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Knowledge and the Virtues of Ignorance
In everyday life and language, ignorance is often thought of as the absence or the opposite of knowledge and is thus normally held as a negatively evaluated condition. Accordingly, ignorance is often seen as knowledge that is excluded from circulation by one group of people in order to keep another group uninformed or even “stupid.” The unknown, however, can also be seen as a strategic element that can be distributed in order to amplify interest in a product (e.g., in marketing), it can protect people from wrong sets knowledge (e.g., in genetic testing) or it can be used as an excuse, what historian Robert Proctor (2006) once criticized as “no proof” defenses of the tobacco industries that had always known that cigarettes were harmful, but nevertheless were able held up their claim of “no proof” of hazards. In this way actors, stakeholders, companies, and decision makers can avoid accountability by creating what Linsey McGoey (2012) has labelled “strategic ignorance.”
However, beyond such analysis, ignorance as the natural flipside of knowledge has recently garnered attention in many disciplines as a concept to more broadly analyze decision making and planning processes in the face of not knowing (for an overview see Gross and McGoey 2015). These studies also include the idea that ignorance is not simply the obverse of knowledge or generally a bad thing, but that ignorance can have a social and political life of its own. Many novel areas of research have shown that decisions are often made in spite of (sometimes) well-defined ignorance, or what has more recently been called nonknowledge, which refers to the possibility of becoming knowledgeable about one’s own ignorance (Gross 2012). The term nonknowledge in sociology dates back, at least, to the early 20th century writings of Georg Simmel (1906), who used the term in the German original to denote symmetry between knowledge (Wissen) and its natural flipside Nichtwissen: nonknowledge. Although the word nonknowledge, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, can be traced back to the sixteenth century it has not been much in use in everyday life in contemporary English.
Unlike the term ignorance, nonknowledge points to knowledge about what is not known but is sufficiently well defined. The ambivalence of the term ignorance, with its additional connotation of actively ignoring something, makes nonknowledge a more precise form of the unknown for describing decisions toward an uncertain future and also for pointing to mechanisms of control about what ought, or ought not, to be known. Positive nonknowledge can be rendered a type of ignorance in which the limitations and the borders of knowing are intentionally taken into account for acting or planning. Negative nonknowledge, in turn, can be defined as a type of ignorance in which the perceived limits of knowing are intentionally not taken into account for planning or action (see table 1). It can remain latent or be developed into active nonknowledge, where it will be taken into account. These forms of not knowing are not always easy to differentiate because they can overlap or are closely connected in a temporal sequence. They, nevertheless, can be seen as crucial moments in the micro-analysis of successfully fostering interest by bringing attention to something that may not yet be there (e.g., plans about a car) and even may not materialize in the future. This understanding also sees nonknowledge as a productive strategic resource. Ignorance, as nonknowledge, refers to the acknowledgement that some things are unknown but are not specified sufficiently to enable action. In the case discussed here, there is, usually, a strategic regulation between, on the one hand, active or “positive” nonknowledge, where the unknown is specified enough to be used for further planning and, on the other hand, passive or “negative” nonknowledge, where the unknown is perhaps specified but is rendered unimportant and is not creating any interest at this point in time (see Table 1). This aspect points to forms of the unknown that may be known and specified but that are rendered unimportant or even threatening (Andorno 2004). In genetic testing, for example, such unknowns are sometimes sidelined in a way that is comparable to an approach that claims ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’.
The Evidence of Active and Passive Not Knowing
There are strategies that can be distinguished in terms of the desirability and non-desirability of not knowing. Georg Simmel (1906) highlighted processes of knowledge and nonknowledge that are strategically prevented from circulating. More recently Peter Wehling (2015) has pointed to both the intentionality of not knowing and the temporality of the unknown. Whereas the former refers to decisions towards the willingness or unwillingness as well as the strategic distribution of knowledge gaps, the latter refers to the possibility of transforming knowledge gaps into forms of knowledge within a certain time span. Bringing these two differentiated forms of not knowing and their temporal and intentional character together in a Table (below) should throw into relief many if not most forms of the unknown to be expected in social life.
