Journal Articles

Normal Science and Limits on Knowledge : What We Seek to Know, What We Choose Not to Know, What We Don't Bother Knowing

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We can't know everything; in fact, compared to the vast expanses of our ignorance, we can't really know very much. So the problem of "limiting knowledge" is not just one of the conflict between efforts to make knowledge available and efforts to keep knowledge locked up. There is also the often-invisible problem of how we decide what it is we are going to try to know, and what, as a consequence, we decide, even if by benign neglect, we are not going to know. This problem is particularly present in efforts to expand formal knowledge about the world through scientific research. In this essay I will briefly explore how this effort to expand knowledge brings with it, unavoidably and simultaneously, powerfully enforced limits on knowledge that are often unexamined.

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Series Title

Social Research An International Quarterly

Call Number

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Publisher

New York : The New School., 2011

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0037783X

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Edition

Volume 77, Number 3 / Fall 2010, Pp. 997 - 1010

Subject(s)

Normal Science and Limits on Knowledge

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