, one should not have to keep the will out of thinking and
deciding. So, in effect, James weighs the two goals by determining the topic
of the belief and the decision. The topic determines which considerations
should be primary.
146 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

Pritchard (2016) also points out that the relation between the two goals
is somewhat complicated. An equal weight view on which one should
simply maximize true beliefs and minimize false beliefs fails because not
all true beliefs improve one’s belief set. We cannot just say that between
two belief sets the belief set with more true beliefs is better than the belief
set with fewer true beliefs. Only particular true beliefs are relevant for the
quality of one’s epistemic status. There are beliefs that have “more con-
tent” (Pritchard 2016, 139) than others. In addition, as I have noted before,
ignorance and false beliefs may have non-​epistemic value –​for example,
some may want to remain ignorant about the personality of this partner’s
ex. Pritchard argues that ignorance –​though not error in particular –​
may also have epistemic value: not knowing about misleading defeaters
is epistemically valuable (Pritchard 2016, 136). And being ignorant of
small and trivial truths and knowledgeable about one important truth is
epistemically more valuable than knowing all the small and trivial truths –​
knowing a higher quantity of truths –​and not knowing the important
truth (Pritchard 2016, 139–​141).4
But Pritchard’s observations do not help improve Suggestion 6, they just
evince that it is not enough to just go for true belief simpliciter, and that the
epistemic agent must add details, she must decide whether to go for truth
or not and whether to go for false belief and/​or ignorance or not. Pritchard
provides examples for reflective close-​minded ignorance, the scientist who
does not want to know trivial truths prefers not to know. And, as I have
noted earlier, his notion of intellectual humility amounts to reflective
open-​minded ignorance, that is, reflective ignorance. But how one should
get into these stances, how one decides to be investigatively ignorant or
prefers to be ignorant when it is appropriate remains unanswered.
Moreover, by focusing merely on maximizing true belief and avoiding
false belief the approach is too simplistic. Epistemology is not just about
truth-​conduciveness, and as the different cases of ignorance have shown,
ignorance can be valuable and true belief can be pernicious. The conse-
quentialist answer that focuses on truth and falsehood cannot capture
these facets and nuances.5
Wayne Riggs’ discussion of epistemic goals is more helpful in that
respect, he even has an explanation for why theories like Pritchard’s cannot
say more about how we should get into the attitude of investigative ignor-
ance. Overall, Riggs’ observations concerning the twin goals are similar to
James’ remarks about the role of wanting to take risks. Riggs compares
the epistemic situation concerning true and false belief to the production
of a widget in a company in which Mr. Nervous produces hardly any
output but high-​quality output, and Ms. Careless produces much output
and has a higher number of deficiencies in her output. His article, at the
 Consequentialist Answers 147

same time, goes significantly beyond James’ observations because he also

discusses how current epistemology, especially theories of justification
and theories of knowledge handle the twin goals –​of course, this is not
a disadvantage of James’ original text because he could not have known
about these positions, he was “pre-​conceptually ignorant” (Le Morvan
and Peels 2016, 23). These theories mainly focus on the aim of believing
truth, or striving for knowledge, but their epistemic norms actually tacitly
prioritize avoiding falsehood. If you favor avoiding false beliefs, you set
high epistemic standards so that false beliefs can be avoided (cf. Clifford’s
suggestion in Section 9.1). If you favor more truths, you endorse lower
standards so that you can find more truths and are not busy trying to avoid
the false beliefs. Of course, hardly any theories of justification and know-
ledge –​if any at all –​endorse lower standards, and so their views would
have to focus on avoiding falsehoods, but in their statements and norms
they focus on the pursuit of true belief and knowledge instead.
Riggs suggests that we should not be surprised that these epistemological
theories do not say anything about avoiding falsehoods or avoiding ignor-
ance since they are only concerned with evaluating actual belief and, there-
fore, are unable to deal with “hypothetical belief” and “sins of omission”
(Riggs 2003, 348). This explanation also applies to Pritchard’s concep­
tion discussed earlier. Feldman also presupposes this particular emphasis
when he distinguishes duties to believe particular propositions and duties
to have the attitude (belief, disbelief, suspension) that is supported by the
evidence (Feldman 2002, 368).
But let us return to the search for an answer to the question of how one
should rationally deal with ignorance. Riggs’ contribution helps explain
why I have not found much supporting material in traditional 20th-​and
21st-​century epistemology: the authors are concerned with evaluating
belief and ignorance does not fit their object of study. At the same time, it
is curious that the twin goals that do address concerns of ignorance and
error are still mostly cited conjointly.

8.2 Understanding as a Goal for Dealing with Ignorance

Riggs proposes that the two goals need to be balanced by a third goal, either
an epistemic goal or a non-​epistemic goal. He introduces understanding as
an epistemic goal that can balance the twin goals, that is, balance caution
and acceptance. From this modification we can develop another conse-
quentialist answer for rationally dealing with ignorance.

Suggestion 7: Believe truth and shun error relative to their significance

for you developing understanding.
148 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

On Riggs’ conception understanding is “understanding of the world and

one’s place in it,” (2003, 350) it comes with an “appreciation for order,
fit, and pattern. It requires that one ‘see’ how thing[s]‌fit together and why
they are the way they are” (2003, 350). The value of true belief and the
disvalue of false belief could then be explained in terms of their role for the
subject’s understanding.
The avid reader will of course have recognized the parallels to Aristotle’s
phronimos and phronime and to the content of theoretical wisdom. In
effect, Riggs suggests that the subject must have something like a meta-​
intellectual virtue along the lines of wisdom to be able to adjudicate and
weigh the twin goals. So we are back to the Aristotelian approach and
Socratic Wisdom. Riggs has wed the consequentialist approach and the
virtue-​theoretic approach. But we have seen that these approaches, indi-
vidually, do not get us what we want for our answer to the lead question.
We do not want to hear that the sage knows how to deal with ignor-
ance. The consequentialist additions “believe truths” and “shun error” are
also not helpful –​they do not adequately guide one’s epistemic action and
ignorance may be epistemically and non-​epistemically valuable.6 And even
in conjunction, the virtue-​ theoretic and the consequentialist approach
cannot overcome these issues.
Another prominent alternative rival conception is a deontic approach to
how we should rationally deal with ignorance. Epistemic duties determine
how we should rationally deal with ignorance. These duties may guide the
epistemic agent in rationally dealing with ignorance. In the next chapter
I discuss how epistemic duties may provide an answer to how one should
rationally deal with ignorance. There are different accounts of epistemic
duties; they differ in particular in which deontic authority of the duties
they presuppose, for example, humanity in the case of William Clifford,
God in the case of John Locke, Reason in the case of Kant. Note that in the
section on epistemic duties I will mainly develop an account of why epi-
stemic duties hold. Which epistemic duties are germane to the question of
how one should rationally deal with ignorance will take a backseat since
it is to an important part dependent on who or what the deontic authority
is and why epistemic duties concerning knowledge even hold. I cannot
adequately address these issues in this book.

Notes
1 Feldman notes the parallel and the differences to Locke’s duty to “seek the
truth” (2002, 363).
2 I will not discuss whether truth is the only epistemic goal and determines epi­
stemic value or not (see, e.g., Ahlstrom-​Vij 2013c).
 Consequentialist Answers 149

3 Lutz Wingert similarly notes that a signed commitment to searching for the
truth –​at the University of Frankfurt one used to sign such a statement when
one received the PhD from the university –​is empty. He notes that after those
recommendations one does not know how to go on (Wingert 2019, 3).
4 Daniel Whiting argues for the stronger claim that false belief is bad independent
of its content, “believing the false has content-​independent disvalue” (Whiting
2013, 222).
5 One can also apply Berker’s objections against epistemic consequentialism
(Berker 2013), even though Berker finds deontic claims in epistemic con­
sequentialism and focuses on reliabilism as the primary variety of epistemic
consequentialism.
6 For more suggestions on the epistemic value of ignorance and error, see, e.g.,
Klein (2008), Bortolotti (2015), Bortolotti and Sullivan (2017).
9 Deontological Answers

The discussions so far have shown that the “just so” answers from virtue-​
epistemology and consequentialism are not enough: the rational way for
dealing with ignorance does not just come naturally as the Aristotelian
answer has suggested, nor does “Be wise, be like Socrates” spell out into
an option that is attainable for all human beings. And the consequen-
tialist is also too vague because they do not specify how one should go
about striving for truth and avoiding falsehood, nor is the consequen-
tialist focus well justified. From William Clifford, John Locke, Immanuel
Kant and Sanford Goldberg we can develop the third strand of answers
to how one should rationally deal with ignorance: deontic accounts. Such
accounts argue that there are duties or obligations that human beings
have to obey to (or to follow) in rationally dealing with ignorance. These
duties or obligations are not necessarily epistemic duties, in fact, they are
often claimed to be moral duties. Note that these accounts rarely discuss
ignorance specifically. Most of the time they talk about duties concerning
evidence. But as we will see, Clifford and Locke, in particular, formu-
late duties and obligations regarding true and false beliefs. And we can
develop further deontic suggestions from Goldberg on what one “should
have known” (Goldberg 2017b) and from Kant’s maxims of the sensus
communis.
We find indications for and traces of such epistemic duties in our
reactions to someone not knowing what they should know. The most well-​
known case is that of a doctor who should know the standard protocol for
treating a disease that is common within her field of expertise. Another case
is that of a meteorologist having an obligation to know the fundamental
weather phenomena required for her to prepare correct calculations of the
weather forecast. But such expectations are not restricted to professional
contexts. In non-​professional contexts, too, there are things that people,
arguably, should know. If Peter does not know his partner’s birthday, his

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-11
 Deontological Answers 151

interlocutors are likely to say, “You should know Kim’s birthday.” Or

imagine Sarah who is going to the rainforest on a three-​week vacation,
but she has no idea about the rainforest, its nature, animals, plants etc.
She does not even know that the air in rainforests is humid. Upon finding
out about her ignorance her interlocutors are likely to say: “When you’re
travelling into the rainforest, you should know fundamental details about
rainforests.”
These examples evince that there are epistemic duties and these epi-
stemic duties may provide a further set of answers to the question of how
one should rationally deal with ignorance, namely by fulfilling these epi-
stemic duties. The crucial question is why these epistemic duties hold. In
other words: what is the deontic authority behind these epistemic duties?
This question is important because it will help adjudicate the different
proposals for duties regarding ignorance.
Roberta Cutler Klein, in a very interesting, largely forgotten article,
observes that a number of epistemologists “[take] for granted the notion
that people are subject to some sort of intellectual requirement vis-​à-​vis
truth” (Klein 1987, 79). Roderick Chisholm is one such epistemologist
since he states that an epistemic agent is subject to a “purely intellectual
requirement, that of trying his best to bring it about that, for every prop-
osition p he considers, he believes that p if and only if p is true” (Chisholm
1977, 14).1 Such requirements hold because epistemic agents are intellec­­
tual beings:

One might say that this is the person’s responsibility or duty qua intel-
lectual being. (But as a requirement it is only a prima facie duty; it may
be, and usually is, overridden by other, nonintellectual requirements,
and it may be fulfilled more or less adequately.) One way, then, of re-​
expressing the locution “p is more reasonable than q for S at t” is to say
this: “S is so situated at t that his intellectual requirement, his responsi-
bility as an intellectual being, is better fulfilled by p than by q.”
(Chisholm 1977, 14, I have deleted a footnote)

Chisholm (1977, 14–​15) and Klein also mention William James’ twin
goals “we must know the truth; and we must avoid error –​these are our
first and great commandments as would-​be knowers” (James 2014). But
we have seen why the twin goals don’t make for adequate suggestions for
dealing with ignorance. Klein also quotes Descartes, whom she also takes
to imply that human beings must aim for truth. In this chapter, I will pre-
sent deontic approaches to ignorance, philosophers postulating intellectual
requirements regarding ignorance and how they justify this requirement.
152 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

In principle, we find four major candidates for deontic authorities:

1 Humanity or mankind, as proposed by Clifford.

2 God, as proposed by Locke.
3 Epistemic community, as proposed, for example, by Bernard Williams
(2004), Peter Graham (2015) and Sanford Goldberg (2017b).
4 Reason and the subject herself, as proposed by Kant.

I will discuss these options in turn, starting with Clifford’s proposal.

9.1 Clifford’s Duties to Mankind (Suggestion 8)

William Clifford summarizes his own suggestion regarding epistemic
duties as follows: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to
believe anything upon insufficient evidence” (1999, 77). His answer to our
lead question of how one should rationally deal with ignorance is just this
general piece of advice:

Suggestion 8: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to

believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

Clifford develops this duty from the example of a ship-​owner who gives a
ship to refugees for a sea crossing, even though he does not know whether
the ship is in good shape for this journey. According to Clifford, the ship-​
owner is guilty, irrespective of whether the refugees safely reach the harbor
with that ship or not, because the ship-​owner has acted upon insufficient
evidence and has silenced his doubts about the condition of the ship.
The ship-​owner has failed to fulfill the above duty. This duty holds for
everyone, “not only the leader of men, statesman, philosopher, or poet”
(Clifford 1999, 74). And the duty is not simply a duty to the refugees or to
oneself but it is a duty to mankind (Clifford 1999, 74).
The obvious question is why this duty to mankind –​a fairly demanding
duty and a large deontic authority –​holds. Clifford explains that just one
false belief, one badly founded belief, has negative effects on the individual’s
belief set and on her faculties (Clifford 1999, 73). And since, as he claims,
one’s words and phrases are “common property” (Clifford 1999, 73–​74),
false beliefs will also have negative effects on society and mankind. In
particular, for the individual and society a false belief may turn into a bad
habit (Clifford 1999, 76), and “we weaken our powers of self-​control, of
doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence” (Clifford 1999, 76).

No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever

truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms
 Deontological Answers 153

those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it

lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode
into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever.
And no one man’s belief is in any case a private matter which
concerns himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general concep-
tion of the course of things which has been created by society for social
purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes
of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age
to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a
precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handled on to the next one,
not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its
proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of
every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an
awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which
posterity will live.
(Clifford 1999, 73–​74)

Assuming that there are such enormous repercussions from one individual
false belief, someone who does not avoid acquiring and maintaining faulty
beliefs, who instead avoids getting information, avoids testing her beliefs,
commits a “sin against mankind” (Clifford 1999, 77).
What does that mean for our question of how one should rationally
deal with ignorance? According to Clifford, one must –​“should” would
clearly be too weak for Clifford’s conception –​try to believe on sufficient
evidence, one must strive for good, reliable evidence, one must examine
and weigh one’s evidence carefully. In addition, one has to put one’s beliefs
to test so as to avoid damaging one’s belief set and one’s faculties.
These suggestions are not all off track and, unlike the Aristotelian answer
and the wisdom answer, they do contain clear epistemic instructions. In
fact, you will see that the instructions regarding evidence return in sub-
sequent proposals; but, clearly, Clifford’s particular brand of suggestion
is far too strict. He does not introduce any prima facie caveats. Nor does
he not at all acknowledge the non-​culpable limitations of human beings
that may keep them from “always, everywhere” avoiding “to believe any-
thing on insufficient evidence.” There are a large number of beliefs that
I hold without sufficient evidence and where it is not detrimental to my
belief set, nor to my faculties that I do not possess sufficient evidence.
Quite to the contrary, it is conducive to the quality of my faculties, their
activities and their products that I do not have all the available sufficient
evidence (cf. Harman 1986, 15 on clutter-​avoidance). And James has fam­
ously argued –​against Clifford –​that one may be justified in believing
certain beliefs without adequate evidence (James 2014). I have discussed
such cases of positive illusions and the beneficial role of ignorance for
154 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

trust in Sections 4.1 and 4.7. Clifford’s claims about the duty as a duty
against mankind can also be rebutted. As we have seen in the paradigms of
ignorance, there may be well-​justified cases of preferred ignorance that are
justified with a view to the good of mankind –​for example, research that
leads to improved biological weapons. In addition, and quite significantly,
Clifford does not explain adequately, why this duty should be a duty to
mankind. It is a gross exaggeration –​and self-​aggrandizing –​to claim that
my one false belief will have detrimental effects for mankind.
But note that the particular suggestion that how one deals with one’s
evidence matters for rationally dealing with ignorance, itself, is not at all
that bad. It is just Clifford’s story of why the duties hold and his story of the
deontic authority, which is not convincing. Locke’s discussion of error and
epistemic duties avoids the issue of scope because, for him, epistemic duties
only hold for things of “maximal ‘concernment’ ” (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 3;
Wolterstorff 1996, 63). And with Goldberg we can develop an account of
why and how communities can expect an individual of that community to
know. I will discuss these two deontological approaches next.

9.2 Locke’s Alethic Obligation to God (Suggestion 9)

John Locke is very much concerned with two issues “(1) what is the scope
of human knowledge? and (2) how ought we to govern our assent when we
lack knowledge?” (Wolterstorff 1994, 172) Thus, it is not surprising that
he is one of the few philosophers to engage directly with the issues of error
and ignorance.2 In his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1979)
and in Of the Conduct of the Understanding (1996) he discusses the causes
of “wrong assent” and “errour” [sic] (Locke 1979, IV, xx). And he notes
that human beings are subject to, what Wolterstorff in his interpretation
of Locke’s epistemology calls, an “alethic obligation” (Wolterstorff 1996,
63).3 This obligation is the primary obligation that human beings have to
meet regarding beliefs: they should “aim at getting things right, at getting
in touch with reality” (Wolterstorff 1996, 65). Locke restricts the obliga­
tion to fundamental moral and religious matters (Wolterstorff 1996, 70),
but I think that, ultimately, we can extend it to epistemic matters, too. On
the one hand, Locke states that the obligation holds for everyone because
everybody has some time to consider fundamental religious matters, at
least on Sundays (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 3, Wolterstorff 1994, 186):

No Man is so wholly taken up with the Attendance on the Means of the

Living, as to have no spare Time at all to think of his Soul, and inform
himself in Matters of Religion.
(Locke 1979 IV, xx, 3)
 Deontological Answers 155

But on the other hand, Locke also admits that the alethic obligation may
be trumped by other more urgent matters, especially for people who do
not have much time at their leisure.4
You will have (at least) two follow-​up questions concerning the alethic
obligation: First, why and on what basis does the alethic obligation hold?
What is the deontic authority for the obligation? Second, what does the
alethic obligation consist in? We find most of the material for the answers
in this long quotation from Locke’s chapter xvii “Of Reason” in An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding:

Faith is nothing but a firm Assent of the Mind: which if it be regulated,

as is our Duty, cannot be afforded to anything, but upon good Reason;
and so cannot be opposite to it. He that believes, without having any
Reason for believing, may be in love with his own Fancies; but neither
seeks Truth as he ought, nor pays the Obedience due his Maker, who
would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him, to
keep him out of Mistake and Errour. He that does not this to the best
of his Power, however he sometimes lights on Truth, is in the right but
by chance; and I know not whether the luckiness of the Accident will
excuse the irregularity of his proceeding. This at least is certain, that
he must be accountable for whatever Mistakes he runs into: whereas
he that makes use of the Light and Faculties God has given him, and
seeks sincerely to discover Truth, by those Helps and Abilities he has,
may have this satisfaction in doing his Duty as a rational Creature,
that though he should miss Truth, he will not miss the Reward of it.
For he governs his Assent right, and places it as he should, who in
any Case or Matter whatsoever, believes or disbelieves, according as
reason directs him. He that does otherwise, transgresses against his
own Light, and misuses those Faculties, which were given him to no
other end, but to search and follow the clearer Evidence, and greater
Probability.
(Locke 1979, IV, xvii, 24, my emphases)

The alethic obligation is an obligation toward God since God has equipped
human beings with the capacities required for avoiding errors and ignor-
ance.5 As Wolterstorff emphasizes, this is a moral duty, not an epistemic
duty (Wolterstorff 1996, 64). At the end of the above passage Locke also
hints at what the alethic obligation consists in: it is about “follow[ing]
the clearer Evidence, and greater Probability.” Locke’s talk of evidence is
obviously reminiscent of Clifford’s emphasis on evidence.
Wolterstorff suggests that the demands of the alethic obligation can be
translated into three principles:
156 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

Principle of evidence: Acquire evidence for and against the proposition

such that each item of evidence is something that one knows and such
that the totality of one’s evidence is satisfactory.
(Wolterstorff 1996, 67, Locke 1996, §7)

Principle of appraisal: Examine the (satisfactory) evidence one has

collected so as to determine its evidential force, until one has “perceived”
what is the probability of the proposition on that evidence.
(Wolterstorff 1996, 73)6

Principle of proportionality: Adopt a level of confidence in the prop-

osition which is proportioned to its probability on one’s satisfactory
evidence.
(Wolterstorff 1996, 79)7

In addition, one should be indifferent so as to avoid the errors mentioned

in Section 5 (cf. also Wolterstorff 1996, 104): lack of evidence, inappro­­
priate usage of evidence, being unwilling to use evidence, and employing
“wrong measures of proportionality” (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 1). I suggest
adding the principle of indifference as another principle to Wolterstorff’s
list of principles. In his Of the Conduct of the Understanding Locke spe-
cifies this indifference:

I have said above that we should keep a perfect indifference for all
opinions, not wish any of them true, or try to make them appear so; but
being indifferent, receive and embrace them according as evidence, and
that alone, gives the attestation of truth.
(Locke 1996, §34)

The principles, in addition to being part of meeting the moral duty

toward God, appear to be self-​evident to Locke (Wolterstorff 1996, 80).
They are self-​evident to “lovers of truth for truth’s sake” (Locke 1979,
IV, xix, 1).
But Wolterstorff points out that Locke’s argument that the principles
are self-​
evident is not convincing (Wolterstorff 1996, 80ff.). In add­
ition, the three principles cannot be explained coherently, especially the
Principle of proportionality is problematic (Wolterstorff 1996, 80f.).
I will not enter into a detailed exegesis of the principles and just take
them as they are without discussing these problems in detail. And it
seems that there is something about having satisfactory evidence that
is crucial for dealing rationally with ignorance. Clifford mentions this
component, and now Locke refers to it, too. In the field of belief acqui-
sition and belief maintenance rationally dealing with ignorance is closely
 Deontological Answers 157

tied to one’s dealings with evidence. Let us keep the principle of evi-
dence, the principle of appraisal and the principle of proportionality in
the group of candidates for an answer to how one should rationally deal
with ignorance.
Locke also proposes a cure for what Wolterstorff calls “wounds of the
mind” (Wolterstorff 1996, 94).8 Note that to Locke these are not “wounds”
of Reason because Reason itself is infallible, it is in employing our facul-
ties that mistakes occur, for example, by deciding not to look at some
object, or by not looking and listening carefully.9 In turn, this means that
by looking and listening carefully one can be cured from related errors.
In addition, one should check carefully what one accepts as a principle
because principles are particularly strong and persistent (Locke 1979, IV,
xx, 8–​11). Indifference, finally, helps us rule out the effects of passion and
interests.
Locke’s suggestion can be framed thus:

Suggestion 9: Follow these principles to rationally deal with ignor-

ance and error: (L1) Indifference (belief acquisition and maintenance),
(L2) Principle of evidence, (L3) Principle of appraisal, (L4) Principle of
proportionality. In other words: Look and listen carefully, check your
principles, and be indifferent to rule out the effects of passion.

These principles look particularly useful for dealing with motivated

reasoning, preferred ignorance and presumed knowledge because they give
more detailed advice and leads for addressing error and ignorance. And
they appear to work for reflective and non-​reflective ignorance since they
also include what one may call precautionary measures.
So Locke’s principles are promising candidates for the answer to our
lead question but there is a fundamental problem with the conception that
leads me to reject Suggestion 9 as proposed by Locke. Locke has God as
the deontic authority for the alethic obligation and the related principles
and it is not clear whether the principles hold without this assumption.
And then why should one follow the principles if one does not think they
are part of an obligation that we have toward God? We can keep Locke’s
principles on the list for answers as to how one should rationally deal
with ignorance, but we will have to continue looking for another rele-
vant deontic authority. I do not think we can put forward a conception
based on the alethic obligation to God; it will not generally be accepted as
binding, nor is it clear whether it even is binding.10
One option might be to put evolution in the place of God: Human cap-
acities have developed throughout evolution and so one should actualize
those capacities according to nature. This proposal would amount to a
deontological version of the Aristotelian teleological suggestion (Section
158 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

7.1), but, as in the case of Aristotle, it is not clear whether an evolutionary

story can provide the normative or deontic material for such a proposal.
Another issue with the Lockean suggestion is its addressee: The epistemic
agent has a central role in determining how one should rationally deal with
ignorance, just as it was in the Aristotelian Answer and the Socratic Answer
from Wisdom. The agent must remain indifferent, the agent has to examine
the evidence, etc. Locke locates the standards for the principles in the agent
herself since she is a “lover of truth for truth’s sake” (Locke 1979, IV, xix,
1). But this agent is very idealized –​human beings do not just value truth
for truth’s sake. And in addition, the proposal is individualistic in a prob-
lematic sense: the agent does everything related to the principles by her-
self. These are two further problematic assumptions that one should avoid.
Next, I turn to a more community-​based deontological answer.

