Rik Peels has forcefully argued that, contrary to what is widely held, ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In doing so, he has argued against the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent, and argued for what he calls “the New View” according to which ignorance is equivalent (merely) to the lack or absence of true belief. In this paper, I defend the Standard View against Peels’s latest case for the New View.

People are often responsible for what they do, but they also often possess an excuse. One of the most common excuses is ignorance. Not all ignorance constitutes an excuse, however, for some ignorance is culpable and culpable ignorance is no excuse. But what about group agents? In our everyday practices, we blame group agents constantly. But if groups can be blameworthy, they plausibly can also be excused. Surely one such excuse is ignorance. But, as with individual agents, some group ignorance (...) is also surely culpable. How should we understand the culpable ignorance of group agents? In this paper, I argue for two conditional claims that together constitute what I call the Group Justification Thesis, which is a group-agent adaptation of the Justification Thesis put forth by Biebel [(2018). ‘Epistemic Justification and the Ignorance Excuse.’ Philosophical Studies 175 (12): 3005–3028]: (i) A group agent is excused because of ignorance only if that ignorance is justified, and (ii) a group agent is culpable despite being ignorant only if that ignorance is not justified. One interesting upshot of this view is that a group agent can be culpably ignorant even though none of the members are culpable for their ignorance. (shrink)

Given the significant exculpatory power that ignorance has when it comes to moral, legal, and epistemic transgressions, it is important to have an accurate understanding of the concept of ignorance. According to the Standard View of factual ignorance, a person is ignorant that p whenever they do not know that p, while on the New View, a person is ignorant that p whenever they do not truly believe that p. On their own though, neither of these accounts explains how ignorance (...) can often be a degreed notion—how we can sometimes be slightly ignorant, quite ignorant, or completely ignorant that p. In this paper, I will argue that there is a route for advocates of the Standard View and the New View to accommodate the gradability of ignorance. On the view I defend, ‘ignorant’ picks out everyone that is ignorant to some degree, making it possible that ignorance can be both degreed and characterized as a lack of knowledge or true belief. Even though we can be ignorant to a greater or lesser extent, the only way to avoid being ignorant that p is to know or truly believe. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse and develop how scepticism becomes an intelligible question starting from requirements that epistemologists themselves aim to endorse. We argue for and defend the idea that the root of scepticism is the underdetermination principle by articulating its specificitya respectable epistemic principle and by defending it against objections in current literature. This engagement offers a novel understanding of underdetermination-based scepticism. While most anti-sceptical approaches challenge scepticism by understanding it as postulating uneliminated scenarios of mass (...) deception, or as endorsing unnatural epistemic requirements, we argue here that both contentions are mistaken. Underdetermination-based scepticism targets our beliefs by issuing a genuine question about the rational support they enjoy. If we cannot establish that the sources of our beliefs provide them the required epistemic merit and authority, they lack non-arbitrary grounds. This has a sizable impact on what constitutes a satisfactory anti-sceptical strategy. Strategies that merely focus on the scenario-based aspect of scepticism, or on the truth-functional evaluation of our beliefs, are shown to miss the mark of the sceptical threat. The proposed analysis ultimately provides a shift in perspective concerning the character and reach of philosophical doubt. (shrink)

There is a debate on the nature of ignorance in contemporary epistemology. The standard view holds that ignorance is the lack of knowledge, while the new view contends that ignorance is the lack of true belief. Rather than taking a side in this dispute, Pritchard recently offers a new proposal according to which ignorance essentially involves not just the absence of a certain epistemic good, but also an intellectual failing of inquiry. We argue that Pritchard’s new proposal advances the discussion (...) of ignorance by incorporating insight from virtue epistemology, and hence the normative dimension of ignorance is properly noticed. Crucially, ignorance is no longer a mere static cognitive state, but also reflects the quality of inquiry and inquirers’ obligations. However, the new proposal faces two problems. First, current formulation is incomplete so that it cannot ground the epistemic blame that Pritchard requires. More details must be filled in. Second, his view would label all ignorance as normatively negative, and therefore locutions such as virtuous ignorance, blameless ignorance and the positive value of ignorance would be wrong. (shrink)

The standard view of ignorance is that it consists in the mere lack of knowledge or true belief. Duncan Pritchard has recently argued, against the standard view, that ignorance is the lack of knowledge/true belief that is due to an improper inquiry. I shall call, Pritchard’s alternative account the Normative Account. The purpose of this article is to strengthen the Normative Account by providing an independent vargument supporting it.

