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

Social Research: An International Quarterly 77 (3):997-1010 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

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

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The limits of knowledge and the limits of science.José Bermejo - 2010 - Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Servizo de Publicacións e Intercambio.
Knowing‐Wh and Embedded Questions.Ted Parent - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (2):81-95.
Knowing that, knowing how, and knowing to do.Refeng Tang - 2011 - Frontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (3):426-442.
Knowing.Michael David Roth - 1970 - New York,: Random House. Edited by Leon Galis.
Knowledge is normal belief.B. Ball - 2013 - Analysis 73 (1):69-76.
The Maker’s Knowledge Principle and the Limits of Science.Danilo Marcondes de Souza Filho - 2002 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 76:229-237.
Success and Knowledge-How.Katherine Hawley - 2003 - American Philosophical Quarterly 40 (1):19 - 31.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-12-21

Downloads
50 (#282,682)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references