9.3 Epistemic Duties as Other-​Regarding Duties (Suggestion 10)

In his article on “epistemological duties” Richard Feldman observes
that most duties, in general, have an institutional source or a contrac-
tual source, yet, there are no such sources for epistemic obligations (2002,
366f.). There is no contract that anyone has signed concerning epistemic
obligations or duties. It may, thus, seem that there are no epistemological
duties. But, as I have suggested at the beginning of this chapter on epi-
stemic duties, we can see a social basis for epistemic obligations in people’s
reactions to problematic instances of ignorance. Remember again, the
doctor who should know the standard treatment for her patient, or Peter
who should know his partner’s birthday.
Feldman suggests that “things of certain kinds, simply in virtue of being
of that kind, have certain duties” (Feldman 2002, 367), for example,
parents in virtue of being parents have parental duties. The problem with
this solution for how there can be epistemic duties is that Feldman’s pro-
posal cannot adequately distinguish desirable actions and required actions.
This is most probably because Feldman does not think there is anything like
a deontic authority for epistemic duties. In order to be able to say which
epistemic obligations are desired and which are required, we, thus, still
need a deontic authority –​pace Feldman. In what follows, I discuss another
possible epistemic authority: epistemic communities. In order to carve out
these explications of epistemic duties I work with four examples that I have
introduced at the beginning of these sections on epistemic duties: Doctor’s
case, Meteorologist’s case, Partner’s birthday, Travelling the rainforest.
The argumentative basis for explaining that one’s epistemic community
is the deontic authority in our epistemic obligations is the claim that if the
epistemic community is justified in saying “You should have known” or
“You should know,” then there is a corresponding duty for the subject
 Deontological Answers 159

that faces the “You should have known” or “You should know” reaction,
namely a duty to know. Sanford Goldberg has developed a convincing
account of the base of “Should have known” replies (2017b, 2018, ch. 6),
and his observations provide a fruitful starting point for spelling out duties
to know as other-​regarding duties to know.
Goldberg focuses on “You should have known” cases in which the subject
did not have the evidence to know that p but still should have known that
p. The doctor’s case is one of those cases (Goldberg 2017b, 2865). There are
two justifications for saying that the doctor should have known the treatment
protocol. She should have known because of her professional, institutional
role of being a doctor. And we, for example, as her patients, are entitled to
say “You should have known” because the doctor and we are participants in
a shared practice, the practice of relying on experts such as the doctor. Our
entitlement is both moral and epistemic (Goldberg 2017b, 2891–​2892) and,
correspondingly, the “should” is also both moral and epistemic. Participating
in a shared practice generates our entitlement to say “You should have
known”; this is a practice-​generated entitlement (Goldberg 2017b, 2868).
Such a practice may also be instituted by two people who are in an
interpersonal relationship. The relevant “practices … emerge in … inter-
personal relationships: our friends, partners, business relations, and so
forth” (Goldberg 2017b, 2868) and such interpersonal practices can also
justify the entitlement to say “You should have known.” This reasoning
is not limited to particular practices but also extends to epistemic and
moral standards in general. The members of a community are entitled
to particular expectations because there are certain general epistemic and
moral standards (Goldberg 2017b, 2868). For example, we have minimal
epistemic expectations such as

expect[ing] that people know all sorts of things about the state of their
immediate environment through the use of their sensory modalities; we
expect them to make simple categorical identifications on this basis,
and in this way come to know of at least some of the objects they are
‘observing’ or expect[ing] competent reading by those whose reading
competence is mutually recognized.
(Goldberg 2017b, 2880)

The entitlements hold because of their particular significance for the

respective practice: if one were to question the entitlement, one would
question the practice at large (Goldberg 2017b, 2869). The entitlement
to expect the other agent to satisfy a certain epistemic condition is con-
stitutive of the very practice that the subjects engage in. For example,
if we were to question whether we may say “You should have known”
to our family doctor, we would question the medical practice at large,
160 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

including the practice of relying on experts. Thus, the expectations are not
epistemically grounded but grounded on the existing normative practices.
Goldberg’s conception is capable of explaining the reaction in the first
three cases –​Doctor’s case, Meteorologist’s case, Partner’s birthday. Our
practice-​generated entitlements and shared moral and epistemic standards
entitle us to expect the doctor to know the standard treatment protocol
and to expect the meteorologist to know fundamental weather phenomena
relevant for producing the weather forecast.11 And they entitle Peter’s
partner (and maybe us) to expect him to know her birthday. Being in a
loving intimate relationship usually also includes knowing when the other
person’s birthday is. More generally, we can say that being in a close rela-
tionship comes with a number of shared practices, like knowing the birth-
date of one’s partner.12 That’s why Peter’s partner may expect him to know
their birthday.
Goldberg does not talk of duties to know nor of obligations to know,
but I suggest that his remarks about the entitlement to expect someone to
know and to say “You should have known” can be employed to explain
how and why there are duties to know. The doctor has a duty to know the
standard protocol because she participates in a shared practice in which
she is the expert on medical treatment and her patients and her colleagues
expect her to know the standard protocol and are entitled to expect her
to know the standard protocol. I submit that this is no major change to
Goldberg’s “Should have known” conception, I just refer to the flipside of
the medal. If I am legitimately expected to know, then I should know. And
if I should know, then I have a duty to know.
We can thus develop the following suggestion for rationally dealing
with ignorance:

Suggestion 10: You have a duty to know what you are expected to know.

Two worries will immediately arise. What does knowing in a duty to know
amount to? Is it a duty to be informed? Is it a duty to heed one’s evidence?
Is it a duty to seek evidence? Is it a duty to strive for truth and avoid
falsehood? Such epistemic duties would certainly be interconnected since
they all address elements in the epistemic life of an agent. But they are
not reducible to just one of them. So the duty to know does not reduce
to being informed. It is more advisable to understand knowing broadly
as an epistemic state of a subject that includes epistemic processes, for
example, acquiring concepts, and understanding of, say, phenomena –​as
do Haas and Vogt (2015). I propose to treat know as an umbrella term
for the epistemic actions like, being informed, acquiring and heeding evi-
dence. A duty to know, thus, consists inter alia in acquiring and possessing
concepts, developing understanding, awareness of truths.
 Deontological Answers 161

Second, one might object that not every “should” gives rise to a duty.
If I want chocolate cake, I should buy chocolate cake, but I do not have a
duty to buy chocolate cake. But this objection does not take seriously the
interpersonal expectations that infuse the “should” in the “should have
known” cases. The “should” is not merely instrumental but instead based
on and infused by the expectations of the other participants of the practice
which generates the entitlement to expectations of one another. Therefore,
the “should” in “should have known” cases or in related “should know”
cases does generate a duty to know.
These particular duties are other-​regarding duties to know because
they have their basis in the context of shared practices. The meteor-
ologist has the duty to know fundamental weather phenomena rele-
vant for producing the weather forecast because she has the role of
an expert in the practice of weather forecasting. Peter has the duty to
know his partner’s birthday because they are in a close relationship,
they have established shared practices, including that of knowing the
other’s person birthdate.
Let me emphasize that duties to know as other-​regarding duties are
not exclusively moral duties; their “should” is not just a moral “should.”
Rather, duties to know are both moral and epistemic: the “should” in
“you should have known” is both a moral and an epistemic “should”
because it holds on the basis of moral and epistemic standards.13 The
epistemic and the moral components are also seen distinctly in particular
instances of duties to know in which the moral component is less per-
tinent and we would still say that the subject has a duty to know. In
particular, this concerns cases in which the “You should have known”
reaction is not obviously other-​regarding, but still warranted, like the
Traveling the rainforest case –​Sarah travels the rainforest and she does
not know that the rainforest is humid. This and related cases do not fit
the model of other-​regarding duties. Sarah does not fail to meet an other-​
regarding duty nor is it obvious that she fails to meet a moral duty, but
our reaction may still be warranted.
So our reactions to someone not knowing are not enough for
developing an account of how one should rationally deal with ignor-
ance. It is too community-​oriented one might say. We need an account
that is not merely individualistic and not too community-​oriented. There
are two directions for looking outside the individual (and avoiding indi-
vidualism) and anchoring the approach in the individual (and avoiding
collectivism): including the world outside the individual and including
an intersubjective perspective. We find these two approaches in the work
of Kant –​by focusing on the horizon one includes the world and by
following the maxims of the sensus communis one becomes intersubject-
ively connected. Let’s look at the approaches in turn.
162 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

9.4 Determining, Demarcating, and Extending One’s Horizon

(Suggestion 11)
Let’s go back to Kant’s remarks about ignorance from Section 4.1. The
notion of a horizon plays a key role, and the horizon also is crucial for
a Kantian suggestion for dealing with one’s ignorance. –​Let me note at
the start that this is not the Kantian suggestion that I will endorse, but it
is interesting and worth spelling out. –​Ignorance is determined in rela-
tion to the horizon. And there are three ways of determining the horizon.
The horizon is logically determined if it is related to the “interest of the
understanding” (“das Interesse des Verstandes,” Kant, JL, AA IX, 41).
The horizon is aesthetically determined if the cognition is related to taste,
and if one looks at the interests of feeling (Kant, JL, AA IX, 41). On this
approach, science is put in relation to the taste of the public and to the
unlearned. This approach determines what human beings (“man”) are
permitted to know. The horizon is practically determined if it is related to
the interest of the will (Kant, JL, AA IX, 41). In the practical determin-
ation, cognition captures what effect “a cognition has on our morality”
(Kant, JL, AA IX, 41). The approach determines what human beings
(“man”) ought to know.
In sum, the horizon determines and judges –​evaluates, we may say –​
what a human being can know, what a human being is permitted to know
and what a human being ought to know. But Kant does not say how the
aesthetical approach determines what man is permitted to know, so I will
bracket these claims. As I have noted before, there are two ways for logic-
ally determining a horizon: determination from the object’s perspective,
determination from the subject’s perspective. If the horizon is determined
from the object –​the objective horizon –​there is a historical horizon and a
rational horizon. Kant notes that the historical horizon is infinite because
our historical cognition is unlimited. The rational limit is determined by
the limits of the objects of cognition of reason, or mathematical cognition
(cf. Kant, CPR, AA III).
If the horizon is determined from the subject’s perspective –​the sub-
jective horizon –​, there is the absolute/​universal horizon and the particular/​
conditioned horizon. The absolute/​universal horizon is determined by the
limits of human cognition in general. The particular/​conditioned horizon
is what Kant calls the private horizon, and this horizon is determined by
an individual’s gender, class, standing, etc. The private horizon can also be
generalized to a horizon of science and a horizon of “healthy reason” (JL,
AA IX, 41).
Kant uses the horizon to determine the character of our ignor-
ance: Something can be beyond, outside or beneath one’s horizon: “What
we cannot know is beyond our horizon, what we do not need to know
 Deontological Answers 163

is outside our horizon” (JL, AA IX, 42). And what we ought not know
because it would be harmful is beneath our horizon. The two latter
differentiations are always relative to the individual. Kant then employs
the relation between Erkenntnis and horizon to specify which attitude
we should take toward our ignorance: Ignorance that is based on some
Erkenntnis being beyond our horizon is never culpable, ignorance that is
based on Erkenntnis being outside our horizon is even permitted. Finally,
logically perfect cognition can always turn out to be useful, “for no cogni-
tion is, absolutely and for every purpose, useless and unusable, although
we may not always be able to have insight into its use” (Kant, JL, AA
IX, 42).
As in the case of the horizon, ignorance is further determined by the
object or by the subject. If one determines ignorance starting from the
object, there can be material ignorance –​lack of historical cognitions –​and
formal ignorance –​lack of rational cognitions. If one determines ignor-
ance starting from the subject, ignorance is scientific or common. Scientific
ignorance includes insights into one’s ignorance, common ignorance
doesn’t come with insights into one’s ignorance, the subject doesn’t even
know that she is ignorant. Awareness of one’s own ignorance requires a
scientific stance because it is only via the mediation of the sciences that one
can be aware of one’s ignorance. “For one can never represent his ignorance
except through science, as a blind man cannot represent darkness until he
has become sighted” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 44). But it is doubtful that this ana-
logy is right. First, Kant clearly misconstrues blindness and underestimates
a blind person’s perception –​they do not need to be “sighted” in order
to represent darkness. Second, it is not clear that one needs science to
represent one’s ignorance, especially if one thinks of ignorance relative
to the private horizon. It is not clear that one needs the sciences for that.
What one certainly would need is conceptual capacities or Reason, and
one may deduce such requirements from Kant’s theory of perception and
related conceptual theories of perception (cf. e.g., McDowell 1996). But
one does not need science.
There is a suggestion for dealing with ignorance in these remarks about
ignorance and horizons. According to Kant, the rational way for dealing
with one’s ignorance as determined by one’s horizon is to know the scope
of one’s horizon and to extend it (JL, AA IX, 42). Kant presents eight
recommendations for demarcating and extending one’s horizon:

1 One should determine the horizon when one is able to do so on

one’s own.
2 One should not change the horizon too easily.
3 One should not compare one’s own horizon with other people’s
horizons, and one should not judge other people’s horizons.
164 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

4 One should not want to know too much or too little. “For he who
wants to know too much ends by knowing nothing, and conversely,
he who believes of some things that they do not concern him, often
deceives himself” (JL, AA IX, 43).
5 One should “determine in advance the absolute horizon of the whole
human race” (JL, AA IX, 43).
6 One should determine the position of science in Erkenntnis in general.
7 One should examine what one’s best and most pleasurable capacities
are, which capacities one needs or does not need in regard to certain
duties.
8 “One should of course always seek to expand his horizon rather than
narrow it” (JL, AA IX, 43).

These recommendations can be taken up as suggestions for dealing with

one’s ignorance, via demarcating and extending one’s horizon. In this list
we, thus, find suggestions for dealing with what Riggs has called “hypo-
thetical beliefs” rather than only evaluating beliefs as current epistemo-
logical theories mainly do (Riggs 2003, 348).

Suggestion 11: Demarcate and extend your horizon in order to ration-

ally deal with your ignorance.

Kant has further suggestions: quite generally, one should aim to know
the limits of human cognition and, thus, our ignorance as “proved from
principles” and not as particular –​the task of the Critique of Pure Reason
(Kant, CPR, AA III, A 761/​B789). The philosopher has recognized the
limitations of human cognition and, thus, is ignorant in a scholarly or
“artful” way (Kant, JL, AA IX, 44). In fact, scholars who are aware of
their ignorance are not guilty of being ignorant as Kant argues, with refer-
ence to Socrates’ ignorance.
And Kant emphasizes that ignoring things may be good: “There is a
distinction between not knowing something and ignoring something, i.e.,
taking no notice of it. It is good to ignore much that it is not good for us to
know” (Kant, JL, AA IX, 45). This obviously ties in with preferred close-​
minded ignorance, one of the paradigms of ignorance. And it parallels
Pritchard’s explanation that ignorance may contribute to epistemic value
and epistemic goods.
We can, thus, adapt the above suggestion:

Suggestion 11*: Know the limits of human cognition in a principled

way and demarcate and extend your horizon in order to rationally deal
with your ignorance.
 Deontological Answers 165

This suggestion avoids some of the issues raised in other suggestions

because it says what one should do –​demarcate and extend one’s horizon.
But, at the same time, the suggestion is too vague because it does not say
what demarcating and extending one’s horizon consists in. In addition, the
suggestion is still too individualistic and does not harness the intellectual
powers of other individuals or intersubjective insights. Fortunately, Kant
has another candidate suggestion that is more intersubjective. We get to it
by looking at Kant’s observations about error.

9.5 Dealing with Error and the Sensus Communis (Suggestion 12)
Kant does not just address ignorance (Unwissenheit), he also distinguishes
ignorance and error and specifically addresses how we can avoid errors and
deal with errors. As we have seen before, to Kant, error ultimately consists
in a confusion between truth and merely apparent truth, more particularly
“the merely subjective is confused in judgment with the objective” (Kant,
JL, AA IX, 54). According to Kant, the cause of error lies in sensibility
unduly influencing judgment and us judging, even though we are not able
to judge (Kant, JL, AA IX, 53–​54). And these characteristics of error also
determine how we should deal with it –​both after an error has occurred
and in order to avoid error.
First, it is central to discover and explain the source of the illusion.

To avoid errors –​and no error is unavoidable, at least not absolutely or

without qualification, although it can be unavoidable relatively, for the
cases where it is unavoidable for us to judge, even with the danger of
error –​to avoid errors, then, one must seek to disclose and to explain
their source, illusion.
(Kant, JL, AA IX, 56)

It is crucial to do more than just disproving the errors because the same
illusion may lead to different errors. Only if the illusion is uncovered
and explained, can we ensure that it does not lead to other errors. Kant
surmises that one might feel better if one learns that the illusion has been
leading others into errors, too (Kant, JL, AA IX, 56).
By comparing our judgments with other people’s judgment, we can
find indications for error: if we disagree with other people’s judgments,
that is a reason for us to examine our own judgments and methods.
Yet, Kant emphasizes that mere disagreement is not a sufficient reason
for dismissing one’s judgments, “for one can perhaps be right about the
thing but not right in manner, i.e., in the exposition” (Kant, JL, AA IX,
57). In addition to other individuals as “external touchstone” (Kant, JL,
AA IX, 57), one can turn to the sensus communis to discover errors of
166 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

the understanding. The sensus communis can provide one orientation in

thinking. Both orientation and sensus communis are crucial notions in
this study and for finding a way for rationally dealing with ignorance.
Orientation in thinking is a very apt formulation for what one wants in
rationally dealing with ignorance. And the sensus communis gets us to a
suggestion for rationally dealing with ignorance that is adequately broad
and specific and that I take to be, ultimately, the right suggestion. Kant’s
remarks on “orientation in thinking” (OOT, AA VIII) will return later in
explicating the final proposal.
In the Jäsche Logic Kant presents three general rules for avoiding errors
that are candidates for another answer to our question of how one should
rationally deal with ignorance.14

Universal rules and conditions for avoiding error in general are: i) to

think for oneself, 2) to think oneself in the position of someone else, and
3) always to think in agreement with oneself. The maxim of thinking
for oneself can be called the enlightened mode of thought; the maxim
of putting oneself in the viewpoint of others in thought, the extended
mode of thought; and the maxim of always thinking in agreement with
one self, the consequent or coherent mode of thought.
(Kant, JL, AA IX, 57)

It is striking that these three rules also appear in The Critique of the
Power of Judgment (CPJ) and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of
View (Anth). Kant presents these three rules as the maxims of the sensus
communis in The Critique of the Power of Judgment and as the maxims
that lead to wisdom in the Anthropology. In the Anthropology Kant even
lists the maxims twice (Kant, Anth, AA VII, 200, 228). In The Jäsche
Logic the sensus communis is mentioned as a “touchstone” in the para-
graph just before the one listing the rules for avoiding error (Kant, JL,
AA IX, 57). But Kant himself does not make this intertextual connection
explicit15 –​neither in The Critique of the Power of Judgment nor in the
Jäsche Logic nor the Anthropology.
The first maxim, Kant writes, “is the maxim of a reason that is never
passive” (Kant, CPJ, AA V, 294); reason is not passive because it is self-​
legislating. Clearly, this maxim is intimately connected to the demands
of the Enlightenment, for example, the epistemic subject must not be a
slave to epistemic authorities (e.g., Kant, WIE, AA VIII). Kant fittingly
calls it the enlightened mode of thought. Thinking for oneself requires
that one be a thinking epistemic agent. The second maxim holds for a
subject that goes beyond her cognitive limitations and thinks about her
own judgments from a general viewpoint. She can take up this general
viewpoint by taking up the perspective of other subjects (Kant, CPJ, AA V,
 Deontological Answers 167

294). This is the extended mode of thought. And this is the crucial inter-
subjective, community-​oriented step that other individualistic suggestions
have not made.
The third maxim builds on the first two maxims and is developed by
a continuous realization of the first two maxims. Kant summarizes the
maxims in The Critique of the Power of Judgment as follows: “One can
say that the first of these maxims is that maxim of the understanding, the
second that of the power of judgment, the third that of reason” (Kant, CPJ,
AA V, 295). Kant does not say why thinking in accord with oneself is cru-
cial for avoiding error, nor why it is crucial for the sensus communis. I will
offer an interpretation that goes beyond Kant’s own remarks. By introdu-
cing Ernst Tugendhat’s notion of intellectual honesty as a disposition that
consists in acknowledging the possibility that one’s own beliefs are false
and in accepting “a dynamic of clarifying and justifying”16 (Tugendhat
2010, 109, my translation), I am able to explain why consistency is one
of the maxims of the sensus communis and why it is crucial for rationally
dealing with ignorance (Sections 10.1 and 10.2).
Let me say more about the second maxim by way of a detour via Locke’s
list of errors in Of the Conduct of the Understanding. As Reinhard Brandt
notes, there is a striking connection between Locke’s list of three errors
and the three maxims. Brandt even suggests that “it can hardly be doubted
that Locke’s text, modified by Kant, is the model for the three maxims”
(Brandt 1981, 40, my translation). One indication is that Locke and Kant
both use the rare biblical image “Gosen” (Brandt 1981, 40, fn. 7).17
I have introduced Locke’s list of errors in Section 5.1 on causes of ignor­
ance and will now return to the third error on the list because it helps
illuminate the significance and impact of the second maxim. The third
error in Of the Conduct of the Understanding (1996) consists in not real­
izing that one’s own viewpoint is necessarily restricted and in not taking
any countermeasures against this restriction. Let me give you the rele-
vant section again, with Locke’s suggestion for how one should react to
these restrictions. You will see that Locke provides a fitting description for
why we need to include other perspectives and how we can include other
perspectives which is exactly what Kant’s second maxim amounts to:

(iii) The third sort [of error, N.E.] is of those who readily and sincerely
follow reason but, for want of having that which one may call large,
sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the
question and may be of moment to decide it. We are all shortsighted and
very often see but one side of a matter; our views are not extended to all
that has a connection with it. From this defect I think no man is free. We
see but in part and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder
we conclude not right from our partial views. This might instruct the
168 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

proudest esteemer of his own parts how useful it is to talk and consult
with others, even such as came short of him in capacity, quickness and
penetration; for since no one sees all and we generally have different
prospects of the same thing according to our different, as I may say,
positions to it, it is not incongruous to think nor beneath any man to
try whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped
him and which his reason would make use of if they came into his mind.
… In this we may see the reason why some men of study and thought
that reason right and are lovers of truth do make no great advances in
their discoveries of it. Error and truth are uncertainly blended in their
minds ; their decisions are lame and defective, and they are very often
mistaken in their judgments ; the reason whereof is, they converse but
with one sort of men, they read but one sort of books, they will not
come in the hearing but of one sort of notions ; the truth is, they canton
out to themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual world where light
shines and, as they conclude, day blesses them ; but the rest of that vast
expansion they give up to night and darkness and so avoid coming near
it. They have a pretty traffick with known correspondents in some little
creek ; within that they confine themselves and are dexterous managers
enough of the wares and products of that corner with which they con-
tent themselves, but will not venture out into the great ocean of know-
ledge to survey the riches that nature has stored other parts with, no
less genuine, no less solid, no less useful than what has fallen to their lot
in the admired plenty and sufficiency of their own little spot, which to
them contains whatsoever is good in the universe.
(Locke 1996, §3, my emphases)

In The Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant explains that by thinking

oneself in the position of everyone else one acquires a general viewpoint
that allows one to reflect one’s own opinions, beliefs and judgments.18 This
process of extending one’s cognition is unique because it does not proceed
analytically like standard metaphysics at Kant’s time (Brandt 1981, 40).
In a new move, both Locke and Kant suggest that one should extend one’s
thought (Kant, JL, AA IX, 57) by looking at the beliefs of other epistemic
subjects, by confronting oneself with other judgments. Brandt emphasizes
that by extending one’s thought one does not just achieve control of one’s
own judgments through other judgments, one also gains more Erkenntnis
(Brandt 1981, 41).
The second maxim is a tool for diagnosing one’s own ignorance and
errors despite the necessary limitations that come with the first-​person per-
spective on one’s own ignorance that we have encountered before. One
may even suggest that the second maxim allows the subject to be genuinely
open-​minded, one opens one’s mind by taking the perspective of other
 Deontological Answers 169

subjects, by thinking in the “extended mode of thought.” The third maxim

requires the thinker to combine their thinking and the thinking of other
individuals, it is like the conclusion to the first two maxims.
The three maxims determine what the sensus communis does and what
it consists in. From Kant’s explanation we understand why the sensus
communis is a good tool for addressing and avoiding errors. Kant writes:

By “sensus communis”19 however, must be understood the idea of a

communal sense, i.e., a faculty for judging that in its reflection takes
account (a priori) of everyone else’s way of representing in thought, in
order as it were to hold its judgment up to human reason as a whole
and thereby avoid the illusion which, from subjective private conditions
that could easily be held to be objective, would have a detrimental influ-
ence on the judgment.
(Kant, CPJ, AA V, 293–​294, B157)

By activating the sensus communis one avoids making judgments that are
influenced by one’s subjective conditions, and instead includes humanity
as a measure and co-​deciding entity in the process of judging. That is how
one finds and avoids errors. Again we see that Kant, unlike most con-
temporary epistemologists, is able to deal with “hypothetical beliefs” and
“merely possible judgments.”
The role of the sensus communis and in particular the significance of
humanity for judgment must be further elucidated by Kant’s suggestion
how one should orient oneself in thinking. But first, in the context of this
study, I suggest we can gage another suggestion for rationally dealing with
ignorance:

Suggestion 12: Follow the maxims of the sensus communis: 1. Think

for oneself; 2. Think in the position of everyone else; 3. Always think
in accord with oneself.

