We don’t know we don’t know: asserting ignorance

The pragmatic logic of assertions shows a connection between ignorance and (informal) decidability. In it, we can express pragmatic factual ignorance and first-order ignorance as well as some of their variants. We also show how some pragmatic versions of second-order ignorance and of Rumsfeld-ignora...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Synthese (Dordrecht) 2021-04, Vol.198 (4), p.3565-3580
Main Authors: Carrara, Massimiliano, Chiffi, Daniele, De Florio, Ciro, Pietarinen, Ahti-Veikko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Education
Epistemology
Ignorance
Knowing the Unknown
Knowing the Unknown: Philosophical Perspectives on Ignorance
Knowledge
Logic
Metaphysics
Philosophy
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Science
Pragmatics
Pragmatism
Uncertainty
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Summary:The pragmatic logic of assertions shows a connection between ignorance and (informal) decidability. In it, we can express pragmatic factual ignorance and first-order ignorance as well as some of their variants. We also show how some pragmatic versions of second-order ignorance and of Rumsfeld-ignorance may be formulated. A specific variant of second-order ignorance is particularly relevant. This indicates a strong pragmatic version of ignorance of ignorance, irreducible to any previous form of ignorance, which defines limits to what can justifiably be asserted about higher-order ignorance. Finally, we relate the justified assertion of second-order ignorance (that cannot be known) with scientific assertions.
ISSN:0039-7857
1573-0964
DOI:10.1007/s11229-019-02300-y