Abstract

In his artful and well-documented study professor De Koninck of the University of Laval, Quebec, takes the reader on a trip through the often appalling deficits of modern Western culture to point out the road to the light. The title exposes one aspect of the situation: an ignorance, branded by Socrates, which made its comeback under different forms. The sciences, considered by many the panacea for all diseases, cannot answer questions outside their respective fields. They create abstractions which are a threat to real culture. A running indictment of the evils of our time follows: self-destruction by drugs, criminality, and self-inflicted diseases, erroneous theories which kill, annoyance which provokes violence, the crisis of education, the impoverishment of knowledge, the ignorance of our economists and our political leaders. Finally, the worst of all, there is nihilism, the ignorance of the end.