Ignorances in the sciences Book of abstracts v

Social Studies of Science, 2015

As scientific research moves increasingly to the private sector, the social organization of science undergoes important transformations. Focusing on the production of ignorance, agnotology has been a fruitful approach to understanding the social and epistemic consequences of the recent commercialization of scientific research. Despite their important contributions, scholars working on agnotology seem to hold implicit normative commitments that are in tension with their descriptive accounts of ignorance-constructive practices. The main aim of the paper is to uncover these commitments and to expose the emerging tensions. Thus, the paper begins an exploration into normative aspects of the studies of ignorance. In particular, it shows that agnotology still needs the support of a well-articulated normative approach capable of identifying and evaluating the epistemic and social concerns raised by the private funding and performance of science.

Knowledge and space, 2018

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be research. Albert Einstein Studying ignorance invites bad puns and awkward moments of self-reflection. Proctor (1995) claims that we "know very little about ignorance" (p. 1), and the case studies in the important volume Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance (Proctor & Schiebinger, 2008) are meant to encourage thinking about the "structural production of ignorance" (p. 3). Like new work "making ignorance an ethnographic object" (Mair, Kelly, & High, 2012, p. 1), this chapter is meant to be a continuation of that inquiry, another contribution to the conversation on ignorance. It is meant, however, to expand the problems of ignorance, particularly those which are matters of absent knowledge, to be a more specific set of cases in the consideration of absences more generally. Or conversely, considering other things that aren't there sheds light on some finer distinctions that might be made within the emerging framework of agnotology, particularly the distinction between absent knowledges as forms of non-knowledge in relation to other agnoses, such as alternative, controversial, illusive, rejected, or otherwise erroneous knowledges (see Machlup, 1980, pp. 144À152, for these categories of what he terms "negative knowledge") which are not matters of absence per se. This chapter is organized into two parts: The first considers agnotology and other studies of ignorance from their various disciplinary origins, continuing with a discussion of privatives and other forms of absence. The end result is a set of clarifications that are meant to enhance the study of ignorance and absences through examining their points of contact and divergence. This chapter is a revised and updated version of its original publication (Croissant, 2014). With permission from Taylor and Francis. See

Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics

I argue that ignorance should be understood as the absence of propositional knowledge or the absence of true belief, the absence of objectual knowledge, or the absence of procedural knowledge. I also argue that epistemic vices, hermeneutical frameworks, intentional avoidance of evidence, and other important phenomena that the agential and structural conceptions of ignorance draw our attention to, are best understood as important accidental features of ignorance, not as properties that are essential to ignorance.

Social Epistemology Reply and Review Collective, 2019

1979

Argues for the thesis of universal ignorance, i.e., for the claim that nobody can ever know anything. To this effect, puts forward versions of the classical Cartesian argument for skepticism as well as novel arguments involving normative premises and the concept of certainty. Universal ignorance gives rise to further skeptical results: in order

Science & Technology Studies , 2017

With an innovative perspective on the social character of ignorance production, agnotology has been a fruitful approach for understanding the social and epistemological consequences of the interaction between industry and scientific research. In this paper, I argue that agnotology, or the study of ignorance, contributes to a better understanding of commercially driven research and its societal impact, showing the ways in which industrial interests have reshaped the epistemic aims of traditional scientific practices, turning them into mechanisms of ignorance production. To do so, I examine some of the main contributions to agnotology and provide a taxonomy of practices of ignorance construction common in commercially driven research today. In particular, I present the tobacco industry’s campaign against the health hazards of smoking as a paradigmatic case of ignorance production, identifying five central strategies. I then argue that the same strategies have been used in three other cases—global warming, pharmaceuticals, and the 2008 financial crisis.

Ignorance Between: Knowing and Not Knowing, Axl Books, Editors: Gavin Morrison & Sigrid Sandström (2015)

American Philosophical Quarterly

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.