According to the Ignorance Factivity Thesis, for every proposition p, one is ignorant of p only if p is a truth. By contrast, according to the Ignorance Non-Factivity Thesis, it is false that, for every proposition p, one is ignorant of p only if p is a truth. I argue that, on balance, the case for the latter thesis is stronger than the case for the former.

An overview is presented of what I take to be the role of the intellectual virtues within the epistemological enterprise. Traditionally, the theory of knowledge has been thought to be central to the epistemological project, but since, as I explain, the intellectual virtues aren’t required for knowledge, this might suggest that they have only a marginal role to play in epistemological debates. I argue against this suggestion by showing how the intellectual virtues are in fact crucial to several core epistemological (...) topics, including the nature of inquiry, epistemic axiology and our understanding of ignorance. (shrink)

In the logical context, ignorance is traditionally defined recurring to epistemic logic. In particular, ignorance is essentially interpreted as “lack of knowledge”. This received view has - as we point out - some problems, in particular we will highlight how it does not allow to express a type of content-theoretic ignorance, i.e. an ignorance of φ that stems from an unfamiliarity with its meaning. Contrarily to this trend, in this paper, we introduce and investigate a modal logic having a primitive (...) epistemic operator I, modeling ignorance. Our modal logic is essentially constructed on the modal logics based on weak Kleene three-valued logic introduced by Segerberg (Theoria, 33(1):53–71, 1997). Such non-classical propositional basis allows to define a Kripke-style semantics with the following, very intuitive, interpretation: a formula φ is ignored by an agent if φ is neither true nor false in every world accessible to the agent. As a consequence of this choice, we obtain a type of content-theoretic notion of ignorance, which is essentially different from the traditional approach. We dub it severe ignorance. We axiomatize, prove completeness and decidability for the logic of reflexive (three-valued) Kripke frames, which we find the most suitable candidate for our novel proposal and, finally, compare our approach with the most traditional one. (shrink)

When moral philosophers study ignorance, their efforts are almost exclusively confined to its exculpatory and blameworthy aspects. Unfortunately, though, this trend overlooks that certain kinds of propositional ignorance, namely of the personal costs and benefits of altruistic actions, can indirectly incentivize those actions. Humans require cooperation from others to survive, and that can be facilitated by a good reputation. One avenue to a good reputation is helping others, sticking to moral principles, and so forth, without calculating the personal costs of (...) doing so, e.g., saving someone from a burning building without calculating how personally costly or beneficial it would be. These actions are indirect moral benefits (partly) resulting from that kind of propositional ignorance. (shrink)

I argue that the Standard View of ignorance is at odds with the claim that knowledge entails truth. In particular, if knowledge entails truth then we cannot explain away some apparent absurdities that arise from the Standard View of ignorance. I then discuss a modified version of the Standard View, which simply adds a truth requirement to the original Standard View. I show that the two main arguments for the original Standard View fail to support this modified view.

I argue against the Standard View of ignorance, according to which ignorance is defined as equivalent to lack of knowledge, that cases of environmental epistemic luck, though entailing lack of knowledge, do not necessarily entail ignorance. In support of my argument, I contend that in cases of environmental luck an agent retains what I call epistemic access to the relevant fact by successfully exercising her epistemic agency and that ignorance and non-ignorance, contrary to what the Standard View predicts, are not (...) modal in the sense that knowledge is. After responding to objections, I conclude by sketching an alternative account of ignorance centered on the notions of epistemic access and epistemic agency. (shrink)

One of the most venerable and enduring intuitions in epistemology concerns the relationship between true belief and knowledge. Famously articulated by Socrates, it holds that true belief does not suffice for knowledge. I discuss a matching intuition about ignorance according to which true belief does not suffice for the absence of ignorance. I argue that the latter intuition undercuts the New View of Ignorance and supports the Standard View of Ignorance.