I submit that, ultimately, this is the most promising suggestion for ration-
ally dealing with ignorance and error. I call it the Maxim-​based Answer.
The suggestion is specific but not too specific and not too broad. We
have three maxims that one can stick to. The maxims are particularly
suitable for the present study because they allow for more complex and
sophisticated stances toward ignorance and error and do not simply call
for avoiding ignorance and error. Such sophisticated stances are required
by the paradigms of ignorance. In addition, the maxims come with a tool
for diagnosing and identifying one’s own ignorance: by taking the pos-
ition of everyone else (maxim 2) one is able to find when one does not
know something or when one holds a false belief, etc. At the same time,
170 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

the Maxim-​based Answer does not just impose duties on the subject nor
are they duties imposed by another authority. Instead, since the rules are
maxims, they are self-​legislated by the subject herself. This is another
advantage of Suggestion 12.
The three maxims and the Maxim-​based Answer for rationally dealing
with ignorance need more unpacking. We also need to consider why Kant’s
suggestion for avoiding errors should work for ignorance, too. I will turn
to the notion of a maxim and Ernst Tugendhat’s considerations regarding
intellectual honesty to elucidate the Maxim-​based Answer.

Notes
1 Note that Chisholm makes these claims only in the second edition of his Theory
of Knowledge (1977), but not in the first (1966) and the third (1989). In some
parts the three editions of his Theory of Knowledge differ significantly (1966,
1977, 1989).
2 Wolterstorff emphasizes that Locke “perceived himself as philosophizing in a
situation of cultural and social crisis, [and] he set out to address himself to that
crisis” (Wolterstorff 1996, 4). The crisis was induced by Locke and his contem­
poraries feeling that they could not anymore turn to the writings and doctrines
of religion in understanding the world (Wolterstorff 1996, 3).
3 Wolterstorff notes that Locke does not explicitly state that the alethic obliga­
tion is toward God, but suggests that the cited passage lends itself to being read
that way (Wolterstorff 1996, 64).
4 Wolterstorff conceptualizes these excusing conditions as a “practical inability”
(1996, 70). He notes that, according to Locke, “each of us … for many of
the propositions that come to mind, is obligated not to try to do his or her
best. Doing his or her best would require neglecting other more weighty
obligations” (Wolterstorff 1996, 70, emphasis in original). But the passages on
this topic can also be interpreted more critically since Locke may be taken to
suggest that they are unable to engage in fundamental religious matters. Locke
writes: “T’is not to be expected, that a Man, who drudges on, all his Life, in
a laborious Trade, should be more knowing in the variety of Things done in
the World, than a Pack-​horse, who is driven constantly forwards and back-
wards in a narrow Lane, and dirty Road, only to Market, should be skilled
in the Geography of the country. Nor is it all more possible, that he who
wants Leisure, Books, and Languages, and the Opportunity of Conversing
with variety of Men, should be in a Condition to collect those Testimonies
and Observations, which are in Being, and are necessary to make out many,
nay most of the Propositions, that, in the Societies of Men, are judged of the
greatest Moment; or to find out Grounds of Assurance so great, as the Belief of
the points he would build on them, is thought necessary. So that a great part
of Mankind are, by the natural and unalterable State of Things in this World,
and the Constitution of humane Affairs unavoidably given over to invincible
 Deontological Answers 171

Ignorance of those Proofs, on which others build, and which are necessary to
establish those Opinions: The greatest part of Men, having much to do to get
the Means of Living are not in a Condition to look after those of learned and
laborious Enquiries” (Locke 1979, IV, xx, 2, my emphases).
5 St Augustine, too, argues that one is guilty of a sin if one does not use one’s
God-​given capacities appropriately (St Augustine 1993, book 3).
6 “To conduct such appraisal, one must consider such matters as the following: 1.
The number. 2. The integrity. 3. The skill of the witnesses. 4. The design of the
author, where it is a testimony out of a book cited. 5. The consistency of the
parts, and circumstances of the relation. 6. Contrary testimonies” (Locke 1979
IV, xv, 4, Wolterstorff 1996, 75).
7 “One might assume that, to a particular probability, a certain level of confi­
dence has an inherent aptness (fittingness, rightness, propriety); and one might
then hold that one’s task is to see to it that one’s level of confidence in the
proposition ‘fits’ its probability, on one’s satisfactory evidence” (Wolterstorff
1996, 80).
8 Wolterstorff justifies the “medical metaphor” by pointing out that “Locke
himself regularly uses the medical metaphor of disease” (Wolterstorff 1996,
94, fn.78). He explains that Locke speaks of “the variety of distempers in
men’s minds” (Locke 1996, §38), and he says that there are perhaps as many
“weaknesses and defects in the understanding, either from the natural temper
of the mind, or ill habits taken up … as there are diseases of the body, each
whereof clogs and disables the understanding to some degree, and therefore
deserves to be looked after and cured” (Locke 1996 §38, Works II, 349). As
one would expect, he also regularly speaks, as in that last passage, of “cures”
and “remedies” (e.g., Locke 1996, §41, Works II, 388–​389).
9 As I have mentioned in the Introduction, such issues also appear for Descartes
and Spinoza who also hold that cognitive capacities are divine qua being God-​
given. Cf. e.g., Garrett (2013).
10 Locke’s suggestion will be particularly interesting to formal epistemologists
because it contains the reference to probabilities in belief and, thus, is amen-
able to probabilistic, say, Bayesian frameworks and talk of ignorance in
terms of credence. See, e.g., Pettigrew (2016) for an attempt at formalizing
the Jamesian twin goals. Note that formal epistemology also has the so-​called
Lockean Thesis that “says that one should believe a proposition A just in case
one’s degree of belief for A is sufficiently high” (Huber 2016).
11 Note that these expectations are relative to the state of the disciplines and the
standards of expertise at the time of the cases. For example, a meteorologist in
the early days of meteorology is not expected to know that she needs to include
the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in preparing the weather forecast.
12 For further support as to why Peter may be said to have a duty to know his
partner’s birthday, see Smith (2005): “We expect the participants in such
relationships [viz. love and friendship, N.E.] to place a special importance on
the needs and interests of their beloveds, and … failures of awareness seem to
call into question the presence of that evaluative commitment” (2005, 245).
172 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

13 As noted before, Goldberg makes a related observation about the nature of

the entitlement to expect others to know being both a moral and an epistemic
entitlement (Goldberg 2017b, 2891f.).
14 Readers who are worried whether the Jäsche Logic is really faithful to Kant’s
logical claims are reminded that Kant gives the same three rules in his hand-
written notes (Kant, HN, AA XVI, 294). See also Chapter 4, endnote 5.
15 See Jüngel (2005, 4) on “self-​citations” as signs of topics and issues that are
central for Kant and other authors.
16 All translations of Tugendhat (2010) are mine.
17 And Locke also uses the term of a “touchstone” that every person has, but for
him it is natural reason rather than other thinking beings (Locke 1996, §3).
18 These components are also crucial for explaining how aesthetic judgments can
be subjective and objective; cf., e.g., Ginsborg (2006).
19 Note that Kant in this passage does not use the term common sense but only
the Latin expression sensus communis. The sensus communis is not the same as
simple common sense. Though later in The Critique of the Power of Judgment
Kant also uses the term common sense.
10 The Maxim-​Based Answer

10.1 Developing the Maxim-​Based Answer

In this chapter I spell out my own proposal for rationally dealing with
ignorance. The Maxim-​based Answer holds that one should (1) think for
oneself, (2) think in the position of everyone else, and (3) think in accord
with oneself. Kant introduces these maxims as tools for avoiding error. My
proposal extends and explicates these maxims so that they can be applied
to ignorance, by elaborating “thinking in the position of everyone else” as
the tool of intersubjective, social thinking.
What follows from the fact that the three sentences, the rules for the
sensus communis, are maxims? First of all, it means that they are rules.
Then, as Harald Köhl points out, maxims are “subjective cardinal prop-
ositions of the will” (Köhl 1990, 47, my translation). They are subjective
in that they are commitments of a person as to what she wants to do in
a particular situation. The subject commits to acting in a particular way
when they get in that particular situation for which their commitment
holds. Consequently, maxims cannot claim to be intersubjectively valid
(Köhl 1990, 47) and they are something that one actively commits to.
They are not rules that one just finds oneself with, they are “rules imposed
upon oneself” (Kant, G, AA IV, 438). In settling on these rules from a first-​
person singular perspective, one attempts to define oneself and decides
to settle for an intention and a decision (Köhl 1990, 49). Consequently,
maxims do not have truth-​values; they are not truth apt. If one does not act
according to one’s maxim, one did not have a false belief, but simply did
not act according to one’s maxim. Yet, maxims are intimately connected to
normative sentences: maxims imply normative statements. If I have given
myself maxim M for situation S and situation S comes, then I should act
according to maxim M –​if I am consistent (konsequent).
You might be worried that these demanding features of maxims make
them too demanding. How can one expect that every being gives herself
the maxims of the sensus communis in a conscious, deliberate act? Köhl’s

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-12
174 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

discussion of maxims in the ethical case also emphasizes this problem. As

he puts it succinctly, “The assumption that we always act according to
maxims that we have consciously given ourselves is empirically wrong. We
do not make maxims for everything. Not everyone of us is a Kant” (Köhl
1990, 60, my translation).
But Köhl is not deterred by the problem of how we can expect every
being to consciously give herself the maxims for her actions and instead
points to a solution. First, we do not need to examine every maxim to mor-
ally evaluate a person, the character (which is connected to the maxims)
is enough. And he suggests that maxims are conclusions based on (life-​)
experiences that make our lives easier. They provide shortcuts that sim-
plify our lives. Thus, they are what he calls, following Freud, “cultural
achievements through which structure can come into our life” (Köhl 1990,
61, my translation).
Köhl does not make this claim, but I think we may surmise that the active
decision to commit to a maxim, to give oneself a maxim (or maxims) is not
as important as it may initially seem. As constituents of culture, we may
acquire them culturally, and they may be second nature to us. A version of
the second nature argument that I have introduced in discussing Aristotle’s
answer ties in well (Section 7.1).
Let me now show that Kant’s list of rules, originally designed to avoid
error, can also be extended to cover error and ignorance. My argumenta-
tion has two strands. One strand works from within Kant’s writings, the
other strand works with my own considerations on error and ignorance.
We can gain indirect support from Kant via the connection between the
maxims and wisdom, one of our (former) natural candidates for ration-
ally dealing with ignorance. When Kant introduces the three maxims for
thinkers in the Anthropology, he observes that the cognition of thinkers
differ in how they answer the questions of the three cognitive facul-
ties: “What do I want? (asks understanding) What does it matter? (asks
the power of judgment) What comes of it? (asks reason)” (Kant, Anth, AA
VII, 227).
So cognitions (literally, “people’s heads,” Anth, AA VII, 228) are
different, but the three maxims can be made into “unalterable commands”
(Anth, AA VII, 228) that work for everyone and they lead to wisdom.
Kant admits that wisdom “as the idea of a practical use of reason that
conforms perfectly with the law” (Anth, AA VII, 200) is probably too high
a demand for human beings, but the three maxims are the best way for
producing wisdom (Anth, AA VII, 200).1
Kant’s article “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?” (OOT,
AA VIII) provides further grounds for saying that these maxims and
the sensus communis are the best approach for dealing with error and
 The Maxim-Based Answer 175

ignorance. In his handwritten notes on logic, Kant also connects orienting

oneself and the sensus communis when he writes in a comment in brackets
that one gets orientation by the common sense (HN, AA XVI, 293). In the
article on orienting oneself in thinking, Kant enters into a debate about
how one can have knowledge of God. Moses Mendelssohn had argued
that one can have rational knowledge of God and Kant rejects this claim.
But as Onora O’Neill (2015) points out, this is but one aspect of the art­
icle. Kant more generally explains how human beings with their limited
cognitive abilities can conduct inquiry and orient themselves. This issue
obviously is highly relevant to anyone who wants to know how to deal
with ignorance.
In the article, Kant starts from geographical orientation and notes
that one orientates oneself geographically by means of a subjective dis-
tinction, a distinction within the subject (O’Neill 2015, 158). The same
holds for orientation in thinking; here, maxims take the role of subjective
distinctions. And the subjective distinction is “created by agents who
adopt maxims in order to make good a deficiency or need in their ordinary
cognitive capacities, so that they can regulate their thought and action”
(O’Neill 2015, 161). We can recognize the concerns about the possibility
and reality of error and ignorance in the maxims’ concern with the defi-
ciencies of ordinary cognitive capacities.
So, it is in the maxims which enable orientation in thinking that the
subject addresses ignorance and error. As we have just seen, these maxims
are subjective because they are determined by the subject herself. Since
these maxims must not be arbitrary, Kant must be able to explain how
they can be lawlike and have universal scope. And Kant’s solution is that
the maxims must be “followable in thought or adoptable for action by
any others who are to consider, entertain, adopt and reject them” (O’Neill
2015, 167, emphasis in original). The standard for one’s maxims in
orienting oneself in thinking must, thus, be “followable” or “adoptable”
by all others, otherwise one cannot communicate with others about the
maxims.
According to O’Neill, one can develop as a supreme principle for reason
a negative strategy: “Reject principles that are unfit to serve as principle
for all” (O’Neill 2015, 167). I suggest that the three maxims of the sensus
communis are principles that fit this strategy, they “combine lawlike form
with universal scope” (O’Neill 2015, 165) and they are “fit to serve as
principle for all” (O’Neill 2015, 167).2 And Kant combines individual
thinking and collective thinking insofar as the “capacity to orient our-
selves is a shared rather than a solitary task” (O’Neill 2015, 154).
Now we can see how in the sensus communis one can be said to “hold
[one’s] judgment up to human reason as a whole” (Kant, CPJ, AA V, 293): It
176 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

is by following maxims that are followable and adoptable by others that

I make my thought and judgment available to human reason as a whole.
This interpretation further substantiates the Maxim-​based Answer, which
consists in following the maxims of the sensus communis.
The sensus communis is a necessary condition for the communicability
of our cognition (cf. Kant CPJ, AA V 238–​239) –​but as Kant notes in the
Jäsche Logic, the maxims of the sensus communis are also the best way for
addressing and avoiding errors. I conjecture that the sensus communis is
also a necessary condition for addressing and reflecting our fallibility –​our
errors and our ignorance. If I think for myself and think in the position
of everyone else and always think in accord with myself, I am able to deal
with errors and ignorance.3
On to the second strand of the extension to ignorance. –​Note that
this is not in Kant, but I think we are warranted in developing Kant’s
basic notions and claims further even if his texts did not license these
extensions. These extensions are valuable and helpful for the present pro-
ject. –​I suggest that the three maxims can also be applied to dealing with
ignorance and not just to error because error is an instance of ignorance.
When committing an error, there is something that one does not know,
and there may be structures that co-​constitute the specific error, just as in
ignorance in general. Moreover, there is a structural similarity between
error and ignorance: Ignorance is like hypothetical beliefs because ignor-
ance can be co-​constituted by absences or gaps or by beliefs that one could
have and not just actual beliefs. Error consists in beliefs that one has but
also in beliefs one should have, or in attitudes one has and attitudes that
one should have. It is thus similarly complex.
We can employ the maxims for dealing with instances of ignorance in
which we know that we are ignorant –​searching out other perspectives,
taking up other perspectives, and combining these perspectives and
thinking for oneself. And as a general stance that we should always be
prepared to take up explicitly or take up dispositionally as epistemic
agents, we can also employ it for instances of ignorance of which we are
not aware, that is, non-​reflective ignorance. This is the diagnosing power
of the maxims that I have mentioned earlier. In employing the tools in that
way, we take up an intersubjectively grounded position. Note that the
proposal also fits with the Integrated Conception of Ignorance because
it recognizes the individual as located in communities and in interaction
with other individuals thus realizing the adequacy conditions for an
account of ignorance (Section 3.4). I’ll say more about the intersubjective
component in developing intellectual honesty as a stance related to the
Maxim-​based Answer and in discussing objections against the proposal
(Chapter 10).
 The Maxim-Based Answer 177

10.2 How Is This a Rational Approach to Dealing with Ignorance?

Let me start this section with an important caveat that gets us to the issue
of why this is a rational approach to dealing with ignorance. This is the
caveat: The Maxim-​based Answer is not intended to provide a fool-​proof
account nor does it come with a guarantee for success. Someone who
manifests White Ignorance may take themselves to be thinking for them-
selves, thinking themselves in the position of everyone else and thinking in
accord with themselves. But their selection of relevant other perspectives
is distorted and biased. We can say that they did not extend their thought
in the right way because they did not take the stance of humanity but
of White people. And the Integrated Conception of Ignorance enables
us to explain how structures and systems obstruct people’s perspectives
and how people use the structures and system to obstruct and limit their
perspectives. It is a social process and not just an individual process.
But how is the Maxim-​ based Answer still a rational suggestion or
a rational approach to dealing with ignorance? Again there are two
strands: one Kantian, one non-​Kantian. On the Kantian argumentative
strand the suggestion is rational because maxims are rules that a rational
being imposes upon themself (cf. Kant, G, AA IV, 438) and thus the three
maxims are rational, too. It’s the typical Kantian rationality approach. But
even if one does not like the Kantian approach, there is a very convincing
route to arguing for the rationality of the approach. In fact, there are even
three routes: an instrumentalist-​pragmatic route, a social route and a realist
non-​instrumentalist route. I employ Tugendhat’s distinctions of motiv-
ations for being intellectually honest that in turn refer to the taxonomy
developed by Gosepath (1992): one can be pragmatically motivated, or
one can be socially motivated or one can be motivated by the intrinsic
value of knowing the truth (as opposed to being delusional or ignorant).
When I am pragmatically motivated (instrumentally motivated) to follow
the three maxims (aka the Maxim-​based Answer), I recognize that it is
the best approach to reaching my aims regarding my dealings with ignor-
ance. I’m more likely to take the right stance toward ignorance –​reflective
and non-​reflective –​when I think for myself, take other perspectives and
think accordingly. And I’m more likely to avoid errors. I might also be
more likely to identify my own non-​reflective ignorance and know how to
address my reflective ignorance.
When I am socially motivated, I am motivated by expectations from other
community members and by social values such as honesty and accuracy
(cf. Williams 2004). This is the familiar topos of expectations from other
community members that we encountered in Goldberg’s “Should have
known” study. I’m expected to make correct statements about when I’ll
178 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

be arriving at a friend’s house, I’m expected to give accurate descriptions

when I tell a tourist asking me for the way that I know the way to the train
station. We are also expected to have basic knowledge about the town
we live in or sometimes also more demanding knowledge, say, about the
effects of climate change. And we are also expected to have well-​justified
views about justice, political issues, etc. These views are the basis for our
participation in democracies. – I return to this topic in Chapter 11. – The
social motivation also works because of social reactions to our epistemic
states (and our actions); one may feel shame if one does not know what
one is (rightly) expected to know, or one may be held accountable if one
does not know what one is rightly expected to know. On this concep-
tion one is motivated to adopt and follow the three maxims because
they are the best way for implementing social values such as honesty and
accuracy and for avoiding social reactive attitudes if one fails to meet
social expectations. Note that the communicative, intersubjective face of
the second maxim would also entail that one manifests social relations in
following the maxims. The Maxim-​based Answer is inherently social and
thus complements the social motivation.
But Tugendhat also adds what I call a “realist non-​ instrumentalist
motivation”: One can be motivated by wanting to be connected to reality,
wanting to know how things really are, not believing falsehoods or being
delusional. The motive for taking up the Maxim-​based Answer in this case
is that it enables one to not be deluded about the world or oneself, but
one is not instrumentally motivated. It is simply how one behaves or acts
in avoiding delusions and being related to the world as it is. Again, there
is no anti-​delusion guarantee in the Maxim-​based Approach, but it is the
best approach one has.
These motivations are three different explanations for why taking up the
Maxim-​based Approach is rational. There are arguments for each explan-
ation and the related theory. I won’t discuss which explanation is best. All
that matters is that there are different respects in which it is rational to
pursue the Maxim-​based Approach in dealing with ignorance. And which
motivation an individual pursues is ultimately an empirical question. For
this project we only need to see that the approach itself is rational.
In the present study of determining how one should rationally deal with
ignorance intellectual honesty (Intellektuelle Redlichkeit) plays a crucial
role for undergirding and substantiating my proposal that the Maxim-​
based Answer is the best suggestion for rationally dealing with ignorance.
We learn more about the motivation of rationally dealing with ignorance
from this study of intellectual honesty.
And we can also explicate the practice(s) behind Kant’s maxims by
including intellectual honesty in the conception. Tugendhat describes intel-
lectual honesty as accounting for one’s own beliefs about oneself and one’s
 The Maxim-Based Answer 179

beliefs about the world. In being intellectually honest one has a dispos-
ition that consists in allowing for one’s own beliefs to be false. Intellectual
honesty is “the attitude of being open for reasons that speak against
one’s own belief” (Tugendhat 2010, 98, my translation). One is open for
one’s own epistemic and cognitive fallibility. This disposition can be fur-
ther differentiated into intellectual honesty in a formal sense and intellec-
tual honesty in a substantial sense. Intellectual honesty in a formal sense
refers to a stance toward one’s own beliefs (irrespective of their content).
Intellectual honesty in a substantial sense consists in avoiding pretense.
Importantly, intellectual honesty simpliciter is not restricted to aiming
at truth or searching for the truth, rather, it consists in examining the
beliefs that one holds. One aims to avoid false beliefs in one’s own belief
system, both in individual and collective belief systems (Tugendhat 2010,
101). And in fact, wanting to acquire more knowledge is a secondary
aim (Tugendhat 2010, 101). The background to this practice is what
Tugendhat describes as giving in to a “dynamic of clarifying and justi-
fying” (Tugendhat 2010, 109) that is informed by a dynamic of reacting to
a lack of justification and accuracy in one’s beliefs (Tugendhat 2010, 98).
I submit that the practice of intellectual honesty and the accompanying
background “dynamic of clarifying and justifying” form the background
to Kant’s maxims. Thinking for yourself and taking up the perspective of
other subjects only make sense against the background of the dynamic
of clarifying and justifying and intellectual honesty. And now we have
another explanation for why Kant says that the third maxim, being con-
sistent with oneself, ultimately consists in following the first and the second
maxim. In thinking for yourself and taking up other people’s perspective
you put intellectual honesty into practice; in other words, you actualize
intellectual honesty.
Tugendhat observes that since intellectual honesty is so demanding and
may lead to unwelcome results –​for example, I may find out that I hold
false beliefs about myself; say, I am overly self-​confident or I am not as
nice a person as I think I am –​the motivation against being intellectually
honest is stronger and more obvious than the motivation for being intel-
lectual honest. And so he asks why human beings are still motivated to
be intellectually honest and he discusses the three motivations that I have
introduced earlier to explain why the Maxim-​based Approach is rational.
The most obvious motivations are pragmatic/​instrumental considerations
and moral or social considerations. Having right beliefs and avoiding false
beliefs in my belief set is advantageous because it allows me to achieve my
aims and fulfill my desires. I have to know how things really are in order
to achieve my aims and not be deluded (cf. Gosepath 1992). Moral and
social considerations that motivate being intellectually honest build on the
social value of honesty and accuracy (cf. Williams 2004). Pragmatic and
180 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

social and moral considerations overlap. The subject is motivated to be

intellectually honest because she wants to avoid being called to account
and, in particular, she wants to avoid the shame of being called to account
(Tugendhat 2010, 107).
But there is also a non-​instrumental motivation for intellectual hon-
esty. Paradigmatically, we find this non-​ instrumental motivation in
Socrates when he realizes that his own beliefs that are directly and indir-
ectly related to the Good are unclear and biased and must be cleared
up. In doing so he does not aim at truth but at avoiding false beliefs
in his belief set. Tugendhat suggests that Socrates actualizes intellectual
honesty in the substantive sense since he wants to avoid pretense and
false beliefs about the good. –​This form of intellectual honesty is not
motivated by pragmatic or moral considerations because it sets out to
question just those considerations. Tugendhat surmises that the motiv-
ation for this form of intellectual honesty lies in wanting to counter delu-
sion and mania (2010, 109) and is grounded in the observation that a
life of pretense, a life of as-​ifs is less valuable than a real life, an honest
life, an authentic life, as we might say even though Tugendhat does not
employ this term.
This form of intellectual honesty, substantial intellectual honesty, is
unavoidably circular (Tugendhat 2010, 110–​111). The non-​instrumental
value of intellectual honesty and substantial intellectual honesty can only
be recognized by those who already recognize the evidence in favor of
intellectual honesty. Those who like being in the opaque, who like it when
things are opaque cannot be talked into recognizing substantial intellec-
tual honesty to avoid pretense. They can only value intellectual honesty
because of a social reason, namely wanting to avoid shame (Tugendhat
2010, 111), but not for a non-​instrumental reason.
Let me close this section by briefly pointing to advantages to the con-
ception. My interpretation of the Maxim-​based Answer for dealing with
ignorance and error comes with a number of advantages and productive
starting points. As I have said earlier, it is neither too broad nor too spe-
cific. Moreover, it is flexible because it does not advantage truth nor
condemns false belief and ignorance. It allows that false belief and ignor-
ance are acceptable, for example, because they are outside our horizon.
The maxims are self-​ legislated and subjective and, therefore, do not
depend on a foreign deontic authority.
But the maxims are also objective and, thus, the Maxim-​based Answer
does not regard dealing with ignorance as a solitary task but includes the
epistemic community in the project. And as we have seen in the list of epi-
stemic conduct and actions that instantiate open-​minded ignorance and
close-​minded ignorance, the others –​the community, one’s interlocutors,
the second person –​play a crucial role in one’s dealing with ignorance. One
 The Maxim-Based Answer 181

can tackle the limitations of one’s first-​personal perspective by following

the second maxim, in particular. Of course, one cannot indefinitely over-
come the limitations, but triangulation with other subjects is a sure way to
avoid the limitations or work around them.
In taking the perspective of others in thinking one is also open-​mindedly
ignorant. This stance may also include listening to other people, not silen-
cing them, etc. One is close-​mindedly ignorant in not listening to other
people’s evidence. In taking the perspective of others, one is rationally
dealing with ignorance because one follows reason (one’s own rationality)
and one gives and takes reasons. As we will see in the next chapter, it is
constitutive of living the three maxims that one engages in the practice of
giving reasons and explaining. This is as rational a practice as one can get.
And this practice also allows one to justify and explain instances of close-​
minded ignorance that may be warranted.
In addition, the Maxim-​ based Answer puts the epistemic subject
and epistemic agency in the center of attention. There are things that
an epistemic subject can do in dealing with ignorance and error and
those epistemic actions are constituted and actualized by the epistemic
subject herself and other epistemic subjects. This setup leads to two
problems that I will have to address: First, the setup seems to be restricted
to dealing with reflective ignorance because the maxims are very con-
scious. By discussing how one should deal with uncertainty in medicine
I will outline how the three maxims are also appropriate for dealing with
non-​reflective ignorance (Chapter 12). Second, such a proposal puts a lot
of weight, expectations and pressure on the epistemic subject in rationally
dealing with ignorance.
In order to further explicate and refine the conception of the Maxim-​
based Answer I discuss three sets of worries. I address these worries in
turn, starting with the first worry. In replying to the worries, I will further
elucidate the Maxim-​based Answer.

