Method
Ignorance
Overview
lack of knowledge or understanding
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Ignorance is discussed.
All ignorance is either ignorance of things or of the limits of knowledge. If my ignorance is accidental and not necessary, it must incite me, in the first case, to a dogmatical inquiry regarding the objects of which I am ignorant; in the second, to a critical investigation into the bounds of…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
ATHENIAN: That the greatest ignorance is when a man hates that which he nevertheless thinks to be good and noble, and loves and embraces that which he knows to be unrighteous and evil. This disagreement between the sense of pleasure and the judgment of reason in the soul is, in my opinion, the worst ignorance; and also the greatest, because affecting the great mass of the human soul; for the…
Plato, Laws
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some errour in Reasoning, or some sudden force of the Passions. Defect in the Understanding, is Ignorance; in Reasoning, Erroneous Opinion. Again, ignorance is of three sort; of the Law, and of the Soveraign, and of the Penalty. Ignorance of the Law of Nature Excuseth no man; because every man that hath attained to the use of Reason, is supposed to…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
names the idea; states what it is
In geometry we know not how to square the circle, but we do not quarrel on that point. The theologian does not know the number of the angels, but he does not quarrel about the number. The Egyptian is ignorant of the political system of the Scythians, but he does not therefore quarrel concerning it.[280] But the truth in this third question provokes so much quarrelling that, whereas in other matters ignorance is…
R. W. Church, Dante. An essay. To which is added a translation of De Monarchia.
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
But now, in laughing at us, you will be laughing at yourselves: for you also admitted that men err in their choice of pleasures and pains; that is, in their choice of good and evil, from defect of knowledge; and you admitted further, that they err, not only from defect of knowledge in general, but of that particular knowledge which is called measuring. And you are also aware that the erring act which is done without…
Plato, Protagoras
states what it is; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Ignorance
Related ideas
- Understanding
- Knowledge
- The New York Times
- Thomas Pynchon
- Oxford University Press
- Awareness
- Fact
- Cambridge University Press
Place in the tradition
Part of Knowledge.