Humans are prone to producing morally suboptimal and even disastrous outcomes out of ignorance. Ignorance is generally thought to excuse agents from wrongdoing, but little attention has been paid to group-based ignorance as the reason for some of our collective failings. I distinguish between different types of first-order and higher order group-based ignorance and examine how these can variously lead to problematic inaction. I will make two suggestions regarding our epistemic obligations vis-a-vis collective (in)action problems: (1) that our epistemic obligations (...) concern not just our own knowledge and beliefs but those of others, too and (2) that our epistemic obligations can be held collectively where the epistemic tasks cannot be performed by individuals acting in isolation, for example, when we are required to produce joint epistemic goods. (shrink)

Our moral obligations can sometimes be collective in nature: They can jointly attach to two or more agents in that neither agent has that obligation on their own, but they – in some sense – share it or have it in common. In order for two or more agents to jointly hold an obligation to address some joint necessity problem they must have joint ability to address that problem. Joint ability is highly context-dependent and particularly sensitive to shared (or even (...) common) beliefs. As such, joint ability can be deliberately generated in a given collection of agents by providing information related to collective goals and contributory actions. As moral agents, we regularly face problems wherein the outcome of our actions depends on how others choose. There are two ways of deliberating about our own choices in such cases. We can either think of our choices as best responses to others’ choices (I-mode reasoning). Or we can think of our own choices as contributions to the collectively best option (even when we do not know how others are (likely) to choose) (we-mode reasoning). In deliberating about the right (individual) course of action vis-à-vis collective action problems, agents regularly we-frame the case at hand, that is, they include options in their deliberation that are only collectively available, and they we-reason with regard to their individual contributory actions. It is a necessary condition for collective obligations that potential collaborators facing a joint necessity case have grounds to privilege we-reasoning over reasoning in I-mode. (shrink)

Despite the recent increase in interest in philosophy about ignorance, little attention has been paid to the question of what makes it possible for a being to become aware of their own ignorance. In this paper, I try to provide such an account by arguing that, for a being to become aware of their own ignorance, they must have the mental capacity to represent something as being unknown to them. For normal adult humans who have mastered a language, mental representation (...) of an unknown is enabled by forming linguistic expressions whose content is grasped, but whose referent is unknown. I provide a neo-Fregean, a neo-Russellian, and then a unified account of this. On that basis, I then argue further that the content of ignorance can always be captured by a question. I then distinguish between propositional ignorance and non-propositional ignorance and argue that propositional ignorance attributions can be of three types, that-ignorance, whether-ignorance, and fact-ignorance. I conclude by arguing that the acquisition of truths, even when it yields knowledge that is certain, does not always eliminate one’s ignorance and that there is a degree of ignorance in almost everything we claim to know. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate ignorance in relation to our capacity to justify our beliefs. To achieve this aim we specifically address scientific misconceptions, i.e. beliefs that are considered to be false in light of accepted scientific knowledge. The hypothesis we put forward is that misconceptions are not isolated false beliefs, but rather form part of a system of inferences—an explanation—which does not match current scientific theory. We further argue that, because misconceptions are embedded in a system, they cannot be (...) rectified simply by replacing false beliefs with true ones. To address our misconceptions, we must rather act on the system of beliefs that supports them. In the first step of our analysis, we distinguish between misconceptions that are easy to dispel because they represent simple errors that occur against the background of a correct explanatory apparatus and misconceptions that are, on the contrary, very difficult to dispel because they are the product of pseudo explanations. We show that, in the latter case, misconceptions constitute an integral part of an incorrect explanation and the reasons that support such misconceptions are deeply misleading. In the second step, we discuss various approaches that have been adopted to address the problem of misconceptions. Challenging the notion that directly addressing and criticizing specific misconceptions is an effective approach, we propose that critical thinking is the most fruitful means to deal with misconceptions. We define the core competences and knowledge relevant for the practice of critical thinking and discuss how they help us avoid misconceptions that arise from accepting beliefs that form part of a mistaken explanation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I offer an account of propositional learning: namely, learning that p. I argue for what I call the “Three Transitions Thesis” or “TTT” according to which four states and three transitions between them characterize such learning. I later supplement the TTT to account for learning why p. In making my case, I discuss mathematical propositions such as Fermat's Last Theorem and the ABC Conjecture, and then generalize to other mathematical propositions and to non-mathematical propositions. I also discuss (...) some interesting applications of the TTT, and reply to some noteworthy objections. (shrink)

Rik Peels has once again forcefully argued that ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In doing so, he endeavors to refute the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent, and to advance what he calls the “New View” according to which ignorance is equivalent (merely) to the lack or absence of true belief. I defend the Standard View against his new attempted refutation.