1 The Pessimist Objection. Epistemic subjects qua human beings continu-

ously fail to adequately deal with ignorance and error. Therefore, the
proposed conception is destined to fail. There is no rational way of
dealing with ignorance.
2 The Objection from Those Who Just Do Not Care. How do you deal
with an epistemic subject who rejects the demands placed on her by
your suggestions?
3 The Objection from Overdemandingness, from Arrogant Elitism and
from Intellectualization. On the proposed conception dealing with
ignorance requires self-​
mastery, self-​
discipline, self-​
denial and intel-
lectualism. Doesn’t this amount to Arrogant Elitism and isn’t it too
demanding for human beings?
182 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

10.3 Objections against the Maxim-​Based Answer

10.3.1 The Pessimist’s Objection

The first worry wants to pull the rug out from my attempts at finding
a principled way of rationally dealing with ignorance. Human beings
continuously fail to rationally deal with ignorance and error, there-
fore there is no definitive answer to my quest.4 It is a pessimist who
puts forward the worry.5 The agnostic position is closely connected to
this pessimistic stance, but it also differs significantly. The agnostic is
equally impressed by the reality and possibility of failure, but, unlike
the pessimist, they do not deny the possibility of determining a way for
rationally dealing with ignorance and merely suspend judgment on that
question. The agnostic suspends judgment on whether human beings
are able to rationally deal with ignorance and whether an epistemo-
logical project trying to outline how one should rationally deal with
ignorance could ever succeed. They also suspend judgment on how to
rationally deal with ignorance.
But these are not the only positions that one can take toward wanting
to find a way for rationally dealing with ignorance and dealing with ignor-
ance. There is also the naïve optimist who holds that things will just turn
out fine. One can succeed in determining a way for rationally dealing with
ignorance. And there is also someone that I propose to call the reflective
optimist. The reflective optimist holds that there is no getting around
dealing with ignorance and that trying to succeed in detailing a way for
rationally dealing with ignorance will be the best option for dealing with
ignorance. This is the stance I suggest we should take up.
Note that the agnostic position is practically untenable since one cannot
not deal with ignorance. One just cannot get around dealing with one’s
ignorance, because, say, if one does not try to overcome one’s reflective
ignorance, one decides to overlook or ignore one’s ignorance and, thereby,
also deals with one’s ignorance. One does not necessarily explicitly endorse
this strategy, but one endorses it implicitly. So there is no avoiding turning
a strategy for dealing with ignorance into practice, and one cannot sus-
pend judgment on the issues of ignorance.6
The pessimist position is certainly tenable, it is just destructive in spirit
and I do not think that it should rationally be endorsed, because it denies
the epistemic powers and the potential of human beings. Moreover, I do
not think that one is warranted in taking up the pessimist position. At the
beginning of this study, I have detailed how this is a non-​ideal project, but
at this point I want to emphasize that it is also an idealist’s project because
it builds on –​and believes in –​the epistemic potential of human beings.
We should not be naïve optimists, because such a view would ignore the
 The Maxim-Based Answer 183

evidence on ignorance and the detrimental effects of ignorance. But we

can be realist about human beings and their cognitive abilities, without
denying the negative traits of human beings.
The pessimist is passive whereas the realist can still be an agent. We
see this feature of pessimism clearly if we consider an instructive parallel.
We find the dynamic, the setup and the attitudes (pessimist, agnostic,
optimist) paralleled in how people deal with disappointment in personal
relationships, for example, after having been betrayed once again by another
person, say, a friend, a lover or another close person. The pessimist’s pos-
ition is the reaction of a disappointed subject who vows to never trust
anyone again because all human beings are bound to disappoint her. The
agnostic position is that of the disappointed subject who does not know
whether she should or can ever trust anyone after the incidents. She does
not condemn and reject all human relationships based on trust –​that is the
pessimist position –​but the agnostic also does not enter into any trusting
relationships because she does not know whether she will be disappointed
or not. And so, in order to avoid being disappointed, which is very likely,
she thinks, she does not trust others. The naïve optimist on the other hand
simply ignores the disappointment and naïvely continues to be open for
close relationships that build on trust.
Such naïve optimistic behavior may be gullible and foolhardy, but
I do not think that an optimist per se is foolhardy and that is why I have
distinguished above between the naïve optimist and the reflective opti-
mist. The reflective optimist is not gullible, and so after having been
disappointed by a close person, the reflective optimist continues to be open
for close relationships, but they are careful about whom they trust. They
do not trust just anyone. Like the pessimist and the agnostic, they learned
from previous experiences, but they do not conclude that there is no basis
for trust and personal relationships at all. And they do not abstain from
entering into personal relationships or trusting someone.
One may wonder about the reflective optimist’s motivation. And again,
we can employ Tugendhat’s picture. One strong reason would be an
instrumental reason: they know that personal relationships are valuable
for a good life. But they may also have a prudential reason: they know
that it would be an exaggeration to avoid all close relationships because
of their previous experiences. Another reason is rooted in their self-​trust
and autonomy: they know that they would weaken and disarm themselves
if they react like the pessimist and the agnostic because they would allow
those disappointing experiences to determine how they act rather than
deciding themselves and determining themself how they act in personal
relationships. The pessimist and the agnostic choose to be passive and
inert because of their experiences. The reflective optimist wants to remain
active.
184 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

You will have recognized why I take the parallel to be instructive. The
structure is parallel to the situation presented by the pessimist objection.
The pessimist is equally disappointed in human beings, their cognitive cap-
acities and their epistemic conduct. One may be a pessimist about the
potential for dealing with ignorance and reject (and avoid) all suggestions
for action; one may be an agnostic and be paralyzed by the situation and
abstain from all suggestions for action; one may be a naïve optimist who
thinks that human beings just will be able to deal with ignorance; or one
may be a reflective optimist who thinks that human beings can rationally
deal with ignorance by following the right suggestions (say, Kant’s three
maxims) and accepting the cognitive limitations and fallibility of human
beings. This stance manages to value and strengthen human epistemic
agency because it rests on the assumption that human beings as individuals
have the capacities for rationally dealing with ignorance. Those capaci-
ties constitute epistemic agency. The reflective optimist, thus, boosts their
own epistemic agency and epistemic agency in general. This is the stance
I suggest we should take up.
As you will have realized, my project is driven by a motivation akin to
reflective optimism: all of the suggestions that I have discussed, including
my favored suggestion, are based on the assumption that there is a way
of rationally dealing with ignorance open to human being, and that epi-
stemic agency is available to epistemic subjects (epistemic agents) and that
such agency is key in finding the rational way for dealing with ignorance.
Both accepting pessimism and accepting agnosticism amount to giving up
epistemic agency and, thus, epistemic self-​determination and self-​control –​
for no good reason. One gives away or binds one’s epistemic powers like
Ulysses when the fear of the alleged Sirens is exaggerated. I insist that the
reality of ignorance and error are no good reason for giving away our epi-
stemic powers and epistemic agency.7
The pessimist reaction is, thus, circumscribed and unmasked as
unattractive and unwarranted, but it will return in a different shape –​the
Objection from Those Who Just Do Not Care in the next section.

10.3.2 The Objection from Those Who Just Do Not Care

The Objection from Those Who Just Do Not Care notes that the Maxim-​
based Answer has no power to convince anyone to follow the maxims in
rationally dealing with ignorance. Those who do not care about ignorance
and error can and will just ignore the maxims.
Tugendhat’s discussion of moral, social, pragmatic vs. non-​instrumental
motivations for intellectual honesty and the unavoidable circularity of
substantive intellectual honesty show the way to replying to this objec-
tion. Just as in the case of intellectual honesty, we can at most convince
 The Maxim-Based Answer 185

skeptics (or even deniers) by pointing them to instrumental motivations,

for example, the pragmatic consideration that it is best for realizing one’s
wishes and desires that one knows how things really are –​in the world and
within oneself –​and that one thinks for oneself, thinks from the perspec-
tive of other subjects and thinks consistently with oneself. If you hold false
beliefs, or if you are even deluded, it is much more difficult and perhaps
even arbitrary whether you achieve your goals. A practically rational sub-
ject will want to avoid this situation (cf. again Gosepath 1992). But you
cannot convince anyone of the non-​instrumental value of the three maxims
if they do not recognize the reasoning behind the non-​instrumental value of
the three maxims. Just as you cannot convince anyone of the value of sub-
stantive intellectual honesty who does not recognize the non-​instrumental
value of living a life without pretense and delusion and avoiding mania.8
For some my reply may seem to lead directly to another objection,
the Objection from Arrogant Elitism that I discuss in the next section,
because it sounds as if I hold that only those who are intelligent enough
or enlightened enough can recognize the maxims and understand my pro-
posal. I hope that this impression has not come up and, if it has, I will
dissolve it in responding to the next objection.
Before that let me highlight another parallel that helps me further
explicate my reply to the second objection. My reply so far has been
that there is no way to convince those who do not want to acknowledge
the reasoning behind the three maxims and the importance of rationally
dealing with ignorance. You need to acknowledge the basic reasoning in
order to accept my argumentation. I can point to instrumental consider-
ations, but I cannot convince anyone by non-​instrumental considerations.
And my reasoning in favor of the Maxim-​based Answer has been based
on a mixture of non-​instrumental considerations and instrumental consid-
erations. The objection really involves three subjects: the fellow epistemic
subject, the un-​epistemic subject and the an-​epistemic subject. The distinc-
tion is intended to parallel the distinction of the moral, the unmoral and
the amoral subject. Those who just don’t care are like unmoral and amoral
subjects.
Again we can take this differentiation from a similar argument that
Tugendhat gives in explaining how one can or cannot convince an amor-
alist of a moral theory in his Lectures on Ethics (1993).

Here we find a specific togetherness of motives and reasons. That we

even want to be a good member of society and, i.e. that we even want
to belong to a moral community in the first place (that we even want to
be able to make moral judgments) is ultimately an act of our autonomy,
and there can only be good motives for this, no reasons. We have, as
we will see, the strongest motives for the lower level of contractualist
186 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

morality –​a level which is still the level of the amoralist –​, and we
only have good motives (but no conclusive motives) to also take up
the level of actual morality. The dispute with the amoralist can thus
only be led by giving motives. This is different in the dispute with other
concepts of morality, there judgments stand against judgments. And
only there can we speak of reasons. In this realm there can be no abso-
lute justifications. The morality of universal and equal respect, the
morality of non-​instrumentality is in some sense indeed in limbo: one
cannot demonstrate more than that it is the plausible (justified best)
concept of the good, and that itself presupposes that one wants to be
able to make moral judgments.
That means that the objectivity of the judgments that belong with
this moral can only claim to be plausible. That is less than mere justifi-
cation, but it is more than an intuition without justification and without
considering other concepts. You might feel that this is disappointing,
but as a philosopher one cannot apologize to the moral conscious-
ness as it is for not being able to make it stronger than it is. Especially
since we will see that a stronger justification is not just unavailable but
nonsensical.
(Tugendhat 1993, 29–​30, my translation and my emphasis)

Tugendhat distinguishes arguing with the amoralist and arguing with

another moralist who defends a different moral theory. As I have noted,
we should distinguish an an-​epistemic subject who does not care about
any epistemic norms, considerations, expectations nor about rationality,
an un-​epistemic subject who does not meet epistemic norms and epistemic
expectations and who does not rationally deal with ignorance, and an
epistemic subject who endorses another account of epistemic norms and
dealing with ignorance. In trying to convince the epistemic subject I can
offer reasons for accepting the Maxim-​based Answer. But in trying to con-
vince the un-​epistemic subject I can only appeal to their motives and to
instrumental considerations, and I cannot hope to convince them with any
non-​instrumental considerations nor any reasons.9
The parallel between the moral and the epistemic case is instructive,
but it also has limitations, mainly, because moral community and epi-
stemic community are not obviously identical. I cannot address the rela-
tionship between moral and epistemic communities in adequate detail
because this is a topic in its own right. Let me just point out some issues.
First, it is not obviously true that just by being a member of an epistemic
community I am subject to the epistemic norms and demands of that com-
munity, or that I am an advocate and addressee of the epistemic norms.10
Goldberg has argued that other members of the epistemic community have
“legitimate expectations regarding [the] epistemic condition” (Goldberg
 The Maxim-Based Answer 187

2017b, 2863) of other participants of an epistemic practice in an epi­

stemic community, but we would need to look at the interplay between
the expectations and rejecting any questions about why one has not met
those expectations.
Second, there is the question of sanctions in moral and epistemic com-
munities. Moral communities can sanction members who do not obey the
norms, but it is disputed whether such sanctions are available or employed
in epistemic communities. Excluding unreliable community members
can be seen as a form of sanctioning. But, ultimately, most instances of
sanctions in epistemic communities are based on the role obligations of the
subject and, therefore, the sanctions seem to stem from the role obligations
rather than from the membership in the epistemic community as is the case
in moral communities.
Third, we would have to look at epistemic communities more closely.
What is an epistemic community? How are they constituted? How do they
work? Who are their constituents? What are their norms? Do they have
any basic principles? How do blame and praise work in epistemic com-
munities?11 I cannot even begin to adequately address these issues in this
context and, therefore, I will focus on how my proposals deals with people
who just do not care or people who, like Bartleby, the Scrivener, would
rather not rationally deal with ignorance (Melville 1985).
As I have noted earlier, I submit that I (and we) cannot convince
the Bartlebys of our days from my proposal or from even rationally
dealing with ignorance. We can relate the instrumental reasons and
motivations to them, but it is up to them to implement these reasons
and motivations into their lives. Everybody is free to be irrational, for
example, by not reacting to the best reasons available, they are free to
go against advice, and they are free to not take reasons seriously (cf.
Wesche 2011, 195).
Wesche construes a similar problem for Tugendhat’s conception of
intellectual honesty. Tugendhat cannot (and does not) explain what it is
that makes someone recognize intellectual honesty as an intrinsic value.
Such insight and recognition may be just accidental, they may be arbitrary
(Wesche 2011, 194)12 and then intellectual honesty just becomes “a curse
that cannot be influenced” (Wesche 2011, 194). This lacuna is an argu­
mentative gap in Tugendhat’s theory and he has to face up to “fatalism”
and “circularity” (Wesche 2011, 195).
To some extent I face the same problem, but I can offer parts of a story
here, namely the story of being initiated into epistemic practices and
rationally dealing with ignorance being second nature to one (Section
7.1). In being brought up as a member of an epistemic community a sub­
ject acquires the capacities required for participating in the community,
they become second nature to her. And these capacities may also include
188 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

recognizing intellectual honesty as an intrinsic value. I will discuss this

option in my reply to the third set of objections.
On the other hand, I think we need to accept that there is a circularity
to the three maxims and to something like intellectual honesty; if anyone
does not want to be impressed by the reasons for adopting the maxims
(or any other set of suggestions for rationally dealing with ignorance),
any influence is intrinsically limited. To some extent this is the flipside
of an advantage of the Maxim-​based Answer: the subject gives herself
the maxims, they are self-​legislated. They are subjective and not intersub-
jective. But I think it is worth biting this bullet.
And, let me emphasize that these limitations do not have to discourage
the subject herself nor the community who is faced with a subject who is
unphased by any reasoning in favor of rationally dealing with ignorance.
We can talk to people about disagreements, even if things are much more
difficult when someone believes wrongly on the fundamental level of epi-
stemic conduct.
Another issue –​and fact of reality –​is that subjects may also cancel their
membership in the community in a one-​sided cancellation. In effect, this
is what their rejection of the Maxim-​based Answer or the rejection of any
epistemic norms amounts to. They do not want to meet the expectations
of the community and, ultimately, this means that they do not want to be
a member of that community and cancel their membership. They do not
respect shared standards and underlying norms and maxims. For example,
if I decide to lie whenever I feel like it, I stop being a trustworthy member
of the epistemic community, and I cancel my membership in that commu-
nity. Similarly, if I knowingly form my beliefs on the basis of insufficient
or inadequate evidence.
At the same time, the other members of the community can –​and need
to –​react to my cancellation. They can ignore it, though this might make
them gullible since they do not take the cancellation into account and rely
on unreliable evidence and unreliable epistemic agents. This in turn would
impact the quality of their own belief set. And, of course, it would also impact
the collective belief set.13 Alternatively, the other members may try to con­
vince the former member or the non-​member that they should join the com-
munity. Relatedly, they can also pursue an integrative approach on which
they continue addressing the non-​member as a member and try to include
her in the activities of the community. But they will have to be cautious in
this approach so that they are not too gullible and accidentally harm their
own community or allow the non-​member to harm the community.
The potential danger of the non-​member for the epistemic commu-
nity may be a reason for actively excluding the non-​member from the
community, another possible reaction to the non-​ member. In a way,
 The Maxim-Based Answer 189

this exclusionary move seems superfluous because the non-​member has

already cancelled their membership, but there may be reasons related to
motivation, security and self-​ascertainment of the epistemic community
for cutting the connection with the non-​member themselves.
Again a parallel with practical philosophy, in this case with political phil-
osophy, is helpful. A democratic community may be justified in excluding
members who pursue anti-​democratic strategies and aim to destroy the
democratic community because their own undemocratic behavior would
save the democratic community. It may be crucial for the democratic com-
munity to expel the anti-​democratic member herself and to not allow the
anti-​democratic member to cancel the membership in a one-​sided act. In
a similar way, it may be crucial for the epistemic community to expel the
non-​member herself to make sure that the non-​member does not harm the
epistemic community. But note that this situation only pertains in par-
ticular conditions, namely if the non-​member is a threat to the functioning
of the epistemic community.
For epistemic communities this may be someone like Fred Singer who
notoriously questions scientific studies even though he lacks the rele-
vant expertise for a justified verdict. For instance, he mimics the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report and issues what
he calls a “Non-​Governmental International Panel on Climate Change”
(NIPCC). “The NIPCC produces reports modeled exactly on the IPCC’s
reports: the same size and length, the same formatting –​and, of course,
reaching precisely the opposite conclusions” (O’Connor and Weatherall
2018, 134). In doing so, Singer ignites distrust by questioning reliable
results with unreliable objections. As we have witnessed multiple times,
such localized distrust may easily spread to other fields and it may
become global. This is a version of the dynamic that influences versions
of the Pessimist’s Objection (Section 10.3.1). I submit that an epistemic
community may be ultimately justified in excluding individuals like
Fred Singer from the community. And they need to do as much as they
can to guard themselves, their community and their members, against
the influence of such subjects. I submit that following the Maxim-​based
Answer in rationally dealing with one’s own ignorance and errors is
a promising way for guarding oneself against such influences. And
in telling others about those maxims, teaching the maxims, one may
be able prepare one’s community for such influences and guard them
against it.
This reply leads to the third objection since in my remarks I have
presupposed that everyone can learn to follow the maxims and everyone
can follow the maxims. The third objection criticizes my proposal because
the maxims are not for everyone and so my proposal looks elitist.
190 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

10.3.3 The Objection from Overdemandingness, from Arrogant

Elitism and from Intellectualization

The third objection actually consists in three objections that are closely
related and criticize the conception of human beings that the proposal and
my project at large propound: the Objection from Overdemandingness,
the Objection from Elitism, the Objection from Intellectualization.
The first objection, the Objection from Overdemandingness, argues that
the proposal is too demanding for epistemic agents. One cannot always
think for oneself, think from the perspective of another and think con-
sistently with oneself. Human beings are not like lovers of knowledge as
envisioned by Roberts and Wood. On their conception

the lover of knowledge may have some of the impulses of the prejudiced –​
an anxiety about putting his pet beliefs in jeopardy, a certain aversion
to long drawn-​out investigations, and so forth –​but he also has a coun-
terbalancing love of the intellectual goods, discriminated according to
their significance, relevance, and worthiness, and he has a toughness of
self-​discipline that allows him to override these less worthy motivations
when they threaten his intellectual life, with more or fewer efforts of
self-​management.
(Roberts and Wood 2007, 163)

These expectations from the lover of knowledge are clearly unrealistic

and elitist. And if my proposal includes these assumptions, it should be
replaced by a more relaxed approach.
But this worry can be easily calmed down. I agree that the perspective
that Roberts and Wood sketch is frightening; I am sure that it also invites
the Objection from Elitism and the Objection from Intellectualization, but
my proposal does not lead to their outline and their demands and views.
Of course, some self-​discipline is involved in rationally dealing with ignor-
ance and error, but my proposal and the activity of rationally dealing with
ignorance and error does not turn one into a self-​disciplined, self-​denying
human being who eschews trivial hobbies, trivial conversations, trivial TV
shows, etc. Rather, my proposal emphasizes the influence of the epistemic
agent on her (epistemic) conduct and her life.
In addition, the maxims allow for latitude since the subject may follow
them more strictly in some contexts and less strictly in other contexts,
for example, when her ignorance is less relevant. One may allow one-
self to introduce Kant’s latitude in imperfect duties14 at this point of the
discussion.15
The objection is worried that we all have to be super-​experts in rationally
dealing with ignorance and become disciplined (boring) lovers of knowledge
as described by Roberts and Wood, but this would be like demanding that
 The Maxim-Based Answer 191

every human being must exercise so much and so well that she can partici-
pate in the Olympics. Or that we must all be super-​brains. That is not what
my proposal wants nor what it entails. The proposal is based on an insight
about human beings as fallible creatures and, therefore, it would be inappro-
priate –​even foolish –​if my proposal put up demands that are impossible to
meet. The proposal avoids being overdemanding because the three maxims
are formal requirements and not connected to any particular knowledge con-
tent or minimal knowledge standards and because it emphasizes latitude.
A related objection, the Objection from Arrogant Elitism, criticizes the
proposal because it indulges in problems and solutions that are only rele-
vant for educated people who have undergone university education and
are privileged enough to think about ignorance and to follow the three
maxims. But the objection draws an overly simplistic picture of ignorance
and the challenges that it raises. Ignorance concerns everyone, privileged
and marginalized subjects alike. As previous discussions of willful ignor-
ance, close-​minded ignorance have shown, privilege often comes with the
opportunity and the arrogance of not addressing one’s own ignorance and
not having to think about one’s own ignorance thus perpetuating an unjust
status quo (cf. Medina 2013, Harvin 1996). So thinking about rational
ways of dealing with ignorance is not an indulgence but a social necessity.
And more generally, ignorance is part of the human condition, of human
existence and, therefore, it is a very human issue that is not elitist at all. By
emphasizing the power of the epistemic agent qua rational being in ration-
ally dealing with ignorance, the proposal also allows the epistemic agent to
determine how she proceeds in rationally dealing with ignorance.
The Maxim-​based Answer is also not elitist because it does not set up a
canon of things that must be known, it just provides a formal suggestion
for the best way of rationally dealing with ignorance, based on the most
basic human cognitive capacities. The proposal also does not aim at
perfectionism nor does it propound perfectionism, it just builds on the
assumption that there is a way of rationally dealing with ignorance –​we
can be active in rationally dealing with ignorance and are not condemned to
being passive. In addition, this path is open to all human beings. Everyone
can follow the three maxims. In fact, as we have seen, this is one of the
conditions of Kant’s maxims. Moreover, I have noted that the maxims do
not have to be determined and legislated explicitly (cf. Köhl 1990).
The final, related objection, the Objection from Intellectualization,
challenges my previous replies and my proposal because they miscon-
strue human lives, they intellectualize human lives when they are much
more driven by practical concerns. If one follows the three maxims, one is
always busy with following the maxims, and one loses all livelihood and
the irrational and rational bits that also constitute human life. But the pro-
posal does not entail that human beings are all intellectual and not prac-
tical, quite to the contrary, it recognizes that practical considerations also
192 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

infuse epistemic and cognitive concerns. In addition, the objection itself

fails to adequately capture human beings. Their cognitive sides are not
tangential to being human. On many conceptions of what it means to be
human, being rational is a crucial feature of being human. And being cog-
nitively fallible, and that includes being subject to ignorance and errors, is
particularly distinctive of being human.
As we have seen earlier, human beings do not always make the best
choices in rationally dealing with their ignorance, but they are able to
learn how to deal with ignorance. One way of rationally dealing with
ignorance is adopting Kant’s three maxims. And these maxims are not
something that is foreign to human beings or that is externally imposed
upon them. They are maxims for human beings attuned to their fallible
existence. As I have argued earlier, following these maxims can also be
conceived as second nature to human beings.
Having developed and defended the Maxim-​based Answer as the answer
to how one should rationally deal with ignorance, I now want to apply the
conception to two real-​world contexts: democracy and medicine.