Furthermore, the relationship between active and passive nonknowledge can be an important distinction in debates about when to communicate different types of unknowns. When the aim is to identify an increased probability of an event, it is unclear when, or whether at all, such an event will manifest itself. One can speculate that this distinction may be based on a process of weighing up its strategic outcome when deciding whether or not to mention the possibility or non-possibility.
Thus understood, nonknowledge should not generally be conceptualized as ignorance, unawareness, absence of knowledge, or even stupidity, but rather as a specific kind of awareness or even expertise about what is not known. Whereas a general notion of nonknowledge can be defined as the possibility of becoming knowledgeable about one’s own ignorance, an ideal-typical area that defines the demarcation line between different unknowns would be nescience, or what was called “unknown unknowns” in Donald Rumsfeld’s famous press conference statement in early 2002 (cf. Rumsfeld 2011). Nescience or unknown unknowns can only be known in retrospect. Different types of not knowing can, on the one hand, be temporally connected in the analysis of strategically bracketing out or including certain types of knowledge, and, on the other hand, be understood as part of the argument of those who strategically try to make certain sets of knowledge available or unavailable to others.
Knowledge and Nonknowledge Transfer
Consider the example of the spread of the Corona virus. The processes of the spread of the virus and the different societal reactions to it can be conceived of as ways of coordinating contingent activities of diverse actors (e.g., political parties, virologists, economic players, industries) which are continued despite an acknowledged awareness of ignorance, so that processes do not have to be interrupted. The Corona Pandemic can thus be understood as permanent decision making based on not knowing. This is may be the biggest challenge the world is facing with the Corona Virus. From a sociological point of view it should be clear that instead of glossing over knowledge gaps with risk assessments or sidestepping by rhetorics of certainty, what is needed is a way to describe nonknowledge so that, for instance, policy makers have an alternative to risk assessments based on limited data and figures when communicating with the public.
Given unavoidable uncertainties of the situation with the worldwide pandemic, decision making may necessitate an open acknowledgement that nonknowledge cannot be avoided. In this way it can help to make the unknown more transparently explicit in order to build trust and collaboration among concerned citizens, researchers, planners, and policy makers. After all trust can serve as a bridge between knowledge and nonknowledge (Gross 2012). As in the case of the Corona pandemics trust in dealing with unknowns has become a reality not by choice but by necessity. When virologists reveal their nonknowledge, they need to be clear about why it is impossible to have more certainty right now. The aim thus is not to overcome ignorance but to develop possibilities for decision making in spite of not knowing. After all, openly admitting and acknowledging that nonknowledge can be rendered part of “good science” might foster new trust in science and its organizations. This in turn should also help to make nonknowledge a subject of open, democratic debate.
In addition to the oft-quoted knowledge transfer between science and society, in face of the Corona crisis we should think about strategies to develop further also successful ways to communicate and transfer knowledge gaps and unavoidable nonknowledge to a concerned public and policy makers, but also between different cultures such as between virologists and economists, doctors, nurses, police, supermarkets, teachers, manufacturers of masks and other medical equipment. In the same way that knowledge transfer is meant to disseminate scientific knowledge and for providing inputs to problem solving for policy makers, it needs to be completed with (scientific) “nonknowledge transfer” to capture, clarify, and clearly communicate what is unknown and make it available and understandable for a critical public. Nonknowledge needs to be understood as part of problem solving. Thus understood nonknowledge transfer is even more difficult than knowledge transfer because it is often rendered a detrimental state, even if it is clear that not more (reliable) knowledge can be generated in a given time. Worse, much nonknowledge is difficult to clearly communicate since it is tacit or simply uncommon to articulate in a world where knowledge is rendered a most important value and its natural flipside – nonknowledge – is to be avoided at all costs. In short studies on ignorance need to include the evidence on how, where, and why diverse forms of nonknowledge are spread, delayed, produced, or – ultimately – ignored.
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