It is argued that the two main accounts of ignorance in the contemporary literature—in the terms of the lack of knowledge and the lack of true belief—are lacking in key respects. A new way of thinking about ignorance is offered that can accommodate the motivations for both of the standard views, but which in the process also avoids the problems that afflict these proposals. In short, this new account of ignorance incorporates the idea that ignorance essentially involves not just the (...) absence of a certain epistemic good, but also an intellectual failing of inquiry. It is further contended that making sense of this normative dimension to ignorance requires one to situate one’s account of ignorance within a wider epistemic axiology. (shrink)

The present pilot study investigates the relationships between scientific ignorance and several individual attitudes, personality traits and cultural behaviors. Starting from well-established practices and standards of psychometric analysis, our work has produced a complex cross-scalar survey of scientific competency between students attending an art and multimedia high school. Data are classified through six scales about self-esteem, scientific attitudes, paranormal beliefs, scientific competency, social desirability and personality traits. The results are considered in relation to three hypotheses: the correlation between positive scientific (...) attitude and lower paranormal beliefs plus higher scientific competencies; the scientific attitude is enhanced by cultural and scientific activities and negatively related to superstition; people who show specific personality traits have higher positive attitude and interest toward science, while other traits are more related to superstitious beliefs. The outcome of our poll confirms our hypotheses and shows additional traits correlations. (shrink)

In the current debate there are two epistemological approaches to the definition of ignorance: the Standard View and the New View. The former defines ignorance simply as not knowing, while the latter defines it as the absence of true belief. One of the main differences between these two positions lies in rejecting (Standard View) or in accepting (New View) the factivity of ignorance, i.e., if an agent is ignorant of φ, then φ is true. In the present article, we first (...) provide a criticism of the Standard View in favour of the New View. Secondly, we propose a formal setting to represent the notion of factive ignorance. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge in publications about the epistemology of ignorance. In this article, I examine the proliferation of the concept ignorance that has come with the increased interest in the topic. I identify three conceptions of ignorance in the current literature: (1) ignorance as lack of knowledge/true belief, (2) ignorance as actively upheld false outlooks and (3) ignorance as substantive epistemic practice. These different conceptions of ignorance are as of yet unacknowledged but are bound to impede epistemology (...) of ignorance and, therefore, need to be uncovered. After discussing three unsuccessful ways of dealing with these varying conceptions, I put forward an integrated conception of ignorance that is more adequate for serving as the foundation of epistemology of ignorance. Introducing an alternative conception of ignorance provides us with a foundation for both epistemological and more broadly philosophical work on ignorance. (shrink)

I argue that scientism in general is best understood as the thesis that the boundaries of the natural sciences should be expanded in order to include academic disciplines or realms of life that are widely considered not to belong to the realm of science. However, every adherent and critic of scientism should make clear which of the many varieties of scientism she adheres to or criticizes. In doing so, she should specify whether she is talking about (a) academic or universal (...) scientism, (b) reductive, methodological, epistemological, ontological, moral, or existential, scientism, (c) full or partial scientism, (d) strong or weak scientism, and (e) in the case of moral and existential scientism: replacement or illusion scientism. The strongest version of scientism one could defend is a conjunction of the following theses: strong full epistemological scientism, strong full ontological scientism, strong full Illusion-moral scientism, strong Illusion-existential scientism, and strong full reductive scientism. After a detailed discussion of each of the main varieties of scientism and their interrelations, the paper provides a conceptual map, consisting of two figures, which displays the main varieties of scientism and the relations that obtain between them, primarily, those of implication and mutual exclusion. (shrink)