Notes
1 In the context of the second mention of the three maxims in the Anthropology
section, Kant explicitly mentions the role of understanding and reason for
dealing with error and ignorance. But he does not directly connect the three
maxims with these roles of understanding and reasons. “Understanding
is positive and drives out the darkness of ignorance the power of judgment
is more negative, for the prevention of errors from the dim light in which
objects appear. –​Reason blocks the sources of errors (prejudices), and thereby
safeguards understanding through the universality of principles” (Kant, Anth,
AA VII, 228). Since I do not want to implement Kant’s distinction between
understanding and reason, I do not discuss this interesting passage in more
detail. Suffice it to say that it is the task of reason and understanding to deal
with –​and get rid of –​ignorance and error.
2 There may be some tension between the maxims as maxims, that is, as sub­
jective, and the claim that the maxims are lawlike and have a universal scope.
But I think we can reduce this tension if we distinguish between the maxims
having universal scope, being followable and them being intersubjective.
Everybody can give themselves the maxims and they are followable, but that
does not mean they are intersubjective.
3 Sophia Rosenfeld (2011) in her book on common sense describes Kant’s sensus
communis as the “faculty of judgment that leads us, without reflection, to
make [the] comparison [with the judgment of humanity as a whole] or to
think from a universal standpoint” (Rosenfeld 2011, 223). And the sensus
communis “is thus also the source for a social feeling, a sense of sharing some-
thing with others, that Kant describes as the ‘necessary condition of the uni-
versal communicability of our knowledge’ [(5: 239)]” (Rosenfeld 2011, 223).
 The Maxim-Based Answer 193

Kant’s conjecture has important implications for our main question of how one
should rationally deal with ignorance because it points to a faculty that makes
us think from a universal standpoint and compare our judgment with other
judgments, which is part of addressing and avoiding error on Kant’s Three
Maxims Suggestion. And I submit that it is also fruitful for dealing with ignor-
ance more generally.
4 A pessimist could also argue that there is no answer at all, but I find it more
attractive to work with a weaker version of the claim since it is less implausible.
5 Note that this pessimism is not Kathryn Norlock’s “nonideal pessimism”
(2019). This pessimist is closer to what Norlock calls cynicism, the view that
one cannot act in a hopeless situation. Non-​ideal pessimism is pessimist because
it does not think that there is any progress in humankind, but it still thinks that
agency is possible and even called for. What I call reflective optimism is related
to non-​ideal pessimism because it also presupposes human beings as non-​ideal,
fallible agents. Norlock’s non-​ideal pessimism just starts from a different topic,
the ineliminability of evil caused by humans, and therefore ends up with a
different name and a different conception, the main direction of the argument
still is similar.
6 As Descartes notes in his Meditations, suspending judgment or action is not
really a live option in practical cases: by not deciding and not acting, one does
act (Descartes 2017, 71).
7 A critic might object that this route gets us directly into an individualistic setup
in which people simply decide on a case-​by-​case basis how they deal with
ignorance. There are no standards by which we can judge what one should do
about ignorance and error; deciding is up to the individual. And so it looks like
I am licensing rampant arbitrariness.
  But the objection and these conclusions are based on an incomplete pic-
ture that fails to take the subject and epistemic agency seriously. Epistemic
agents can make justified or unjustified, good or bad decisions in dealing with
ignorance and error, and those decisions can be context-​dependent and case
by case and individualist without also being arbitrary. In addition, epistemic
agents can follow rules and principles in making such decisions. There is no
arbitrariness.
  The principles of my choice are, as I have explained earlier, Kant’s principles
of the sensus communis. The agent’s epistemic conduct is not arbitrary because
it is the conduct of a rational epistemic agent; it is justified by that agent who
follows the maxims of the sensus communis. The particularist picture of the
critic is incomplete because it does not recognize that epistemic agency comes
with standards of action and epistemic norms that one is subject to and that
there are maxims that can guide us.
8 Tilo Wesche helpfully notes in discussing Tugendhat’s conception of intellec­
tual honesty that “individuals are free to allow themselves to be impressed
by reasons or not” and therefore “no one can be made to take reasons more
seriously than they want to by reasons” (Wesche 2011, 195, my translation).
Thanks to Martin Hurni for pointing me to Wesche’s text.
9 Wingert (1997) criticizes Tugendhat’s proposal, and from his criticism we can
take further important insights for the answer to the second objection and a
194 Rationally Dealing with Ignorance

difference between the epistemic and the moral realm. Wingert argues that it
is no “motivational miracle” (Wingert 1997, 502, my translation) that people
fulfill their (moral) obligations. Fulfilling one’s obligations is simply in the
interest of everyone who lives with others, and an individual cannot but recog-
nize herself and others as “voluntative” (Wingert 1997, 527, my translation).
His insights are based on a crucial observation about the difference between
vertical and horizontal relationships in morality. On a vertical conception, one
presupposes that morality consists in a vertical relationship between the indi-
vidual who is confronted with the moral demand and some social authority
that asserts the demand. A horizontal conception, in contrast, also includes
the horizontal relationships between the subjects of moral demands as beings
that need morality and as advocates and addresses of moral demands (Wingert
1997, 505). Wingert insists that this intersubjective conception is more appro­
priate and meets the challenges modern morality faces. As we have seen in
my elaboration on Kant’s maxims and the significance of epistemic agency
and epistemic autonomy, this intersubjective component is also central in
my proposal and in Kant’s Three Maxims Suggestion. The principles, albeit
not intersubjective, must be followable by everyone, and other subjects and
their perspectives are explicitly included in the second maxim. In addition,
the maxims are self-​given, self-​legislated. There is, thus, no vertical authority
involved; there is only the horizontal relation that Wingert highlights.
10 As Wingert has argued for the moral case (1997, 505).
11 E.g., Bruner (2013).
12 My translations for quotations from Wesche (2011).
13 Here there are really potentially destructive effects for the collective belief set;
unlike in Clifford’s exaggeration that one single false belief is destructive for
the collective belief set.
14 Cf. for Kant’s duties (Timmermann 2018).
15 John Locke provides a valuable justification of latitude and of not being too
demanding in one’s expectations from others. In exercising their freedom, their
epistemic agency, the subjects develop and improve their abilities:
It will possibly be objected, Who is sufficient for all this? I answer, more than
can be imagined. Everyone knows what his proper business is and what,
according to the character he makes of himself, the world may justly expect
of him; and to answer that, he will find he will have time and opportunity
enough to furnish himself, if he will not deprive himself by a narrowness of
spirit of those helps that are at hand. I do not say to be a good geographer
that a man should visit every mountain, river, promontory and creek; upon
the face of the earth, view the buildings and survey the land everywhere, as
if he were going to make a purchase. But yet everyone must allow that he
shall know a country better that makes often sallies into it and traverses it up
and down than he that, like a mill-​horse, goes still round in the same tract or
keeps within the narrow bounds of a field or two that delight him. He that
will enquire out the best books in every science and inform himself of the
most material authors of the several sects of philosophy and religion, will not
find it an infinite work to acquaint himself with the sentiments of mankind
 The Maxim-Based Answer 195

concerning the most weighty and comprehensive subjects. Let him exercise
the freedom of his reason and understanding in such a latitude as this, and
his mind will be strengthened, his capacity enlarged, his faculties improved;
and the light which the remote and scattered parts of truth will give to one
another still so assist his judgment, that he will seldom be widely out or
miss giving proof of a clear head and a comprehensive knowledge. At least,
this is the only way I know to give the understanding its due improvement
to the full extent of its capacity, and to distinguish the two most different
things I know in the world, a logical chicaner from a man of reason. Only,
he that would thus give the mind its flight and send abroad his enquiries into
all parts after truth must be sure to settle in his head determined ideas of
all that he employs his thoughts about, and never fail to judge himself and
judge unbiasedly of all that he receives from others either in their writings
or discourses. Reverence or prejudice must not be suffered to give beauty or
deformity to any of their opinions.
(Locke 1996, §3)
Part 3

Applications
11 Ignorance in Democracies

In this chapter I discuss ignorance in the social, communal and political

context. My case study explicates the fundamental claim that ignorance is
pervasive in democracy. I do so by introducing the Integrated Conception
of Ignorance and the Maxim-​based Answer into the debate about citizen
ignorance; a debate which is arguably stuck in reverse. In the current pol-
itical and social landscape the claim that ignorance is pervasive in dem-
ocracy will be heard as an uncontroversial, albeit lamented, empirical
claim about citizen ignorance in real-​world democracies, but I argue that
it should also be taken seriously as a consequential theoretical claim about
democracies and theories of democracy in general. Ignorance is pervasive
because it is a fact about human beings that they are not omniscient. They
are ignorant qua being limited and finite human beings. Once we recognize
the nexus between ignorance and democracy, (a) we will understand dem-
ocracy better, (b) we will understand ignorance better, (c) we will be able
to develop a clearer understanding of what being a citizen of democratic
societies amounts to, and (d) we will be better equipped to recognize what
is needed to sustain democracies.
The main aim of this chapter, thus, is to explicate the pervasiveness
of ignorance in democracy, and draw consequences for the right way of
dealing with ignorance in democracy. Let me safeguard against two pos-
sible misunderstandings: I do not want to argue for the simple-​minded
claim that because ignorance is pervasive, all ignorance in democracy is
acceptable. And I do not want to argue that because ignorance is pervasive,
we should get rid of democracy and replace it by other forms of govern-
ment such as epistocracy. In fact, in properly explicating how ignorance
is pervasive in democracy, I will develop material for rejecting these latter
claims that have been put forward in different forms but quite persist-
ently for more than 2,000 years –​for example, by Ilya Somin (2016) and
Jason Brennan (2016), but long before that, of course, by Plato, Joseph
Schumpeter and many others. For the sake of simplicity I focus on more

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-14
200 Applications

recent forms of this criticism that I label the “Argument from Citizen
Ignorance against Democracy”.
I first formulate the Argument from Citizen Ignorance against
Democracy, then I reject the Argument by pointing out that its conceptions
of ignorance and of democracy are too restricted and by developing the
observation that citizen ignorance qua human ignorance is part and parcel
of democracy. After that, I reply to the objection that I defend epistemic
laziness by pointing to the difference between descriptive and normative
components of the picture of ignorance and democracy. This chapter also
serves as an example for how epistemology and theory of democracy (pol-
itical philosophy) can complement each other and work together.
My working definition of democracy will be Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg formulation: democracy is “government of the people, by the
people, for the people” (Lincoln 1953[1863]). This definition is sufficiently
broad to cover different theories of democracy and it contains crucial elem-
ents of democracy like egalitarian values, equal vote, autonomy of people.
I deliberately employ this broad definition and do not focus on particular
forms of democracy since, as I claim, ignorance is a pertinent issue for all
forms of democracy. Against the standard assumption (and pace Weinshall
2003), it does not just affect deliberative theories of democracy.

11.1 Reconstructing the Argument from Citizen Ignorance against

Democracy
When Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016, the default
reaction substantially consisted in explaining his success by voters’ ignorance.
The populist rise in Europe and on other continents is often also implicitly,
if not explicitly, linked to citizen ignorance. Quite generally, unfavorable
voting results or low voter turnout always invite references to voter ignor-
ance or citizen ignorance.1 And, of course, this argumentative strategy is not
new. Walter Lippmann has discussed political ignorance in the 1920s and
his criticism still rings true today: “the accepted theory of popular govern-
ment … rests upon the belief that there is a public which directs the course
of events. I hold that this public is a mere phantom” (Lippmann 1922).
Then, there is also Joseph Schumpeter’s (1976) pessimistic picture of citizens
in democratic states that may strike some as having a grain of truth:

The typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance

as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a
way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of
his real interests. He becomes a primitive again. His thinking becomes
associative and affective.
(Schumpeter 1976, 262)
 Ignorance in Democracies 201

These and related claims are supported by evidence of two kinds of

shortcomings of people: first, evidence of political ignorance and, second,
evidence of citizen irrationality as in biases etc. Most studies on polit-
ical ignorance are for the USA, for example, the items on this list from
Brennan’s Against Democracy (2016):

– During election years, most citizens cannot identify any congres-

sional candidates in their district.
– Citizens generally don’t know which party controls Congress.
– Immediately before the 2004 presidential election, almost 70 percent
of US citizens were unaware that Congress had added a prescription
drug benefit to Medicare, though this was a giant increase to the fed-
eral budget and the largest new entitlement program since President
Lyndon Johnson began the War on Poverty.
– In the 2010 midterm presidential election, only 34 percent of voters
knew that the Troubled Asset Relief Program was enacted under George
W. Bush rather than Barack Obama. Only 39 percent knew that defense
was the largest category of discretionary spending in the federal budget.
– Americans vastly overestimate how much money is spent on foreign
aid, and so many of them mistakenly believe we can significantly
reduce the budget deficit by cutting foreign aid.
– In 1964, only a minority of citizens knew that the Soviet Union was
not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Yes, that’s
right: NATO, the alliance created to oppose the Soviet Union.) Keep
in mind this is just a short time after the Cuban Missile Crisis, in
which the United States almost went to (nuclear) war with the USSR.
– Seventy-​three percent of Americans do not understand what the
Cold War was about.
– Most Americans do not know even roughly how much is spent on
social security or how much of the federal budget it takes up.
– Forty percent of Americans do not know whom the United States
fought in World War II.
(Brennan 2016, 25f., references omitted, N.E.)2

Studies for other countries are less numerous, but they do exist. In 2016
Ipsos Mori studied people’s false beliefs about “key issues and features of
the population in their country” (Ipsos Mori 2016).3 The German weekly
newspaper Die Zeit, together with economists, has reviewed economic
ignorance of people (Heuser and Djahangard 2018a, 2018b, Heuser 2018,
Radbruch 2018). Other studies about students’ knowledge or ignorance
concerning the history of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany
reveal that most students did not know who built the Wall in 1961 or the
difference between dictatorship and democracy (FAZ 2008).4
202 Applications

Such evidence is taken to show that citizens lack the requisite political
knowledge, that is, they do not know fundamental facts about politics in
their country, their state or worldwide. They are ignorant about political
issues, players, and what Delli Carpini and Kelter call “rules of the game”
(Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, 65).
The second shortcoming is traced back to people using unreliable
heuristics and irrational factors in making decisions and being subject to
biases. It goes under the heading “Irrationality.” I have discussed such
findings in Section 4.1.2. For example, Phillip Converse has identified
“the nature of the times” heuristic (Converse 2006[1964], 16) and the
“issue public” heuristic. In “the nature of the times” heuristic, “parties
or candidates were praised or blamed primarily because of their tem-
poral association in the past with broad societal states of war or peace,
prosperity or depression” (Converse 2006[1964], 16). The “issue public”
heuristic finds that people vote on the basis of just one issue of concern to
them, disregarding any connections to other issues and not building up a
broader picture of politics (Converse 2006[1964], 54).
Danny Oppenheimer and Mike Edwards provide an encompassing over-
view over people’s biases in politics (Oppenheimer and Edwards 2012,
39–​59). Who people vote for is influenced by appearances. For example,
height matters for who people vote for. In addition, electoral decisions can
be influenced by associative priming, such as music or a flag in the back-
ground; framing affects voters’ decisions; form matters more than con-
tent, for example, fluency increases perceptions of truth. Brennan also cites
ample evidence that confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, intergroup
bias, etc. distort people’s political decisions (Brennan 2016, 43ff.)
In addition, these irrational, unjustified decisions and opinions are found
to be unstable over time (Converse 2006[1964], 51–​52). Converse found
that people changed their views without good reasons, say, an extraor-
dinary event. This finding is telling and important for democracy because,
as Converse concludes, it shows that “large portions of an electorate do
not have meaningful beliefs, even on issues that have formed the basis for
intense political controversies among elites for substantial periods of time”
(Converse 2006[1964], 51–​52).
In order to reconstruct the Argument from Citizen Ignorance against
Democracy, we need to understand why ignorance is so readily accepted
as a threat to democracy. Why does evidence on citizen ignorance lead
authors to reject democracy or to introduce countermeasures? Knowledge
and democracy are intimately connected and citizens mediate or even
embody this connection. If, as the empirical evidence suggests, citizens
are largely ignorant, but democracy presupposes knowledgeable citizens,
then citizen ignorance is a threat to democracy. In theories of democracy,
knowledge and democracy can be connected in two different ways: (a)
 Ignorance in Democracies 203

knowledge is one of the conditions for (good) democracy, (b) knowledge

is an outcome of democracy.
Knowledge figures as a condition for democracy since knowledge is
required for making appropriate choices in elections, you need to know
who the candidates are, what their views are, how their views relate to
your views, etc. Moreover, knowledge is required for successful participa-
tion, especially in deliberative democracy, since as Talisse puts it “delib-
erative democracy requires that citizens’ deliberations begin from true, or
at least justified, premises” (Talisse 2004, 456). And, as Claus Offe notes
in agreement with Cass Sunstein, knowledge is also required for “autono-
mous preference formation” since it “flow[s]‌from decisions ‘reached with
a full and vivid awareness of available opportunities, with reference to
all relevant information, and without illegitimate or excessive constraints
on the process of preference formation’ (Sunstein 1991: 11)” (Offe 2003,
313). The knowledge that underlies these kinds of roles of knowledge in
democracy is both knowledge about the world and knowledge about one-
self (cf. Offe 2003, 298). This is what one may call the procedural role of
knowledge in democracy, following Kaye’s remarks about the procedural
justification of democracy (cf. Kaye 2015, 317).
The second connection between knowledge and democracy takes a con-
sequentialist approach to democracy (cf. Kaye 2015, 317) and holds that
knowledge is the result of democracy. Some defenders of participatory and
deliberative democracy argue that participating in democratic processes leads
to the production and acquisition of knowledge in the subject and in society.
Knowledge, thus, is the result of democracy in at least two ways. On the one
hand, a subject that participates in democracy acquires more political know-
ledge (e.g., Gutmann 2007, 525). On the other hand, democratic processes
are said to be the best procedure for getting good decisions and even truths.5
We now have got the material for the Argument from Citizen Ignorance
against Democracy and can reconstruct the argument as follows:

P1: Democracy requires citizens to be knowledgeable about politics

(issues, players, rules of the game) in order to be able vote proficiently.
P2: There is strong evidence of widespread political ignorance of citi-
zens (lack of political knowledge, irrationality, unstable opinions).
P3: Citizens do not have the knowledge (competences) required for
voting proficiently.
C1: Citizens cannot fulfill their democratic roles adequately. (from P1,
P2, P3)
C2: Democracy is deficient and therefore should be replaced by another
form of government.

The argument deduces consequences for democracy at large from problems

at the micro level, that is, the citizen level. And, intuitively, issues at the
204 Applications

micro level are bound to affect the whole structure. Offe specifies the
danger: “Democracies can fail to come into being for lack of appropriate
dispositions among citizens, and they can self-​destruct because of a decline
in civic competence or the breakdown of background conditions that are
conducive to it” (Offe 2003, 297). But as Offe also evinces in his art­
icle, one may be moved by these worries without jettisoning democracy at
large. And as I will go on to show, there is even no need to be moved by
the Argument from Citizen Ignorance because it is invalid.6

11.2 Rejecting the Argument from Citizen Ignorance against

Democracy
We should reject the Argument from Citizen Ignorance against Democracy
because its premises are fundamentally flawed. The basic concepts ignor-
ance, citizen ignorance and democracy are significantly misconstrued. Once
we correct these flaws, the Citizen Ignorance Argument is defused and we
are able to reconceive ignorance in democracy, and see which kinds of
ignorance are a threat to democracy and which ones are not.
The most obvious way to react to the argument is by questioning the
evidence, the setup of the studies, etc. and arguing that things are not quite
that bad. For example, Erikson (2007) presents evidence that Converse’s
finding about people’s unstable opinions, the third kind of citizen ignor-
ance, can be explained by measurement error and does not lead to any
substantial conclusions about the irrationality of citizens. Oppenheimer
and Edwards (2012) show how democratic procedures lead to rational
results, in spite of irrationality in the individual citizen. For example, the
“wisdom of crowds” ensures rational results (Oppenheimer and Edwards
2012, 186). Other authors criticize the studies because they only check
people’s knowledge of trivia.
This intuitive reaction, however, is rarely useful because it only leads to a
dispute about the methodology of these studies and about how meaningful
they really are. Instead of going into this back-​and-​forth about details, we
should examine whether the concepts used in the studies really correspond
to the phenomenon at hand in all its complexity. I argue that they are not
appropriate for capturing ignorance and democracy adequately.
This strategy will also have us ask whether political knowledge really is
all that relevant for participation in democracy. I do not want to suggest that
it is irrelevant, rather I submit that political knowledge is merely one part of
the knowledge that citizens should have. Citizens should have, in general,
knowledge about the outside world and knowledge about themselves, as
Offe (2003, 298) puts it. In addition, it is fairly obvious that the presentation
of the studies which are taken to warrant the desired conclusion about the
bad state of democracy is rather tendentious: they focus on people’s ignor-
ance and construe this ignorance as an apparent obstacle for democracy.
 Ignorance in Democracies 205

In contrast, when the Ipsos Mori talks of “the perils of perception,” they
note that ignorance is a matter of people’s mistaken perception (Ipsos Mori
2016). Framing the issue in this way allows for vastly different reactions to
the findings, for example, since it is not about people’s ignorance but about
their perception. Once we review what the evidence on ignorance really
amounts to and include insights about the integrated view of ignorance,
we will, similarly, be able to reevaluate the evidence that grounds the argu-
ment against democracy. So let’s turn to the fundamental concepts of the
Argument from Citizen Ignorance: democracy, ignorance and knowledge.

