The Virtues of Ignorance

by Vitek, Bill; Jackson, Wes

• ISBN13: 9780813124773
• ISBN10: 0813124778
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky

Summary

Human dependence on technology has increased exponentially over the past several centuries, and so too has the notion that we can fix environmental problems with scientific applications. The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge proposes an alternative to this hubristic, shortsighted, and dangerous worldview. The contributors argue that uncritical faith in scientific knowledge has created many of the problems now threatening the planet and that our wholesale reliance on scientific progress is both untenable and myopic. Bill Vitek, Wes Jackson, and a diverse group of thinkers, including Wendell Berry, Anna Peterson, and Robert Root-Bernstein, offer profound arguments for the advantages of an ignorance-based worldview. Their essays explore this philosophy from numerous perspectives, including its origins, its essence, and how its implementation can preserve vital natural resources for posterity. All conclude that we must simply accept the proposition that our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge and always will. Rejecting the belief that science and technology are benignly at the service of society, the authors argue that recognizing ignorance might be the only path to reliable knowledge. They also uncover an interesting paradox: knowledge and insight accumulate fastest in the minds of those who hold an ignorance-based worldview, for by examining the alternatives to a technology-based culture, they expand their imaginations. Demonstrating that knowledge-based worldviews are more dangerous than useful, The Virtues of Ignorance looks closely at the relationship between the land and the future generations who will depend on it. The authors argue that we can never improve upon nature but that we can, by putting this new perspective to work in our professional and personal lives, live sustainably on Earth.

Author Biography

Bill Vitek is associate professor of philosophy at Clarkson University. He is the author of several books, including Promising, Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place and Applying Philosophy.



Wes Jackson is the president of the Land Institute and former professor at Kansas Wesleyan and California State universities. He is the author of several books, including Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place, Becoming Native to This Place, and Altars of an Unhewn Stone.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Taking Ignorance Seriously	p. 1
First Cut
Toward an Ignorance-Based Worldview	p. 21
The Way of Ignorance	p. 37
Ignorance-an Inner Perspective	p. 51
Human Ignorance and the Limited Use of History	p. 59
Ignorance and Know-How	p. 67
Second Cut
Optimizing Uncertainty	p. 81
Toward an Ecological Conversation	p. 101
Ignorance and Ethics	p. 119
Imposed Ignorance and Humble Ignorance-Two Worldviews	p. 135
Precursors and Exemplars
Battle for the Soul of Ignorance: Rhetoric and Philosophy in Classical Athens	p. 151
Choosing Ignorance within a Learning Universe	p. 165
The Path of Enlightened Ignorance: Alfred North Whitehead and Ernst Mayr	p. 189
Joyful Ignorance and the Civic Mind	p. 213
Applications
I Don't Know!	p. 233
Lessons Learned from Ignorance: The Curriculum on Medical (and Other) Ignorance	p. 251
Economics and the Promotion of Ignorance-Squared	p. 273
Educating for Ignorance	p. 293
Climate Change and the Limits of Knowledge	p. 307
Can We See with Fresh Eyes? Beyond a Culture of Abstraction	p. 323
Contributors	p. 335
Index	p. 341
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