Conjoined with the claim that there is a moral right to privacy, each of the major contemporary accounts of privacy implies a duty of ignorance for those against whom the right is held. In this paper I consider and respond to a compelling argument that challenges these accounts (or the claim about a right to privacy) in the light of this implication. A crucial premise of the argument is that we cannot ever be morally obligated to become ignorant of information (...) we currently know. The plausibility of this premise, I suggest, derives from the thought that there are no epistemically ways in which we can cause ourselves to become ignorant of what we already know. Drawing on some recent work in the epistemology and psychology of self-deception and forgetting, I seek to undermine this thought, and thus provide a defense against the challenging argument, by arguing that there are indeed such ways. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to Pierre Le Morvan’s critique of my thesis that ignorance is lack of true belief rather than absence of knowledge. I argue that the distinction between dispositional and non-dispositional accounts of belief, as I made it in a previous paper, is correct as it stands. Also, I criticize the viability and the importance of Le Morvan’s distinction between propositional and factive ignorance. Finally, I provide two arguments in favor of the thesis that ignorance is lack (...) of true belief rather than absence of knowledge. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Kit Fine presents some striking results concerning the logical properties of (first-order) ignorance, second-order ignorance and Rumsfeld ignorance. However, Rumsfeld ignorance is definable in terms of ignorance, which makes some existing results and the axiomatization problem trivial. A main reason is that the accessibility relations for the implicit knowledge operator contained in the packaged operators of ignorance and Rumsfeld ignorance are the same. In this work, we assume the two accessibility relations to be different so that (...) one of them is an arbitrary subset of the other. This will avoid the definability issue and retain most of the previous validities. The main results are axiomatizations over various proper bi-frame classes. Finally we apply our framework to analyze Fine’s results. (shrink)

One of the most common excuses is ignorance. Ignorance does not always excuse, however, for sometimes ignorance is culpable. One of the most natural ways to think of the difference between exculpating and culpable ignorance is in terms of justification; that is, one’s ignorance is exculpating only if it is justified and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it not justified. Rosen :591–610, 2008) explores this idea by first offering a brief account of justification, and then two cases that he (...) claims are counter examples to the justification thesis. The aim of this paper is to defend the justification thesis against Rosen’s two cases. The argument will proceed in the following way. First, I clarify a few things about the nature of culpable ignorance generally and why the justification thesis is so intuitive. I then present Rosen’s purported counterexamples. Once this is done, I argue that Rosen misses an important view of justification in the epistemology literature that I call the pragmatic view. I present a general picture of the pragmatic view, and explain how it fits naturally with our practices of criticizing people’s beliefs, including claims of culpable ignorance. Finally, I address Rosen’s cases arguing that, if the pragmatic view is right, then Rosen’s cases are not counterexamples to the justification thesis. (shrink)

Neste trabalho discuto a natureza e a estrutura de análise da ignorância proposicional. Meu objetivo é de apontar que, em primeiro lugar, diferentemente de como ao menos duas das principais concepções da epistemologia da ignorância têm pressuposto, a análise da ignorância proposicional não se reduz a estrutura “S é ignorante que P” ou variantes semelhantes a esta estrutura. Ao lerem a ignorância proposicional reduzida em termos de “S é ignorante que P”, essas concepções não fazem a melhor análise da ignorância (...) proposicional. Isto porque, por um lado, geram um problema que se refere a uma possibilidade pouco trabalhada. Trata-se da possibilidade da ignorância sobre proposições falsas e o problema, como será mostrado, é que nessa redução há boas razões tanto para afirmar como para negar essa possibilidade. Isso se constitui, no mínimo, como uma tensão teórica relevante que pode comprometer essas concepções e as análises realizadas a partir delas. Por outro lado, essa redução exclui ao menos um sentido geral e não necessariamente factivo de ignorância proposicional, o que nos priva de uma análise mais adequada da ignorância e de outros temas relacionados. Tendo esse problema e os seus desdobramentos em vista, apontarei, em segundo lugar, para uma hipótese que tem o potencial de dissolvê-lo a partir da reformulação de como compreendemos a ignorância proposicional, herdando as vantagens das razões a favor e das razões contra a possibilidade da ignorância sobre proposições falsas e superando as objeções levantadas contra elas. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce a notion of ‘disjunctive ignorance’, which is a weak combination of two forms of ignorance in the literature. We propose a logical language with ‘disjunctive ignorance’ as a sole modality, explore the logical properties of this notion and its related notions, and axiomatize it over various frame classes. By finding suitable reduction axioms, we extend the results to the case of public announcements and apply it to Moore-like sentences.