Democracy Is More Than Casting One’s Vote in Elections

The Argument from Citizen Ignorance and authors endorsing this or similar
arguments implicitly presuppose that democracy consists in elections only
and therefore are impressed about findings that reveal people’s ignorance
of politicians and parties. But democracy does not just consist in elections,
and furthermore, elections do not just consist in casting one’s vote. The
exchanges before voting, conversations with friends, family and strangers,
reading the newspaper, watching TV, etc. are also part of the election process.
And democracy itself, importantly, consists in more than voting, namely
people talking to one another, exchanging “reasoned arguments, evidence,
evaluation, and persuasion” (Gutmann 2007, 527) in political contexts but
also at the dinner table, in small talk on the bus, at the work place, etc.
One, thus, has to take into account what Gutmann and Thompson call
“middle democracy.” The “land of middle democracy,” as Gutmann and
Thompson put it, is

the land of everyday politics, where legislators, executives, administrators,

and judges make and apply politics and laws, sometimes arguing among
themselves, sometimes explaining themselves and listening to citizens,
other times not. Middle democracy is also the land of interest groups,
civic associations, and schools, in which adults and children develop
political understandings, sometimes arguing among themselves and
listening to people with different points of view other times not.
(Gutmann and Thompson 1998, 40)

This conception takes seriously the micro level of democracy, the citizen
level and the implementation of democracy in the everyday. Michelle
Moody-​Adams has captured these facets of democracy in the term “quo-
tidian democracy,” which recognizes that “democratic decision-​making
[is] a ‘continuous process’ in which what citizens do in the seemingly
most ordinary contexts of daily life is critical to the content of democratic
206 Applications

deliberation and to the successful functioning of democratic institutions”

(Moody-​Adams 2018, 194).7
Critics of democracy might object that these interpretations of democ-
racy presuppose deliberative democracy, but this does not speak against
these conceptions nor against using them. Instead, the onus lies with the
critics; they have to explain why we should work with a limited concep-
tion of democracy as “participation in elections,” and, for that matter,
elections determining political representatives, rather than with my broad
notion of democracy or Gutmann and Thompson’s or Moody-​Adams’
notions. Another disadvantage of the critics’ skewed picture of democracy
is that it misconstrues the motivations for democracy. They presuppose
that supporters of democracy are interested in democracy as producing
knowledge (knowledge on a consequentialist picture). And they hold that
the procedural role of knowledge for democracy entails that widespread
ignorance would keep democracy from functioning properly. In particular,
it would lead to bad results in elections. But citizen ignorance is not incom-
patible with democracy properly understood because people do not just
choose and favor democracy because it is knowledge-​conducive; it is not
(at least not necessarily) chosen for its epistemic virtues. Other motiv-
ations like equality and individual autonomy are important driving forces
for democracy.8
Once we are aware of the restricted notion of democracy in the Citizen
Ignorance Argument and of the more adequate alternatives, we can also
pay heed to other factors that influence citizens’ behavior in democracy.
Democracy as quotidian is continuous, flexible and pretty mundane. Factors
such as being able to speak openly, being listened to respectfully, being
engaged in a very material, that is, embodied, and individually experienced
way become pertinent. This shift puts us on the tracks of Tocqueville’s
view that democracy must engage the attention and energy, that is, the
mental focus and physical energy, of citizens (Tocqueville 1969). As Ben
Berger puts is, for Tocqueville, political engagement that has citizens “focus
on their common affairs and the business of self-​ government” (Berger
2011, 106) is key. This strategy also reduces the reality of ignorance in
the sense of citizens being ignorant by “act[ing] at random” (Berger 2011,
107) because in this alternative, engaging conception of democracy people
“are not being asked for blanket opinions on vast, complex, national and
global issues … they are close to the issues and can see the results in action”
(Berger 2011, 107).9 Of course, realizing this strategy in today’s globalized,
digitalized world is very different from Tocqueville’s times, but democracy
as engaging attention and energy of citizens can be translated into today’s
world. Addressing the micro level and relating it to the macro level may be
one route of pursuing this aim. I return to these insights later when intro-
ducing suggestions for integrating ignorance into democracy.
 Ignorance in Democracies 207

Ignorance is More Than Lack of Knowledge

The second central concept at the heart of the Argument from Citizen
Ignorance is ignorance. It is employed both by the empirical studies that are
meant to support the Argument and in the Argument itself, but it is hardly
ever discussed in detail.10 The Argument and the authors who support it
assume that ignorance is simply lack of knowledge with a simplistic con-
ception of knowledge. They focus on the doxastic level of ignorance, that
is, something is wrong in the beliefs of the subjects: the subject lacks a true
belief, or holds a false belief to be true, or they may lack the proper jus-
tification for a true belief. But as this book and recent work in epistem-
ology of ignorance evince, ignorance is more than lack of knowledge (e.g.,
Medina 2013). Ignorance also has what I have called agential and struc­
tural components. The agential component includes epistemic attitudes of
the subject, both general and related to their false beliefs and true beliefs and
gaps in the belief set. Epistemic attitudes may consist in awareness of gaps in
one’s belief set but also in epistemic virtues, for example, open-​mindedness
and curiosity, and epistemic vices such as close-​mindedness and laziness.
Real-​world instances of ignorance are always composed of doxastic, agen-
tial and structural components. This also helps explain how ignorance can
be actively produced and maintained. But studies on citizen ignorance and
the critics of democracy do not address these additional constituents of
ignorance. This is a serious shortcoming because it means that their concep-
tion of ignorance is inadequate for capturing the real-​world phenomenon
ignorance and for understanding the position of ignorance in democracies.
Studies on politically motivated ignorance, the effects of science curiosity,
etc. are starting points for further developments (e.g., Kahan et al. 2017).
The critics only show that people do not know political facts that would
be handy in making competent political decisions. But they do not have
room for versions of ignorance –​including political ignorance –​that are
not harmful for democracy. Subjects might not know some political fact,
but they might be open-​minded and be interested in new information
and learn more about this fact of which they are ignorant. Think of the
following example: say, you do not know what the two columns on the
ballot for the German general election stand for –​you would fail a test
about it –​but this does not mean that you are unfit for being a citizen
in a democratic society because being a citizen does not just consist in
knowing what the two columns on the ballot stand for. And more import-
antly, if you are open-​mindedly ignorant, you can always get the requisite
information before casting your vote. Of course, if you are close-​mindedly
ignorant, that is, you do not know what the two columns on the ballot
mean and you are generally uninterested in politics, elections, the world
around you, you won’t go out to get the requisite information. But the
208 Applications

trouble does not lie in not knowing what the two columns refer to in a
test, which is the kind of ignorance that is detected by the studies wielded
against democracy, but in the attitudinal component of one’s ignorance.
We could complicate the picture by adding the structural components, but
you get the general idea of my argument without this complication.
Critics might react to this rebuttal and the new conception of ignorance
by pointing out that their studies are not just concerned with lack of fac-
tual knowledge, but that studies on people’s irrationality do evince that
the attitudinal level is just as fraught as the doxastic level. I have already
referred to Taber and Lodge’s study that had participants who had strong
views on gun control and affirmative action read pro and con texts on these
topics. Taber and Lodge found a prior-​attitude effect, disconfirmation bias
and confirmation bias as well as a polarization effect in the participants’
reactions to texts that did or did not fit their own views (Taber and Lodge
2006, see also Kruglanski and Boyatzi 2012). Kahan and Corbin’s findings
on how active open-​minded thinking magnifies polarization, similarly,
puts pressure on my approach (2016).
But these and similar findings really are just grist on my mill since I have
not set out to argue that citizens are not ignorant or that they do not decide
using irrational heuristics. Quite to the contrary, I have started from the
claim that ignorance is pervasive in democracy. I have only refined and
developed the conception of ignorance in use. And as the study of ignor-
ance in Part I has shown, we need to recognize that ignorance is even more
pervasive than the supporters of the Argument from Citizen Ignorance find.
Ignorance is a fact of human existence, human beings have limited cognitive
capacities and are fallible. And this holds for all human beings, including
citizens, as well as politicians, representatives and experts. But unlike the
supporters of the Argument from Citizen Ignorance against Democracy,
I do not think that ignorance per se is the downfall of democracy or that
democracy is impossible because people, in particular citizens, are ignorant.
I am arguing for a nuanced account of the place of ignorance in democracy
which recognizes that ignorance encompasses several components and that
political ignorance cannot be identified with lack of knowledge of political
facts and the rules of the game. The Argument from Citizen Ignorance fails
because it does not employ adequate conceptions of ignorance (nor of dem-
ocracy) and therefore does not produce a valid conclusion.
I submit that we should accept that ignorant subjects are not foreign to
democracy, and that ignorance is not just an annoying, arbitrary, deficient
state of human beings. Rather, being ignorant is an integral feature of the
human condition. Human beings are finite beings that do not have infal-
lible nor unlimited cognitive capacities and, therefore, they are ignorant
in certain ways and with regard to different topics. And since democracy
is “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” democracy
 Ignorance in Democracies 209

will be shaped by the condition of the people, that is, of human beings.
Therefore, democracy is bound to be affected by citizen ignorance, and
that includes all members of democracy.
Once one recognizes that ignorance is pervasive in democracy and that
ignorance consists in doxastic, attitudinal and structural components,
one is much better positioned to formulate which ignorance and which
components of ignorance may be threats in democracy, and to suggest
tailored measures and strategies for dealing with and integrating ignorance
in democracy.
Democracy contains so called citizen ignorance that is multiply tested in
studies, but given that ignorance is natural in human beings we must also
include politicians’ ignorance, representatives’ ignorance and experts’ ignor-
ance in any comprehensive take on ignorance in democracy. Russell Hardin
(2004) is one of the few authors who mentions the issue of politicians’
ignorance. Their ignorance may consist in not knowing what the interests
of the citizens are “other than in broad terms” (Hardin 2004, 95), or in
not knowing all the details for “devis[ing] good policies in many realms”
(Hardin 2004, 85). Hardin suggests that one explanation for the latter
kind of politicians’ ignorance is that “much of the relevant knowledge is
decentralized to smaller organizations and to citizens” (Hardin 2004, 85).11
Note that this is just a claim about the ever-​present potential of ignor-
ance and, at the same time, about the reality of ignorance that may or
may not be manifested in myriads of ways in all human beings qua human
beings. This is just human ignorance. Human beings are always ignorant
even when they are knowledgeable; they are ignorant in that they do not
know some important fact, for example, when the train that they need to
take to be on time for a job interview leaves, or that they do not know
some less important fact, for example, how many people live in New York,
assuming that this information is useless for the subject in question.
If we recognize that ignorance is a natural human condition, one might
employ ignorance as a human condition in a tu quoque argument against
critics of democracy and supporters of epistocracy. Critics of democracy
overlook the aforementioned fact that all human beings, and therefore
all citizens, are ignorant. This means that epistocracy is also beset by a
version of the Argument from Ignorance: the knowledgeable citizens,
maybe the experts that the defenders of epistocracy want to install as
rulers and representatives are also beset by ignorance and irrationality qua
being human beings.
Just because they do know political facts or are experts in their particular
field of expertise does not mean they are not ignorant or, for that matter,
ignorant in other significant ways. They are human beings like all other
citizens and therefore are necessarily ignorant in certain ways. Especially
irrationality because of bias and faulty heuristics is probably prevalent with
210 Applications

them, too. Moreover, on the suggested expanded conception of ignorance

as including a doxastic component and an attitudinal component, they
may be ignorant because of their particular attitudes (and epistemic vices).
Experts might be more skilled at controlling for ignorance and irration-
ality, but they are not guaranteed to be correct because of their status as
experts. Let me add that this observation does not entail that experts lose
their special expert status. They are after all significantly more likely to be
correct in their judgments and decision, but they remain fallible and subject
to irrationality, since fallibility –​as a facet of limited human capacities –​is
a fact of being a human being. Epistocracy does not come with an inherent
guarantee for successful rule because of expert rule.12
These collected observations allow me to contextualize and defuse the
Argument from Citizen Ignorance as an argument against democracy. Its
empirical evidence is not irrefutably valid nor pertinent, and, most import-
antly, the argument employs inadequately restricted notions of ignorance
and democracy. Citizen Ignorance is just an instantiation of human ignor-
ance, a complex, but natural trait of citizens qua human beings, therefore,
it is not a pertinent obstacle against democracy. Ignorance is an indelible
part of democracy. On some reconstructions, democracy is even a tool
for dealing with necessary ignorance: electing representatives is a way of
taking care that somebody else fulfills tasks, like making decisions about
health policies, that I cannot fulfill because I lack the knowledge, lack the
time, etc. (cf. Hardin 2004). In addition, shared democratic decisions of
diverse groups are much better than decisions of homogenous groups (cf.
Anderson 2006).

11.3 A Vindication of Epistemically Lazy Citizens?

My emphasis on the natural place of ignorance in democracy may have
given rise to a worry: my remarks may seem to imply that we should
accept all ignorance in citizens of democratic communities. If all human
beings are necessarily ignorant, then it seems unproblematic that citi-
zens are ignorant about politics and various facts about the world and
themselves. The objection asks whether becoming knowledgeable about
politics, about the world and oneself becomes superfluous if ignorance
is acceptable at this fundamental level. In effect, the charge is that I have
written a defense of epistemic laziness. And this would be a frightening
result. It is blatantly false that widespread ignorance about substantial
facts about the world is acceptable or laudable.
The objection is helpful because it allows me to clarify my approach,
and to say what I have argued and what I have not shown yet. So, in
reply, I note that I have not argued that citizens are warranted in being
epistemically lazy. I have just pointed out that ignorance has a natural
 Ignorance in Democracies 211

place in democracy because being ignorant –​to some degree or another –​

is natural in human beings and it is human beings that are the members of
democracy. So there is no defense of epistemically lazy and misinformed
citizens in what I have said so far.
Admittedly, it may appear like I am blessing epistemic laziness. But
that is because my approach in this chapter has been mainly descriptive: I
have argued that there is an important place for ignorance in democracy
because human beings are necessarily ignorant. I have not talked about
any normative components of ignorance and democracy. In fact, I have
only developed one part of the picture of ignorance and democracy, we
are still lacking the normative side in an account that acknowledges that
ignorance is natural in democracy. To find material for this addition we
need to go beyond political philosophy and incorporate work from social
epistemology and work on ignorance. But let us start with the traditional
response to the question from political philosophy.
The standard material from political philosophy for the normative side
of an account of ignorance in democracy consists in educational strat-
egies. Defenders of theories of democracy immediately present educational
strategies that facilitate becoming knowledgeable citizens and, thereby,
meeting the expectations. They start from the assumption that know-
ledge is a condition or an outcome of democracy, the roles of knowledge
introduced earlier, and from this derive knowledge as a valuable aim as
well as the requisite norms. Families, schools, civic associations, etc. then
are taken to contribute to educating knowledgeable and knowing citi-
zens (cf., e.g., Offe 2003, 318, Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, 190–​193,
Weinshall 2003, 54).13
I will not go into the details of these existing proposals because these
educational strategies are not the fundament of the normative account, but
build on more basic, albeit largely unacknowledged normative epistemic
assumptions. These normative assumptions are seldom made explicit in
theory of democracy, and it is here that social epistemological work is
required to spell out these fundamental normative assumptions. The key
move consists in regarding the citizen as an epistemic agent. This approach
provides the entry to the normative side of the issue of ignorance in dem-
ocracy, and since I have elucidated ignorance and democracy, we are
also able point to more tailored suggestions for dealing with ignorance in
democracy.
The central insight for the normative side of the account of ignor-
ance in democracy is that citizens are epistemic agents. One way to
cash out this notion is via Alfred Schutz’ notion of the well-​informed
citizen that he introduces in his discussion of the “social distribution of
knowledge” (Schutz 1976, 120). The well-​informed citizen is the ideal
between what Schutz calls the expert and the man on the street (Schutz
212 Applications

1976, 121–​122). I will bracket any qualms about Schutz’s 1960s’ setup
because I am interested in the way that Schutz links up politics and
epistemology.

The ideal type that we propose to call the well-​informed citizen (thus
shortening the more correct expression: the citizen who aims at being
well informed) stands between the ideal type of the expert and that
of the man on the street. On the one hand, he neither is, nor aims
at being, possessed of expert knowledge; on the other, he does not
acquiesce in the fundamental vagueness of a mere recipe knowledge
or in the irrationality of his unclarified passions and sentiments. To be
well informed means to him to arrive at reasonably founded opinions
in fields which as he knows are at least mediately of concern to him
although not bearing upon his purpose at hand.
(Schutz 1976, 122f., my emphasis)

Schutz’s ideal of a citizen is the well-​informed citizen who aims at “reason-

ably founded opinions.”14 This “citizen who aims at being well informed”
(Schutz 1976, 122) is clearly an epistemic agent. But of course, the expert
and the man on the street are also epistemic agents who meet epistemic
expectations to a higher or lesser degree.
If we thus recognize that any citizen is an epistemic agent, we are auto-
matically led to see democratic communities, constituted by citizens, as
epistemic communities. On Schutz’s conception, a “well-​informed citizen”
wants to meet epistemic expectations, wants to acquire opinions that are
supported by good reasons. That means that there is a set of epistemic
expectations and epistemic norms which principally concern every citizen
in a democratic community qua being an epistemic subject.
But Schutz’s distinction of the different epistemic citizens does not give
us enough details of the epistemically normative side of ignorance in dem-
ocracy. So let us continue from the insight that democratic communities
are epistemic communities and incorporate social epistemological work on
epistemic communities. Epistemic communities are also social communi-
ties, and, of course, quite trivially, democratic communities are also social
communities. This collection of trivial insights is helpful because several
epistemologists have examined social communities as epistemic communi-
ties, spelling out expectations and norms that the members of these com-
munities are subject to and affirm, and on the basis of our trivial insights
we can apply their theories to democratic communities.
Peter Graham develops epistemic norms as social norms (2015). He
derives the norm “provide true and relevant information” (Graham
2015, 159) from Grice’s principles for cooperation in conversation. This
norm branches out into the two norms “believe on adequate evidence”
 Ignorance in Democracies 213

and “inquire into relevant evidence” (Graham 2015, 159). These norms
could regulate how one should tackle one’s own potential ignorance, and,
of course, they are reminiscent of Locke’s suggestion. The Maxim-​based
Answer can also be applied to the case of ignorance in democratic com-
munities. In particular, the maxims appear to be able to deal with central
features of democratic discourse by inviting the epistemic agent to take the
perspective of the other (second maxim) and at the same time rely on their
own cognitive abilities and their beliefs and convictions (first and third
maxim). So, even though Kant’s maxims themselves are not norms, we can
see that the maxims may be connected up with epistemic norms.
It is epistemic norms that provide the normative component to the pic-
ture of ignorance and democracy. Epistemic norms hold for epistemic sub-
ject qua members of epistemic communities, that is, social communities,
and since the very same members of epistemic communities are members
of democratic communities, the epistemic norms also transfer to demo-
cratic communities. And it is because epistemic norms hold for epistemic
subjects as members of democratic epistemic communities that epistemic
laziness is not acceptable in democracy.
Why particular epistemic norms hold can be justified in different ways.
One can go back to my explanation for why Kant’s maxims hold, but
one may also find two promising options in social epistemology. Graham
argues that epistemic norms as social norms hold because they describe
and prescribe regularities; “social norms are regularities because norms,
regularities because normative” (Graham 2015, 251). Sanford Goldberg,
as we have seen in Section 9.3, argues that our epistemic expectations from
one another legitimately hold because they are based on practice-​generated
entitlements and on moral and epistemic expectations that are based in
our “institutions of morality and epistemic assessment” (Goldberg 2017b,
2879). Democratic communities would have to be shown to be constituted
by practice-​generated entitlements and our “institutions of morality and
epistemic assessment” (Goldberg 2017b, 2879).
What are ways of dealing with ignorance in democracy when one rejects
the Argument from Citizen Ignorance? One general way is to ensure
that the micro level and the macro level of democracy are adequately
connected, that is, that citizens and democratic structures are adequately
connected. This might include forums in which citizens’ positions are
heard, which, of course, does not entail that the expressed views are put
into practice. But it should mean addressing their concerns, explaining
how policy measures fit their concerns, and explaining why they do not
fit their concerns. In addition, measures should strengthen the community
character of democratic communities as social communities and as epi-
stemic communities in order to improve the social ground of the epistemic
214 Applications

community. Facilitating exchange between the citizens will certainly prove

crucial. Receptive publics (Habgood-Coote et al. 2024) and joint com-
munity service as well as non-​political associations are obvious places for
such discourse. In addition, projects like Gesellschaftsdenken,15 and digital
formats such as Massive Open Online Deliberation Platform (Verdiesen
et al. 2016) may initiate and frame exchanges that are prepared to take
seriously and address controversial disagreement, disappointment and
close-​mindedness. These proposals would recognize democratic commu-
nities as epistemic communities and as social communities.
From the Integrated Conception of Ignorance we can take insights for
the micro level, for the individual citizen: dealing with ignorance in dem-
ocracy is not restricted to the doxastic level but must include the attitu-
dinal and structural level, too. One major aim could be to enable people to
recognize and accept their own ignorance, so as to allow for open-​minded
ignorance. The Maxim-​based Answer would support being adequately
open-​mindedly ignorant, because the second maxim calls for being open
to the perspective of others. So one means and one aim in education is
teaching Kant’s maxims, making them second nature. Such epistemic abil-
ities would also require enabling a safe environment in which one can
admit to one’s ignorance without feeling embarrassed, and a just society
that provides conducive economic conditions for everyone. These are cen-
tral components of the structural facets of ignorance. Of course, the dox-
astic level must be addressed, too, but it is not just about informational
input. We need to always consider the attitudinal, agential and structural
components of ignorance, and, as Tocqueville reminds us, ensure that
people’s attention and energy are engaged.16

Notes
1 I use the term citizen ignorance rather than voter ignorance because voting is
just one part of being a member of a democratic community. Moreover, the
ignorance that the critical studies purport to evince is not just restricted to
voting.
2 Similar evidence in Weinshall (2003, 42).
3 See https://​per​ils.ipsos.com/​arch​ive/​index.html for previous and later ‘The
Perils of Perception’ studies.
4 Cf. also Deutz-​Schroeder and Schroeder (2008) who examine students’ views
on the GDR and FDR in four German federal states in a wide-​ranging study.
5 For convincing criticism of the latter claim, see Hardin (2004, 78).
6 Talisse (2004) and Kaye (2015) also reject versions of the Argument from
Citizen Ignorance, but their approaches are different from mine. Talisse’s
strategy of distinguishing belief ignorance and agent ignorance is promising,
but ultimately he focuses only on deliberative democracy when we can draw
 Ignorance in Democracies 215

more bold conclusions for all theories of democracy. Kaye (2015) shows that
ignorance is useful on a consequentialist picture of democracy, but I think that
this argument leads us off track. We need to reposition ignorance in democ-
racy at large. In discussing and rejecting the Argument from Citizen Ignorance
against Democracy I also criticize the conception of ignorance that the
Argument presupposes, but, unlike Talisse, I do not distinguish different kinds
of ignorance; instead, I propose that we employ the Integrated Conception for
democracy, too. In addition, I criticize the critics’ conception of democracy in
general.
7 I will not discuss the obvious connections to Dewey’s theory of democracy,
which Moody-​Adams herself points out (Dewey 1927).
8 Kaye (2015) argues that ignorance is even unproblematic for conceptions that
accept democracy on the basis of epistemic reasons.
9 Berger helpfully refers to the following passage in Tocqueville’s Democracy
in America that fits with the issue of citizen ignorance: “Here is one sort of
ignorance which results from extreme publicity. Under despotisms men do not
know how to act because they are told nothing; in democratic nations they
often act at random because there has been an attempt to tell them everything.
The former do not know; the latter forget. The main features of each picture
become lost in a mass of detail” (Tocqueville 1969, 610–​611).
10 Mainly it is critics of the Argument from Citizen Ignorance who discuss the
term ignorance; see, e.g., the distinctions that Talisse introduces to reject the
ignorance argument against democracy (Talisse 2004, 457–​458).
11 Of course, one may also conjecture other more self-​interested explanations for
particular instances of ignorance, but I will refrain from entering into this dis-
cussion. The literature on incompetence and, ultimately, ignorance in the US
financial crisis may serve as a starting point, e.g., Sorkin (2010) and Schiffrin
(2011).
12 Thanks to Jérôme Léchot for inviting me to be clearer on what the argument
means for experts.
13 For documentation of real-​world applications, see, e.g., Warren and Pearse
(2008) on the British Columbia Citizen’s Assembly.
14 Note that these idealizations are not affected by Mills’ criticism of ideal theory
(Mills 2017).
15 The members of Gesellschaftsdenken get into conversations with people in
areas of low voter turnout about values, participation and democracy; see
https://​gese​llsc​haft​sden​ken.org/​.
16 For more specific proposals we would have to study people’s ignorance and
their current discourses, form and content, based on the improved conception
of democracy and ignorance. For example, one may want to include discussions
on the effects of science curiosity on politically biased motivated reasoning
(Kahan et al. 2017) or the impact of identity-​related beliefs (Kahan and Corbin
2016). Florian Braun’s discourse analysis of discussions about energy transi­
tion and renewable energy promises to provide fruitful insight into people’s
reasoning and the significance of ignorance and democracy regarding this topic
(cf., e.g., Braun and Baatz 2018, Braun 2023).
12 Ignorance and Uncertainty
in Medical Contexts

There are (at least) two strands to the topic of ignorance and medi-
cine: ignorance in medical practice and ignorance in medical research.
These two strands of ignorance have become glaring and pertinent during
the COVID-​19 pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, researchers
did not know how COVID-​19 was transmitted, they did not know the
origins of the virus, they did not know which vaccines would work
against the virus, etc. Some of this ignorance has been alleviated, some
has changed shape and returned in the form of other questions. And at
the beginning of the pandemic, medical practitioners did not know how to
treat the patients best, they did not know whether they’d contract the dis-
ease, too, they also did not know how exactly the virus was transmitted,
etc. I will not devote the whole chapter to the analysis of ignorance and
COVID-​19 because there are more general issues regarding ignorance in
medical contexts. Most questions regarding COVID-​19 and ignorance can
be grouped with these general issues, so it is more forward-​looking and
more interesting to choose a broader lens and only discuss COVID-​19
when it becomes relevant.1
This focus brings a new term into the study: uncertainty. Uncertainty
is generally framed as “the subjective consciousness of ignorance” (Han
2013, 16S). Uncertainty is inherent in medical research and medical prac­
tice and has attracted increased attention in recent years –​even before
the COVID-​19 pandemic. Relatively new methods such as evidence-​based
medicine, precision medicine, a shift toward shared decision-​making, the
relationship between generic data-​ driven and individual medicine, the
effects of these new methods on practitioners, patients and medicine in
general are some of the motivations for this increased interest.
By discussing uncertainty in medical research and practice, I can turn
to discussing conscious ignorance in medical research and practice, how
agents involved deal with uncertainty and how they should deal with it.
I can put the previous claims and conclusions to test. In addition, medical
practice highlights another facet of ignorance that I have introduced in

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-15
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 217

connection with symptoms of ignorance: the affective side of ignorance.