In the current debate there are two epistemological approaches to the definition of ignorance. The Standard View defines ignorance simply as not knowing, while the New View defines it as the absence of true belief. We argue that both views provide necessary, but not sufficient conditions for ignorance, and thus do not constitute satisfactory definitions for such a notion.

In this paper, I provide a defence of the New View, on which ignorance is lack of true belief rather than lack of knowledge. Pierre Le Morvan has argued that the New View is untenable, partly because it fails to take into account the distinction between propositional and factive ignorance. I argue that propositional ignorance is just a subspecies of factive ignorance and that all the work that needs to be done can be done by using the concept of factive (...) ignorance. I also defend two arguments of mine in favour of the New View against Le Morvan’s criticisms. As to the Linguistic Argument, I point out that the intuitions of the adherent of the New View about cases of true belief that fall short of knowledge are really intuitions about factive rather than propositional ignorance. As to the Excuse Argument, I argue that true belief is exculpatorily relevant: a true belief in a proposition p , where disbelief that p or suspension on p would provide at least a partial excuse, is relevant in that it renders one blameworthy for one’s action, unless further excuses hold. Finally, I reply to two closely related objections that might be levelled against the New View, namely that it seems false that one can reduce one’s ignorance by arbitrarily believing as many propositions as possible and that it seems false that an intellectually conscientious and critical person is more ignorant than an intellectually sloppy and credulous person just because the latter has more true beliefs. (shrink)

Deploying distinctions between ignorance of \ and ignorance that \ , and between knowledge of \ and knowledge that \ , I address a question that has hitherto received little attention, namely: what is it to have knowledge of propositions? I then provide a taxonomy of ontological conceptions of the nature of propositions, and explore several of their interesting epistemological implications.

It is widely thought that education should aim at positive epistemic standings, like knowledge, insight, and understanding. In this paper, we argue that, surprisingly, in pursuit of this aim, it is sometimes necessary to also cultivate ignorance. We examine several types of case. First, in various circumstances educators should present students with defeaters for their knowledge, so that they come to lack knowledge, at least temporarily. Second, there is the phenomenon of ‘scaffolding’ in education, which we note might sometimes involve (...) the educator quite properly ensuring that the student is ignorant of certain kinds of information. Third, if ignorance is lack of true belief, as a number of commentators have claimed, then in those cases in which students believe something truly without knowing it and teachers show that they lack knowledge, students may abandon that belief and thus become ignorant. In examining the role of ignorance in education, we explore exactly which kinds of ignorance are valuable in teaching situations and draw attention to important epistemic differences between ignorance on different levels. (shrink)

God’s omniscience generates certain puzzles, not least regarding how such omniscience is compatible with human free will. One option in this regard is to impose limitations on the scope of God’s knowledge, but that then poses the further question of how such limitations can be compatible with God’s nature as a perfect being. I offer a novel way of approaching these questions, which appeals to what I claim is an independently motivated distinction between lacking knowledge and being ignorant. In particular, (...) it is contended that God’s omniscience is best understood not as a complete knowledge of all truths, but rather as a kind of deliberate non-knowing that excludes ignorance. God might not know all truths, but that’s not because of any cognitive lack, and there is certainly no truth about which he is ignorant. (shrink)

An ingenious argument – we may call it the Argument from Excuse – purports to show that the Standard View of Ignorance is false and the New View of Ignorance is true. On the former, ignorance is lack of knowledge; on the latter, ignorance is lack of true belief. I defend the Standard View by arguing that the Argument from Excuse is unsound. I also argue that an implication of my case is that Factual Ignorance Thesis (FIT) is false. According (...) to FIT, whenever an agent A acts from factual ignorance, A is morally blameworthy (culpable) for the act only if A is morally blameworthy (culpable) for the ignorance from which A acts. (shrink)