Medical uncertainty often has affects and emotions weaved into its texture
and its fundamental structure. We can thus look at how affects manifest
themselves in these instances of uncertainty.
My discussion builds on current work on uncertainty and my concep-
tion of ignorance and how one should deal with ignorance. I show that
work on uncertainty complements my claim that ignorance has an attitu-
dinal component and is more than merely lacking knowledge. We also see
that the Maxim-​based Answer for rationally dealing with ignorance can
solve issues surrounding uncertainty in patient–​practitioner interaction.
In fact, by examining how the Maxim-​based Answer fares with dealing
with uncertainty, we find out more about the scope and the functioning
of the maxims. We see that the maxims are indeed not limited to con-
scious ignorance but are also rational ways for dealing with unconscious
ignorance.
Uncertainty in medicine is a multifaceted notion because there are at
least two different areas in which uncertainty is prevalent: medical research
and medical (clinical) practice. I start with an example that shows how the
two areas are connected, but as we will see, there are also differences in
what medical agents are required to do in the different areas in dealing
with uncertainty.
In medical practice, uncertainty has many faces, it can concern patients’
uncertainty in what the diagnosis and the prognosis means, it can concern
doctors’ uncertainty about the diagnosis, or about whether they should
reveal a negative prognosis to an end-​of-​life patient, or about how much
they should tell patients about possible side-​effects of a treatment or an
operation or how much they should reveal of their own uncertainty. Quite
fundamentally, medical uncertainty is an awareness of the limitations of
one’s own (patient and practitioner) or the scientific community’s grasp
of a phenomenon, a disease, a treatment, etc.2 The task of dealing with
these issues has become particularly pressing with the advances of modern
medicine and (apparently) increasing knowledge. As Ranjana Srivastava
puts it, the question is “how can doctors deal with uncertainty in a time
when knowledge is plentiful? How do we educate our patients well about
what we know but avoid displaying hopelessness when we don’t know?”
(Srivastava 2011, 2252) Again, this question also mattered greatly during
the COVID-​19 pandemic.
But uncertainty in medicine also appears as uncertainty in medical
research, for example, in the questions of how solid the evidence in a
drug trial is –​questions that, again, were raised frequently regarding the
COVID-​19 vaccines –​but also the question of how significant specific gen-
etic mutations uncovered in genetic testing are (Tonelli and Shirts 2017),
or what the implications of genomic testing for research are (Newson
218 Applications

et al. 2016). I develop these distinctions of forms of medical uncertainty

by studying examples of medical uncertainty.3

12.1 Examples and a Typology of Uncertainty in Medical Contexts

Let’s go back to the late 1980s and imagine a middle-​aged female patient
presenting with chest pain (angina) and shortness of breath.

Deep negative T waves were seen on ECG. Her cardiac enzyme levels
were mildly elevated. The patient was admitted with a diagnosis of
acute non-​ST-​segment elevation myocardial infarction.
(Virani et al. 2007, 77)

It looks like the patient has had a heart attack (an acute coronary
syndrome). After one week and medical treatment the symptoms improved
significantly, unlike in cases of a heart attack. At that time, in the 1980s,
the physicians treating the patient would have been at a loss to under-
stand what has happened in this case. They would be ignorant, maybe
even clueless (Section 4.2).
In 1990, the same case (same patient, same symptoms) would have run
differently. The physicians would have been able to diagnose the woman
with stress-​related cardiomyopathy, Takotsobu syndrome, also known as
broken heart syndrome, since by 1990 Takotsobu cardiomyopathy (TCM)
has been identified as a syndrome and taken up in medical knowledge.
TCM looks like an acute coronary syndrome but differs importantly from
acute myocardial infarction.

It occurs more often in postmenopausal elderly women, is characterized

by a transient hypokinesis of the left ventricular (LV) apex, and is
associated with emotional or physical stress. Wall motion abnormality
of the LV apex is generally transient and resolves within a few days to
several weeks. The prognosis of TCM is generally good.
(Komamura et al. 2014, 602)

With that disease entity introduced, in 1990 physicians had the concept
required to put forward the right diagnosis: Takotsobu cardiomyop-
athy. Their ignorance was alleviated. And yet, the syndrome still remains
connected to ignorance and, more specifically, to uncertainty: its patho-
physiology is not clearly understood. The practitioners are aware of their
ignorance, their limited understanding of the pathophysiology of the
syndrome, they are uncertain, consciously ignorant. Various interpret-
ations of the pathophysiology have been put forward,
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 219

including coronary microvascular dysfunction, coronary artery spasm,

catecholamine-​induced myocardial stunning, reperfusion injury
following acute coronary syndrome, myocardial microinfarction
and abnormalities in cardiac fatty acid metabolism. Currently,
catecholamine-​induced cardiotoxicity and microvasculature dysfunc-
tion are the most supported theories.
(Komamura et al. 2014, 604)

Uncertainty, thus, appears in and affects medical research. This is what

I propose to capture by the term uncertainty in medical research. Again,
this type of uncertainty was particularly visible during the COVID-​19
pandemic.4
But the syndrome is also connected to uncertainty in medical practice
and practitioners’ uncertainty because in the clinical presentation TCM
looks like acute coronary syndrome, and so physicians have to determine
whether the patient suffers from TCM or not. Recent developments in
cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contribute to reducing this
instance of diagnostic uncertainty because

this modality allows the accurate identification of reversible myocardium

damage by visualization of wall motion abnormalities in each area,
quantification of ventricular function, and assessment of inflammation
and fibrosis.
(Komamura et al. 2014, 604)

Technological progress in the shape of cardiac MRI, thus, has improved

the grounds for diagnosing TCM, allowing physicians to deal with uncer-
tainty in diagnosis. There is more knowledge, but in clinical life the fun-
damental uncertainty in a patient who presents with chest pain and short
breath remains. And the introduction of TCM has produced new ignor-
ance, even though ignorance has been minimized by introducing TCM,
since it is (and remains) unknown what the causes of TCM are –​an issue
in etiology. In addition, diagnostic uncertainty can also appear as a result
of how patients present themselves and their symptoms and as a result of
time constraints.5
Paul K. J. Han presents a further layer of medical uncertainty, the
question of disclosure or nondisclosure of prognosis. Han focuses in par-
ticular on disclosure or nondisclosure in end-​of-​life care (2016). Many
agents argue in favor of disclosure of prognosis because disclosure seems
constitutive of patient autonomy, “informed patient choice” (Han 2016,
567) and shared decision-​making. On the other hand, as Han points out,
building on work by oncologist Paul Helft, “prognostic non-​disclosure is
220 Applications

consistent with some patients’ wishes, preserves hope by acknowledging

uncertainty and helps patients digest difficult information over time” (Han
2016, 568). That is why one should implement “ ‘necessary collusion’: a
style of communication that allows patients to dictate most of the flow of
prognostic information or to avoid it” (Helft 2005, 3146). Han endorses
Helft’s reconstruction and undergirds his argumentation by relating how
his father died from cancer and, in particular, how his father did not want
to hear any precise prognosis and made plans for when he was going to
be doing better.

Throughout this time the tensions and ironies of prognostic silence

loomed large. Shortly after the TARE [trans-​arterial radioembolization,
N.E.], and on the very weekend I gave a presentation on barriers to
prognostic communication in end-​of-​life care at a national research
conference, I visited my father and steadfastly avoided any discussion
of prognosis. I struggled with my ambiguous position: as a physician I
felt compelled to discuss his prognosis openly, while as a son I was all
too happy to remain silent. In the end I played the part of a son –​pas-
sively watching, tacitly reinforcing my father’s worldview through my
silence. Meanwhile, he pushed ahead through profound weakness with
equally profound determination, forcing himself to eat and ambulate.
There was no question that he hoped for a cure. For weeks he resisted
telling even his closest relatives he had cancer; he called this his “cry
of faith.” Even in his final days he talked about attending events in the
coming year, once he got better.
(Han 2016, 570)

The open questions for the physician are whether their patient wants to
know the prognosis or not, how much detail they want to know about,
and whether they should (want to) know about the prognosis or not.
This is another facet of practitioner uncertainty, in addition to diagnostic
uncertainty, as mentioned in the example of TCM and acute coronary
syndrome.
What I call patients’ uncertainty is uncertainty –​conscious ignorance –​
manifested in patients, for example, when they do not understand whether
their illness is harmful or not, terminal or not, how they should deal with
a particular diagnosis, or whether they should undergo genetic testing or
not, whether the practitioner knows how to proceed in the case of their
illness. As Han emphasizes, there is not just a cognitive dimension but also
an existential dimension in these cases of patients’ uncertainty: how one
lives with a diagnosis, how the treatment affects one’s life, one’s relatives
and friends (Han 2016, 571). This combination of cognitive and existen­
tial character of patients’ uncertainty also explains why uncertainty can be
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 221

a source of hope for patients; when there is no precise negative prognosis

there is still hope for getting better. Thus, uncertainty is not always nega-
tive or harmful. Practitioners’ uncertainty and patients’ uncertainty are
facets of uncertainty in patient–​practitioner interaction.
Han also points to prognostic data as another source of uncertainty.
First, for individual patients there are often no precise prognoses, and,
second, prognostic data qua being made up of probabilities becomes prob-
lematic when applied to individual cases. The “precision [of evidence-​based
prognostic estimates] is limited by inherent shortcomings in the empirical
data and statistical methods used in their estimation” (Han 2016, 571).
Moreover, objective probabilities apply to groups and not to individuals
and so, when one applies objective probabilities to an individual, one gets
“objective single-​event probability” (Han 2013, 18S) which is a “logically
incoherent” idea (Hacking 2001). There is no probability for an individual
case. Let’s call this uncertainty regarding prognosis.
Patients are often unable to understand how they should read prog-
noses and percentages and, therefore, are more uncertain about prognoses.
In reaction, one must explain what, say, probability 12 percent is. Han
helpfully spells out what this means for the usefulness of objective prob-
abilities and for understanding probabilities in medical practice:

Importantly, the logical incoherence of objective probabilities does not

undermine their potential utility in clinical decision making. Objective
probabilities can inform subjective probabilities (de Finetti, 1974), and
that is their principal value in health care and other decision making
domains. A woman who learns from an online CPM that her lifetime
risk of breast cancer is “12%,” for example, ends up with an evidence-​
based and thus better-​informed risk perception. Nevertheless, the logical
incoherence of objective single-​event probabilities calls for clarity and
precision in their presentation and use. The woman in our example
needs to be made aware that “12%” is not a literal representation of
her own “true” risk but a figurative expression of scientists’ confidence
based on the aggregated outcomes of individuals whose characteristics
are similar –​but not completely equivalent –​to her own. Her true risk
is anyone’s guess and contingent on factors beyond the available evi-
dence that may justify higher or lower levels of confidence (Griffin &
Tversky, 1992). Estimating this risk is not a strictly scientific act in
which “facts” are discovered, but a social process in which personal
confidence is constructed and expressed in mathematical terms.
(Han 2013, 18S–​19S)

Often, practitioners face similar issues with prognostic data as the patient
in Han’s example, because they, too, do not fully understand what the
222 Applications

probabilities mean and signify. See for example Gigerenzer’s research on

“statistical innumeracy” among clinicians (Gigerenzer 2008b, 128). If the
practitioners are aware of this limitation, this is another instance of uncer-
tainty, if they are not aware of it, these are cases of ignorance or error.
By introducing example from medical practice and research I have
distinguished

a uncertainty in medical research

b uncertainty regarding prognosis
c uncertainty in patient–​practitioner interaction
d practitioner uncertainty
e patient uncertainty.

These distinctions allow us to triangulate my conception of ignorance

with uncertainty and to approach the issue of dealing with uncertainty. If
one wants to find a way for dealing with patient–​practitioner uncertainty,
one basically asks how one should (rationally) deal with ignorance since
uncertainty is a form of conscious ignorance.6 I will argue that the Maxim-​
based Answer also works for the medical cases.

12.2 Dealing with Patient–​Practitioner Uncertainty

Uncertainty in medicine as a form of ignorance clearly is complex and
multifaceted. It has different dimensions, different topics and different
concerns and manifestations. As you will have noted, this complexity fits
well with the Integrated Conception of Ignorance, developed in Part 1,
which emphasizes that ignorance has several components. I have argued
that ignorance is more than lack of knowledge and uncertainty is also
more than lack of knowledge. Han et al. argue similarly that managing
uncertainty cannot be limited to providing information. This is because
uncertainty may be irreducible and then it is about “cop[ing] with the con-
sciousness of ignorance that cannot be remediated” (Han et al. 2011, 836).
By studying uncertainty, we, thus, find further evidence for the claim that
ignorance is more than lack of knowledge or lack of true belief and that
ignorance is not just propositional in nature. And Peels’ mere list of other
types of ignorance is not enough for dealing with this reality (cf. 2023,
37). The medical case reveals that ignorance has more components than
propositions. On the Integrated Conception, this is an agential component
(in addition to the doxastic component) and a structural component, but,
of course, alternative conceptions may choose a different terminology and
framing. One thing is certain from examining medical uncertainty in its
different forms: ignorance is not just propositional or just doxastic. Medical
uncertainty also reveals how sociopolitical structures are constitutive of
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 223

ignorance. For example, physiologically female hearts are more robust

than male hearts (Gerdts and Regitz-​Zagrosek 2019), but more women die
from heart-​related diseases because there are structures that stand in the
way of women getting the right medical treatment (Regitz-​Zagrosek and
Gebhard 2023). The social image of the typical patient with a heart disease
is male. The typical female disease is breast cancer; those are the prevalent
narratives. Such imageries and narratives also contribute to and constitute
ignorance in medical context. That means that they are not just causes of
ignorance (cf. Section 3.5).
Medical uncertainty also shows why the standard suggestions for
dealing with ignorance in philosophy are not adequate. People do not
always strive for knowledge, pace Aristotle, nor should they always strive
for knowledge. Similarly, deontological conceptions defending duties to
know fail to capture that such duties may fail to hold, as, for example, in
medical contexts. No patient has a duty to know their prognosis. Of course,
someone who wants to defend the view that patient autonomy is mainly
cognitive may want to argue that patients have a duty to know. But I think
that such a view would be a minority position. The Jamesian twin goals
are also not helpful for patients dealing with ignorance and uncertainty
because the patients may not want to strive for truth and avoid falsehood
and they may be justified in doing so. The right not to know captures this
possibility and even enshrines it as a right.7 Socratic wisdom appears more
promising, but the problems that led me to reject the suggestion in Part 2
come back and weaken the suggestion: it is doubtful that wisdom is an
attainable goal for human beings or that it is generally attainable. It would
be quite a stretch if one wanted to hold that only wise patients can deal
with medical uncertainty. And maybe there would be few patients who
ever meet this expectation.
But Kant’s suggestion for dealing with error that I have extended to
hold for ignorance in general –​the Maxim-​based Answer –​were presented
by Kant as maxims for beings who cannot be expected to achieve wisdom
(Anth, AA VII, 200). That suggests that they can prove helpful for dealing
with ignorance and uncertainty, in lieu of Socratic wisdom. And, in fact, the
Kantian maxims are extremely fruitful for addressing medical uncertainty.
As I have noted earlier, Han (2016), Helft (2005) and others argue
that sometimes uncertainty, ignorance, may be a source of hope. Han
emphasizes for the case of prognostic knowledge that there is more than
the cognitive perspective on such knowledge. Advocates of disclosure
standardly take the cognitive perspective and cite the value of knowledge
in decision-​making and patient autonomy. But in patients’ uncertainty
there is also what Han calls the “existential perspective” on prognostic
knowledge, “pertaining to how one lives and copes with the daunting,
ineffable prospect of one’s nonbeing” (Han 2016, 571). On this picture
224 Applications

medical practitioners must be “flexib[le] and open, driven by a humble

acknowledgment of limits in our capacity to know what is right” (Han
2016, 568).
I submit that the Maxim-​based Answer provides tools and steps for
practitioners for actualizing the flexibility, openness and humility required
for dealing with the cognitive and existential dimension of uncertainty,
that is, for dealing with patients’ uncertainty and with practitioners’
uncertainty. The second maxim in particular –​“To think oneself (in com-
munication with human beings) into the place of every other person” –​the
extended mode –​is crucial in meeting Han’s requirements. The physician
who follows Kant’s maxims in dealing with uncertainty cannot but take
the patient’s position or the family’s position in thinking and judging. In
a way, the common observation by physicians that it is important and
insightful for them to be patients (from time to time) so they can be
reminded and experience what it is like to be a patient is the enacted, prag-
matic equivalent to Kant’s second maxim of taking the other’s position in
thinking. What physicians as patients experience is patients’ uncertainty.
And I suggest that when the physicians are patients they experience in
particular the existential component of patients’ uncertainty, not so much
the cognitive component because it is often very probable that they under-
stand most of the theoretical, medical details that their colleagues are com-
municating to them.8
The first maxim is also particularly useful for practitioners having to
deal with uncertainty in patient–​practitioner interaction. I have started
with Srivastava’s question of how doctors can “deal with uncertainty in a
time when knowledge is plentiful” (2011, 2252) and her answer reveals
why and how the first maxim and the third maxim that are rather self-​
centered are crucial for practitioners in dealing with patient uncertainty
and with their own (practitioner) uncertainty. Srivastava suggests that
in dealing with patients’ and practitioners’ uncertainty, doctors should
acknowledge their own feelings and they should have compassion and
patience for themselves (2011, 252–​253). She hopes that

believing that it’s OK to feel lost in the murkiness of data or that we’re
not alone in grappling with fundamental matters like the unfairness of
suffering might allow us to appreciate that there are some aspects of our
work over which we have less control than others. This appreciation, in
turn, can help us communicate more effectively with our patients.
(Srivastava 2011, 2253)

Such self-​directed thoughts require that one take oneself seriously as an

agent, an epistemic agent and an emotional agent. And doing so, in turn,
can be translated or realized in following the first and the third maxim.
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 225

One underlying problem in expressing practitioners’ uncertainty is that

patients may not want to know about practitioner uncertainty. Research
suggests that verbal expressions of practitioners’ uncertainty, in particular,
may have negative effects on patients’ confidence in their physicians
(Ogden et al. 2002, 172; see also McGovern and Harmon 2017). Ogden
et al. (2002) studied how patients and practitioners evaluated the effects
of verbal expressions of uncertainty vs. behavioral expressions of uncer-
tainty. Apparently, some behavioral expressions of uncertainty, for
example, looking something up in book or on the computer, do not have
quite as strong negative repercussions as most verbal expressions. Verbal
expressions studied were

“said I’m not sure about this,” “said I need to find out more,” “said let’s
see what happens,” “said I don’t know,” “said, I haven’t come across
this before” and “said I think this might be.”
(Ogden et al. 2002, 172)

Behavioral expressions studied were:

“used a book to find out about a condition,” “asked another GP for

advice,” “asked a nurse for advice,” “referred you/​them to a hospital,”
“used a computer to find information about a condition.”
(Ogden et al. 2002, 172)

The evaluations of the patients and GPs in the studies suggest that “while
verbal expressions are detrimental, behavioral expressions may be posi-
tive” (Ogden et al. 2002, 175). Practitioners, in fact, underestimated how
detrimental verbal expressions of uncertainty may be. But Ogden et al.
also note that the context in which the practitioner and the patient interact
may influence the effects of expressions of uncertainty (2002, 175).9
Regardless of these results, the Maxim-​based Answer is also applicable
for patients in dealing with patient–​practitioner uncertainty. They should
rely on themselves, listen to their own thoughts, think consistently. And in
addition, they should take the position of others in thinking. For example,
parents who think about doing a genetic screening of their unborn child
would have to take the position of the child and potential siblings –​if they
wanted to deal with uncertainty in the most sensitive way, and, according
to Kant, in a way that comes to close to wisdom. This does not mean
that the epistemic agent should believe what the others are saying, blindly
defer to others, or not listen to what they themselves think and feel. The
three modes of thought (the enlightened, the extended and the consequent
mode of thought) must be balanced. And the balancing may very well be
different in different contexts. In effect, I suggest that the Maxim-​based
226 Applications

Answer fundamentally allows agents to realize the relational nature of

medical issues.10

12.3 Dealing with Prognosis Uncertainty

Until now, I have focused on patient uncertainty, practitioner uncer-
tainty and patient–​practitioner uncertainty. But uncertainty about prog-
nosis and uncertainty about medical research are also central facets of
medical uncertainty. How does the Maxim-​based Answer fare with these
varieties of uncertainty? Uncertainty about prognosis is crucial in patient
uncertainty and practitioner uncertainty, so to some extent I have already
addressed this variety of uncertainty, but it is still worth looking at it in
more detail because there is a special character to uncertainty about prog-
nosis. It leads to another central conception in medical uncertainty, uncer-
tainty tolerance.
Han et al. suggest that uncertainty about prognosis can be a form of
scientific certainty and there is uncertainty about prognosis because of all
three sources of uncertainty: probability, ambiguity and complexity. Yet,
uncertainty about prognosis is also problematic because it is difficult to
represent. Remember Han’s remarks about how objective probabilities
and subjective probabilities need to be triangulated and explained prop-
erly (Han 2013, 18S–​19S). Han also calls for practitioners to improve how
they present and represent probabilities to patients so that the patients are
better equipped and enabled to understand probabilities in prognoses. For
example, for picturing randomness there are attempts to use “icon array-​
based presentations” (Han 2013, 20S) that are dynamic and can there­
fore change which and how many individuals are affected. Note that such
improved representations do not get rid of uncertainty about prognosis,
but they are a first step toward understanding what uncertainty about
prognosis consists in, what one is uncertain about.
This first step might be thought to be conducive to building what
researchers have called uncertainty tolerance, a balance between nega-
tive and positive responses to uncertainty. More and more research
tries to get at this concept. Yet, a meta-​study by Strout et al. (2018)
reveals that this research is often of low methodological quality (2018,
1521) and that findings are often contradictory (2018, 1522–​1525).
Strout et al. emphasize that uncertainty tolerance can be either a state
or a trait (Strout et al. 2018, 1519) and they propose the following def­
inition that covers different understandings of uncertainty tolerance that
are in use. Uncertainty tolerance is “the set of negative and positive psy-
chological responses –​cognitive; emotional; and behavioral –​provoked
by the conscious awareness of ignorance about particular aspects of the
world” (Strout et al. 2018, 1519).
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 227

Part of the explanation for the inconsistent data is that the studies –​67
in total in the meta-​study of Strout et al. –​used different measures as well
as different scales to examine uncertainty tolerance (2018, 1521) and they
differed in what outcomes they focused on –​“trainee-​centered, provider-​
centered, patient-​centered” and “cognitive, emotional and behavioral”
(Strout et al. 2018, 1521). The insights about uncertainty tolerance of
providers, that is, medical practitioners, that are most consistent link
high uncertainty tolerance and openness toward applying “new medical
interventions” (Strout et al. 2018, 1532). Further consistent connections
are found between uncertainty tolerance and emotional well-​being.11 I do
not think that the current state of research warrants any strong empirical,
scientific conclusions about uncertainty tolerance. But we can certainly
employ the concept, the idea and explicate it ourselves.
The Maxim-​based Answer builds on an autonomous agent, one who
thinks for herself but also thinks from the perspective of others. I surmise
that this approach can be constitutive of being able to deal with uncertainty
about prognosis. Since such uncertainty is largely ineradicable for individ-
uals –​because prognosis as objective probability conceptually cannot say
anything definitive, certain about the individual case –​the solution cannot
lie in trying to overcome it, but only in how one approaches this uncer-
tainty. Of course, the right kind of information would (dis)solve uncer-
tainty about prognosis, but it is conceptually not available, so this option
is not relevant. An agent who is epistemically autonomous is able to take
steps toward modulating her stance toward uncertainty, toward a balance
of positive and negative reactions to uncertainty, for example, “thoughts
and feelings of opportunity and hope; information seeking and decisions
making” (positive reactions) and “thoughts and feelings of vulnerability;
information and decision avoidance” (largely negative reactions) (Strout
et al. 2018, 1519).
But as Han’s intervention about the cognitive and existential perspec-
tive on prognosis and uncertainty reveals (2016), in medical contexts the
issue is not purely cognitive. Existential considerations also factor into
how one deals with uncertainty and, thus, also into developing uncer-
tainty tolerance. In this book I cannot discuss how existential and cog-
nitive considerations are connected, in this realm or in general, whether
they are compatible or incommensurable. Let me just highlight that rela-
tional conceptions of autonomy may be able to develop answers to these
questions because relational autonomy “highlights the social dimensions
of individual agency” (Westlund 2012, 61, emphasis in original).
There are a number of practical suggestions for dealing with med-
ical uncertainty in the literature, for example, Srivastava’s suggestions
mentioned earlier. Han’s study of “conceptual, methodological, and eth-
ical problems in communicating uncertainty in clinical evidence” (2013)
228 Applications

concludes with four suggestions for how one should approach communi-
cating uncertainty. “Determine the right type and amount of uncertainty
information to communicate” (Han 2013, 28S), “improve conceptual
understanding of uncertainty in clinical evidence” (Han 2013, 29S),
“standardize the language and methods used to represent and commu-
nicate uncertainty” (Han 2013, 29S), “promote patient centeredness
in the communication of uncertainty” (Han 2013, 29S). Such practical
suggestions might also ultimately improve uncertainty tolerance, though,
of course, adequately communicating uncertainty does not guarantee that
the subject deals with uncertainty adequately.

12.4 Dealing with Uncertainty in Medical Research

Finally, what about uncertainty in medical research? This form of uncer-
tainty can affect researchers, patients and practitioners –​most recently
felt in the COVID-​19 pandemic. As is well recognized by now, medical
progress does not inevitably or steadily lead to less uncertainty in medical
research. Instead uncertainty in (and about) medical research remains a
constant (not just regarding COVID-​19). Some researchers working on
human genes openly admit that they are uncertain about the effects and
implications of their research, for example, Jennifer Doudna working on
CRISPR (2015). Or obstetrician-​gynecologist Louise King notes how for
many surgeries in reproductive medicine, it is not clear whether the sur-
gery is effective because there are not enough studies on the particular
kind of surgery (King 2017, 53S). And Tonelli and Shirts show that pre­
cision medicine cannot rely on traditional population-​based evidence and
instead needs to employ mechanistic reasoning as a workaround. Genetic
testing often uncovers so-​called variants of uncertain significance (VUS)
(Tonelli and Shirts 2017, 1649), genetic mutations which only occur in
one individual, or maybe at most in her family and some relatively recent
ancestors. Tonelli and Shirts note that on the standard population-​based
methodology, these mutations, in fact, are “variants of unknowable sig-
nificance” (2017, 1649, my emphasis) because one cannot apply the
standard methodology to cases of extremely rare, even singular, mutations.
Related issues appear for randomized clinical drug trials: in the case of a
variant of uncertain significance there are never enough participants to do
a randomized clinical trial for a drug that is studied as medication.
For my study it is highly interesting to see how practitioners and
researchers deal with this instance of something unknowable. Tonelli and
Shirts convincingly argue that precision medicine that deals with the indi-
viduality of patients must include mechanistic reasoning and methodolo-
gies to deal with VUS. Mechanistic reasoning functions as a workaround
for such uncertainty. The solution is also related to the method Use a
 Ignorance and Uncertainty in Medical Contexts 229

Proxy, a scientific method that I have mentioned in the Introduction. Yet,

mechanistic reasoning is not strictly identical to a proxy, it works more
like an Argument from Analogy method. Mechanistic reasoning allows
researchers and practitioners to deal with VUS because

simple mechanistic reasoning alone may be enough to reclassify a VUS

as either benign or pathogenic using a variety of allelic considerations,
for instance, a variant that clearly causes a known effect, such as loss of
gene function, that is in the same gene domain as all other pathogenic
variants.
(Tonelli and Shirts 2017, 1649)

So for researchers, a way for dealing with uncertainty, that is, dealing with
conscious ignorance is to use mechanistic reasoning, to employ analogies
or to use proxies. These tools (or: methods) are all workarounds for con-
tinuing one’s research despite some gap in information, data, evidence and
the like. Of course, these tools only work for conscious ignorance. You
cannot develop and use a workaround if you do not know that you need
one. –​If you accidentally use a workaround and do not know that you are
using a workaround, this does not count as using a workaround since you
do not know that you are using a workaround.
The tools for dealing with conscious ignorance also fit well with the
paradigms of conscious ignorance, for example, a scientist who uses a
proxy for getting closer to understanding whether a drug works against a
rare genetic disorder, is investigatively ignorant. She wants to know more
about the issue that she is ignorant about.
This brings me to the question of how medical researchers deal with uncon-
scious ignorance and how they should deal with it. Of course, the question
is beset with the issue of first-​personal limitations in dealing with ignorance.
If I do not know that I do not know that p, I am unconsciously ignorant,
then I cannot explicitly tackle and address my unconscious ignorance. At
first glance it may seem that the Maxim-​based Answer does not work this
time, but I do suggest that the three maxims are also useful for covering such
cases. The enlightened, the extended and the consequent mode of thought
are a great starting point for tackling unconscious ignorance as a possibility
(and maybe also as an actuality): in particular the first two maxims, thinking
for oneself and taking up the perspective of others, are valuable guides in
addressing unconscious ignorance. Mainly, because by trusting oneself and
taking the perspective of others seriously one has a mechanism –​or even
method –​for filtering and detecting what one does not know. It is what I have
called a diagnostic tool for ignorance. On this picture, the three maxims work
like a sieve or a filter for unconscious ignorance that is caught in the sieve if
it is, so to say, big enough and, thereby, becomes conscious.12
230 Applications

You might think that following the Maxim-​based Answer has a similar
effect to just being aware of one’s own fallibility, but the maxims are more
precise than mere awareness of one’s own fallibility. This is because one’s
awareness of one’s fallibility does not, in the same way, work like a sieve
or filter. Staying with the picture, we can say that awareness of one’s fal-
libility produces divisions or mesh that are too coarse-​grained and, there-
fore, do not adequately filter the input. The maxims do not just work for
dealing with conscious ignorance but also for tackling unconscious ignor-
ance, the possibility of ignorance.

Notes
1 See also El Kassar (2022) for COVID-​19 and ignorance.
2 This is what Gorovitz and MacIntyre call ignorance, arguing against the alter­
native term ineptitude in their contribution on medical fallibility (1975, 14).
3 See also Wilkesmann and Steden (2019) for a broad edited collection on ignor­­
ance in medicine and care.
4 But see also my (2022) highlighting that there is not just ignorance but also
knowledge in medical researchers.
5 Thanks to Vanessa Rampton for discussions about this example and medical
uncertainty.
6 Incidentally, it is an interesting combination of the first-​and third-​person
perspectives on ignorance that may also be taken to include the second-​person
perspective. I cannot address these implications in this context.
7 Cf. the updated collection on the right to know and the right not to know by
Chadwick et al. (2014).
8 One might go so far as to suggest that one should change the order of the three
maxims in patient–​practitioner interaction so that the second maxim is the
first maxim. I do not think that this is necessary; the practitioner also has to
think for herself, and one may even argue that she has to start with thinking
for herself.
9 See, e.g., Cousin et al. (2013), Epstein (2006) for follow-​up research and
McGovern and Harman (2017) for an overview.
10 See Sherwin (1998) and Nelson (2013) for how relational conceptions of
autonomy are relevant in medical contexts.
11 For more connections that have been found but are often contradictory, see
Strout et al.’s (2018) helpful review study in full.
12 See Paul Kockelman’s (2013) insightful study of sieves in the digital age.
Outlook

I always feel that it is a good sign when at the end of a talk, of a conversa-
tion, of an article, of a book, there is still more to say, more to ask, more to
discuss and more to think about. So, I am glad that at the end of this book
there are many follow-​up questions and new questions. Let me just briefly
note some of my questions and thoughts before closing.
I would like to see whether my proposal for dealing with one’s own
ignorance is applicable to dealing with other people’s ignorance. As I have
noted earlier, my hunch is that the Maxim-​based Answer –​modulo some
changes –​also works for other people. The maxims might be used as a
touchstone to examine other people’s ignorance and to see, for example,
whether one needs to do something about their ignorance.
I would also like to connect my insights with work on what Jane
Friedman has called “junk beliefs” and “interest-​driven epistemology.”
By discussing what Gilbert Harman’s “clutter avoidance” really requires,
she shows that we need to include the “costs of believing some things
and so knowing” (Friedman 2018, 582, my emphasis) in our studies into
epistemic norms and obligations. Clearly, these considerations are also
highly relevant for dealing with ignorance and for approaching one’s
own ignorance. Relatedly one may also examine the relation between the
Maxim-​based Answer and epistemic norms. As I have noted earlier, we
may continue to see that the borders between epistemic and practical con-
siderations become porous.
I would also like to see where my conception leads us with respect to
collective ignorance or ignorance of group agents. There seems to be some-
thing like collective ignorance, for example, in communities suppressing,
forgetting, ignoring certain facts, events and memories (cf. Peels 2023).​
The relation between forgetting, memories and ignorance, of course, is
another large topic related to ignorance that inspires philosophical work.​
Does the Integrated Conception also apply to such ignorance? Can we
adapt it, or would we have to develop another conception?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003375500-16
232 Outlook

Ignorance and the good life is another topic that I have only briefly
touched upon and need to consider further. Hazlett (2013) has argued that
knowledge is not all that important to a good life, and it would be worth-
while to approach the question from ignorance and with a view to the
insights gathered in this study. The good life could also be considered as a
standard for what one needs to know and where ignorance is valuable and
acceptable –​I only need to know what is required for a good life. Though
this suggestion definitely looks too self-​centered to be viable.
There are also further fields of application for the Integrated Conception
of Ignorance and the Maxim-​based Answer that I would like to consider.
For example, ignorance is a crucial issue in deep learning and artificial
intelligence because human beings do not know, cannot know how the
deep learning mechanism works; it can only perceive its results. There are
a number of questions related to how we should deal with systems that
leave us thus ignorant as to their own procedures and their effects.
And, finally, ignorance, and dealing with one’s own ignorance, is hugely
relevant for educational contexts (cf. Peels and Pritchard 2021). Can we
teach students to rationally deal with their own ignorance? One option
might be to teach an “epistemic meta-​competence” –​one of the goals of
Barzilai and Chinn’s epistemic education (2018). This meta-​competence
makes students aware of “legitimate uncertainty” and “lead[s]‌them to
calibrate their confidence and regulate their behavior accordingly, e.g.,
proceeding with greater caution or withholding judgment altogether”
(Barzilai and Chinn 2018, 363). The Three Maxims might be a part of this
meta-​competence.
You may find that this book on ignorance is too optimistic, too light,
when the effects of ignorance may be detrimental and our being ignorant
in one way or another seems largely unavoidable. But my attitude toward
ignorance during my work on this book has indeed been one of optimism,
not naïve optimism that underestimates ignorance but reflective optimism,
as I have called it earlier. Let me close by trying to illustrate this attitude.
A view on the ambivalence of knowledge that Georg Henrik von Wright
attributes to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to my mind, perfectly captures
my optimism and respect in dealing with ignorance. Von Wright’s article
addresses the question “So knowledge is power –​but is it good for man
to know?” by examining three myths –​Adam and Eve, Prometheus and
Faust (von Wright 1993). Von Wright describes Goethe’s perspective in
Faust as follows:

Goethe’s view is clear. The power that human knowledge provides is

not as such an evil. It becomes an evil if man in his delight at ‘wie
herrlich weit wir es gebracht’ [how marvellously far we have come]
stops to enjoy the fruits of his work without realizing its incompleteness
 Outlook 233

or feeling the yearning for something better. Then man perishes. As long
as his unease haunts him, he has hope.
(von Wright 1993, 150, translation in original)

It is this combination of yearning for something better, this unease about

dangers, and this hope that constitute the reflective optimism that I take
to be a valuable attitude toward ignorance and the question of how we
should rationally deal with it.
References

I refer to texts by Kant using the abbreviations of the Kant-​Forschungsstelle (with

one exception: Jäsche Logic).

AA Akademie-​Ausgabe
Anthr Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In: Anthropology,
History, and Education. 2007. Edited by Günter Zöller and Robert
B. Louden. Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant in
Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
In: Der Streit Der Fakultäten, Anthropologie in Pragmatischer
Hinsicht. Vol. VII. Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften (Akademie Ausgabe).
Berlin: De Gruyter.
CPJ Critique of the Power of Judgment
Critique of the Power of Judgment. 2000. Translated by Paul Guyer
and Eric Matthews. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel
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Index

absence of belief 79–​83 beliefs: absence of 79–​83; holding

acceptance (dealing with ignorance) a false belief 9–​10, 85–​89;
147–​148 open-​minded thinking 116–​117;
active ignorance 51, 52, 60 rationality norm 123; suspending
actively upheld false outlooks 51–​52 83–​84
adequacy conditions 56–​58 benign ignorance 112
affective side of ignorance 97–​100, 217 Bennett, Karen 62–​63
agential conceptions of ignorance bias: faulty inferences 112; in politics
47–​53 78–​79, 202; and stereotypes
agnostic position 182 115–​116
agnotology 21 Bildung 128–​129
Al Fārābī, Abu-​Nasr Muhammad blameless ignorance 46
Ibn-​Muhammad 15 bliss 98
Al-​Ghazālī 15 Blumenberg, Hans 14–​15
Alcoff, Linda 21, 53–​55 Bonitz, Hermann 125, 127
alethic ignorance 39 Brennan, Jason 199, 201
alethic obligation to God 154–​158 building relations 62
ambivalence of knowledge 232–​233
ameliorative epistemology 11 Cambiano, Giuseppe 125–​126
amoralist approach 186 Castellio, Sebastian 15
analytical epistemology 18–​19 caution (dealing with ignorance)
Anderson, Elizabeth 55, 112, 115–​116 147–​148
anger 100 Chisholm, Roderick 151
Annas, Julia 140–​141 Christianity: alethic obligation to God
Aristotle: desire to know 124–​132; 154–​158; original sin 13–​14
nature of human beings 121, 124; citizen ignorance 199–​200, 204–​214
theoretical wisdom 148 Clifford, William 143, 150, 152–​153
arrogance 94–​96 climate change 116–​117, 189
attitudinal component of ignorance 78, close-​mindedly ignorant 91–​94,
208, 210, 217 101–​102
cluelessness 81–​83
Baehr, Jason 136 “clutter avoidance” 93, 153, 231
Baltes, Paul 137–​138, 140 cognitive fallibility 74
behavioral expressions of uncertainty cognitively preferred ignorance 93
225 Cohen, Leah Hager 99
belief acquisition 156–​157 collective ignorance 231
belief maintenance 156–​157 common ignorance 163
 Index 257

common language, argument from epistemic norms 186–​189, 213

41–​42 epistemic rationality 122
complete ignorance 80–​81, 102 epistemologies of ignorance 53–​55, 207
conscious ignorance 229 epistemology: analytical 18–​19;
consequentialist approach 143–​148 feminist 18, 21; ignorance as part
Converse, Philip 202, 204 of 19–​22; James’ twin goals 144,
COVID-​19 pandemic, 8; medical 146–​147; socio-​epistemological
uncertainty 216–​218, 228 assumptions 10–​11
curiosity 94–​96, 97 Erkenntnis 163, 164
error: avoiding and dealing with 165;
deep ignorance 80, 81, 102 causes of 110–​112; deontological
deliberate ignorance 76–​77, 113 approach 165–​166; as form of
deliberative democracy 206 ignorance 9–​10, 87; James’ twin
democracy: definition 200; epistemic goals 143–​148; Maxim-​based
communities 189; open-​minded Answer (Kant) 174–​175; as a
thinking 116–​117; pervasiveness symptom of ignorance 86–​88
of ignorance in democracy 23, excuse: ignorance as an 46
199–​214 expertise 209–​210, 211–​212
deontological approach: epistemic
duties 150–​154; epistemic duties factual ignorance 10
as other-​regarding duties 158–​161; fallibility 74–​75
of Kant 162–​170; Locke’s alethic false beliefs: absence of 79–​80; causes
obligation to God 154–​158 of ignorance 109–​110; as form of
Descartes, René 15–​16, 83–​84 ignorance 9–​10, 92; philosophical
desire to know 22, 124–​131 traditions 15–​16; symptoms of
diagnostic uncertainty 219, 226–​228 ignorance 85–​89
disbelieving ignorance 80 falsehood 5; argument from ignorance
dogmatism 92 of 43–​44; practical wisdom 139
Dotson, Kristie 51, 60 faulty reasoning 110–​112
doxastic ignorance 39 fearful ignorance 99–​100
Dunning-​Kruger effect 74–​76 Feldman, Richard 147, 158–​160
feminist epistemology 18, 21
education 211 Ferrier, James 16
Edwards, Mike 202, 204 formal ignorance 163
elections, voting in 78–​79, 200, Fricker, Miranda 60, 123
205–​206 Friedman, Jane 83–​84, 231
Elga, Adam 75, 122–​123
elitism 191 Gadamer, Hans-​Georg 128
embarrassment 99 Gamper, Michael 87
emotions 97–​100 Gettier-​type ignorance 39–​40, 45
empirical conceptions of ignorance Gigerenzer, Gerd 75
29–​32 Goldberg, Sanford 144, 150, 186–​187,
the Enlightenment 16 213
entitlement (epistemic duties) 159–​160 the good life 232
epistemic communities 213–​214 Graham, Peter 212–​213
epistemic duties: deontological group agents, ignorance of 231
approach 148, 150–​151; James’
twin goals 143; as other-​regarding Haas, Jens 4, 68–​69, 160
duties 158–​161 Halbwissen 70, 83, 86, 88–​89, 102
epistemic fallibility 74 Han, Paul K. J. 219–​222, 223–​224,
epistemic laziness 210–​214 226, 227
258 Index

happiness 98 “junk beliefs” 231

Harman, Gilbert 93, 153, 231 justificational ignorance 39
Harvin, Cassandra Byers 84–​85, 114
Haslanger, Sally 37, 61 Kahneman, Daniel 75, 112
Helft, Paul 219–​220 Kant, Immanuel: conception of error
heuristics 75, 78–​79, 112, 202 87–​88; dealing with error and the
historical context, ignorance 11–​12, 24 sensus communis 165–​170,
history of philosophy 12–​19, 121 173–​176; the horizon 71–​74,
history of science 16–​17 162–​165; human progress 131;
Hon, Giora 87 maxims 166–​170
hope 96 Kaye, Simon T. 203
horizon 71–​74, 162–​165 Klein, Roberta Cutler 151
human progress 131 knowledge: and democracy 203–​204,
humility 94–​96, 134–​135 207–​208; desire to know 22,
124–​131; epistemic actions 160;
ideology and ignorance 61 factual ignorance 10; narrow
ignorance: adequacy conditions conceptions of 57; our relationship
56–​58; agential conceptions to 2
47–​53; approaching 3–​5; caring ‘known unknowns’ 6
about 1–​3; causes of 108–​117; Köhl, Harald 173–​174
degrees of 47, 84; in epistemology Kruglanski, Arie W. 79
19–​22; history of philosophy
12–​19; integrated conception 58–​64; laziness 94–​96, 210–​214
logical conceptions and empirical Le Morvan, Pierre 19, 20, 39–​47
conceptions 29–​32; meaning of legitimate uncertainty 232
1–​2, 5, 37–​38; nature of 24; in Lincoln, Abraham 200
philosophy 22–​23; prevalence Lippmann, Walter 200
70–​79; reductionist propositional Locke, John 16, 110–​112, 154–​158,
conceptions 38–​47; structural 167–​168
conceptions 53–​56; subjects and Lodge, Milton 78, 106, 208
objects of 5–​10; symptoms 68–​70, logical conceptions of ignorance 29–​32
100–​103; syndrome framework
32–​34; types of 6–​10, 13, 15 material ignorance 163
ignorance of falsehoods argument Maxim-​based Answer: advantages of
43–​44 180–​181; avoiding error 23; citizen
Ignoranz 3–​4 ignorance 213, 214; developing
illusion, and error 165 173–​176; medical context 217,
indifferent ignorance 93, 102 223–​226; motivations and
integrated conception of ignorance intellectual honesty 177–​180,
58–​64; two objections against 183–​186; objections against
63–​64 182–​192; other people’s ignorance
intellectual honesty 177–​180, 231; sensus communis 169–​170,
183–​186 173–​176; the three maxims
intellectual humility 134–​135 166–​170; unconscious ignorance
“interest-​driven epistemology” 231 229–​230
interrogative attitude 83–​84 McDowell, John 128–​129
investigative ignorance 89–​90 McGoey, Linsey 144
“issue public” heuristic 202 mechanistic reasoning 228–​229
medical context: COVID-​19
James, William 131, 143–​148, 151, pandemic 216–​218, 228; dealing
153 with patient-​practitioner uncertainty
 Index 259

217, 222–​226; dealing with passion 111

prognosis uncertainty 226–​228; patient-​practitioner uncertainty 217,
errors and false belief 9; examples 220–​221, 222–​226; see also medical
and a typology of uncertainty context
218–​222; ignorance and uncertainty Peels, Rik 4, 18–​19, 20, 38–​47, 58–​63,
23; ignorance in medical practice 79–​80
216–​218; ignorance in medical pessimism 182–​184
research 216–​218, 219, 228–​230; phronimos 129, 132, 140, 148
propositional ignorance 8 Pohlhaus, Gaile 18, 51, 115
Medina, José 51, 52–​53, 60 politically motivated reasoning
meta-​competence 232 116–​117
meta-​ignorance 74–​75 politics: bias in 78–​79, 202;
Meylan, Anne 47–​48, 49–​51 epistemic norms 189; ignorance
Mills, Charles 18, 51–​52, 53, 60 and uncertainty 23; open-​minded
moral ignorance 10 thinking 116–​117; pervasiveness of
moral philosophy 19, 21 ignorance in democracy 199–​214
morality 185–​186 populist politics 200
Mori, Ipsos 201, 205 post-​conceptual ignorance 43–​44
motivated ignorance 113, 114–​117 practical ignorance 10
motivations for intellectual honesty practical philosophy 189
177–​180, 183–​186 practical rationality 122
practical wisdom 130, 135–​136, 139,
naïve optimists 182–​183 141
“nature of times” heuristic 78–​79, 202 practice-​generated entitlement
neutral conception of ignorance 57 159–​160
New View of ignorance 38–​39, 44–​47, pre-​conceptual ignorance 43–​44
55, 59–​60 preferred ignorance 92–​94, 101, 112
Nicholas of Cusa 15 presumed knowledge 95, 102, 112
Nichtwissen 3–​4 prevalence of ignorance 70–​79
Nietzsche, Friedrich 17–​18 primordia naturalia 70
non-​ideal epistemology 12 Pritchard, Duncan 19, 46, 47–​51,
non-​ideal pessimism 12 134–​135, 144, 146–​147, 164
non-​reflective cluelessness 82–​83, privilege 99
102 probabilities 221–​222, 226
Norlock, Kathryn 12 prognosis uncertainty 220–​222,
normative ignorance 10 223–​224, 226–​228; see also medical
Normative View of ignorance 48–​51 context
Nozick, Robert 139 Proietti, Carlo 29, 30–​31
propositional ignorance 8, 58–​59,
Offe, Claus 203–​204 80–​81
Ogden, Jane 225 proxy method 229
Olsson, Erik 29, 30–​31 psychological states 96–​97
O’Neill, Onora 175
open-​minded thinking 116–​117 questions, as symptoms of ignorance
open-​mindedly ignorant 89–​91, 101 84–​85
Oppenheimer, Danny 202, 204
optimism, reflective vs. naïve 182–​183, race: motivated ignorance 114–​115;
232 white ignorance 51–​52
orientation in thinking 166 rationality: 18, 122–​123, 128, 136,
original sin 13–​14 177 epistemic and practical 122
overdemandingness 190–​192 reasoning, faulty 110–​112
260 Index

reductionist propositional conceptions Standard View of ignorance 39, 40–​44,

of ignorance 38–​47, 58 47, 55
reflective cluelessness 82–​83 statistical innumeracy 221–​222
reflective ignorance 89–​90, 101, 146 Staudinger, Ursula 137–​138, 140
reflective optimism 12, 182, 183–​184, stereotypes 115–​116
232 stigmatization 115–​116
religion: alethic obligation to God structural conceptions of ignorance
154–​158; knowledge of God 15; 53–​56
original sin 13–​14 stupidity 5, 13
Rescher, Nicholas 73–​74 Sunstein, Cass 203
revisionary epistemology 10–​11 surprise 96
Riggs, Wayne 146–​147, 148 suspending belief 83–​84
Roberts, Robert 129–​130, 139, 190–​191 syndrome framework 32–​34
Rumsfeld, Donald 6
Ryan, Sharon 135, 136–​137 Taber, Charles S. 208
Takotsobu cardiomyopathy (TCM)
St Augustine 14–​15, 70 218
sanctioning (epistemic norms) 186–​187 theoretical wisdom 135–​136, 141, 148
Schickore, Jutta 80 Thomas Aquinas 14
Schumpeter, Joseph 199, 200 Tonelli, Mark R. 228–​229
Schutz, Alfred 211–​212 trivial ignorance 63, 74, 77–​78
science: errors and false belief 8–​9; trust 96–​97
history of 16–​17; scientific ignorance truth: human nature 17; James’ twin
53, 163; scientist’s approach to goals 143–​148; relationship to
ignorance 90; sources of error 80; ignorance 5
see also medical context Tuana, Nancy 54, 92
second nature 128–​129 Tugendhat, Ernst 167, 177–​180,
self-​confidence 99 183–​187
self-​evaluation bias 76, 122–​123 Tversky, Amos 75, 112
self-​standing phenomenon, ignorance “twin goals” (James) 143–​148
as 56–​57
sensus communis 165–​166, 169–​170, uncertainty, overlap with
173–​176 ignorance 23
shame 99 uncertainty tolerance 226–​228
Shelby, Tommie 61 unconscious ignorance 229–​230
Shirts, Brian H. 228–​229 Unger, Peter 18
social context: citizen ignorance unified account argument 40–​41
199–​200, 212–​213; in medicine Unkenntnis 3–​4
222–​223 unwanted knowledge 113
socio-​epistemological assumptions Unwissen 3–​4, 33
10–​11 Unwissenheit 3, 33, 36, 165
Socrates 12–​13, 121, 132–​136, 150, Use a Proxy method 229
164, 180
Socratic ignorance 121–​122, 132–​141 vicious ignorance 77–​79, 89–​96
Socratic wisdom 132–​141 virtue epistemology 5–​6
Somin, Ilya 199 virtuous ignorance 89–​96
Spinoza, Baruch 15–​16 Vogt, Katja Maria 4, 65, 68–​70, 89,
Srivastava, Ranjana 217, 224, 91–​92, 95, 103, 160
227–​228 von Wright, Georg Henrik 232–​233
 Index 261

well-​informed citizens 211–​212 wisdom, properties of 137–​138

well-​informed preferred ignorance Wittgensteinian approach 56
92–​93 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 154,
Wesche, Tilo 187 155–​157
White ignorance 51–​52, 59–​60, 61–​62 Wood, W. Jay 129–​130, 139,
widespread vicious ignorance 77–​79 190–​191