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Essay Samples on Ignorance

Examples of ignorance is a bliss and origin of the word.

The word Bliss originates from German and Middle English language and associates with extreme happiness and joy. To feel Bliss literally means to be in the state of ecstasy or in spiritual joy. The meaning of the word can also be represented as a metaphor...

• Linguistics

Knowledge & Understanding Of Ignorance In A Bible

The Republic contrasts forms, which is knowledge, form opinion, represented by appearances and its benefits in leadership. Knowledge, from a biblical basis is acquired through the Holy Spirit as a gift. In Theological-Political Treatise, knowledge is the basis of understanding the role of a state...

The Philosophy Of Ignorance And Knowledge In Buddhism

In order to prepare for the job interview, I had to hack into Buddha’s iPhone. At first, I did not know what I was looking for, but for some reason, something was telling me to do it. When I was looking through the phone I...

Motives That Drive People Towards Discrimination

Why do people discriminate against others? What is the motive? What do they hope to gain? If we understand the answers to those questions, it can help us stop discriminating against others, and enable us to understand and help those who discriminate against us, people...

• Discrimination

An Essay on Liberal Arts and Sciences: Ignorance is Bliss

The statement, ignorance is bliss implies that not having information about something negative makes one happy. Ignorance might be motivated or natural due to inadequate education or limited access to information. Some people find motivated ignorance to be invaluable especially in avoiding information that they...

• Liberal Arts Education

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The Invisible Man: The Problem of Social Blindness and Ignorance

Invisibility sounds like a great super power that anyone would want. Even best of us can get annoyed by this world and sometimes just wishes everyone would leave them alone and stop bothering them, but not everyone wishes that. Some might be wishing for the...

• Invisible Man

The Ignorance of Hitchiking in the Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Have you ever wanted to go exploring out in the wild all by yourself? If so you might want to change your mind. Based on Jon Krakauer’s novel, “Into the wild”, The author explores the life of a young man named Chris McCandless who hitchhikes...

Socrates' Ignorance to the Mythological Concept

Myth has been known to play an important role in the lives and beliefs of people throughout time. Myth is often more closely associated with ancient Greece and its use in telling their history and creation stories. People would worship the many Greek gods and...

The Ignorance of Reality in the Ancient Times

Two prominent and correlating idioms of today are widespread throughout society. Firstly, that “Ignorance is bliss”. Secondly, that “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. We live in a society dominated by these common phrases. Demonstrated in ancient times by two complacent and stubborn brothers...

• Ancient Civilizations

Salem Witch Trials as an Example of Extremism and Ignorance

Scattered through the history of humanity are certain episodes of inexplicable extremism. In some cases, it is strongly linked to the culture of a society, but in others it is merely the fruit of a seed planted by something or someone more important, that is,...

• American History
• Salem Witch Trials

Best topics on Ignorance

1. Examples Of Ignorance Is A Bliss And Origin Of The Word

2. Knowledge & Understanding Of Ignorance In A Bible

3. The Philosophy Of Ignorance And Knowledge In Buddhism

4. Motives That Drive People Towards Discrimination

5. An Essay on Liberal Arts and Sciences: Ignorance is Bliss

6. The Invisible Man: The Problem of Social Blindness and Ignorance

7. The Ignorance of Hitchiking in the Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

8. Socrates’ Ignorance to the Mythological Concept

9. The Ignorance of Reality in the Ancient Times

10. Salem Witch Trials as an Example of Extremism and Ignorance

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Knowledge and Ignorance 

By Jaafar Bouhlal   Updated on March 03, 2023

Introduction

Epistemology

Intellectual Humility

Dialectic Method

Ethics of Belief

Ignorance and Learning

Knowledge and Ignorance is a central theme in philosophy and has been explored by many thinkers throughout history. Here are some of the most important axes related to this topic:

Epistemology: Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge and belief. This axis would explore different theories of knowledge, such as empiricism and rationalism, and how they relate to the pursuit of knowledge and rejection of dogmatism that is central to Socrates' philosophy.

Intellectual Humility: Socrates' commitment to the pursuit of knowledge was rooted in his recognition of his own ignorance. This axis would explore the importance of intellectual humility in the pursuit of knowledge, and how it can help individuals to avoid dogmatism and confirmation bias.

Dialectic Method: Socrates' dialectic method involved asking a series of questions to arrive at a deeper understanding of a concept or idea. This axis would explore the dialectic method and how it can be used to promote the pursuit of knowledge and to challenge assumptions.

Ethics of Belief: The ethics of belief is concerned with questions about the justification and responsibility of belief. This axis would explore how Socrates' philosophy relates to the ethics of belief, and how his emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge can inform ethical decision-making.

Ignorance and Learning: Socrates believed that recognizing our own ignorance is essential to the pursuit of knowledge. This axis would explore the relationship between ignorance and learning, and how Socrates' philosophy can be used to encourage lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity.

Epistemology is a central axis in the topic of knowledge and ignorance because it explores the nature, scope, and limits of knowledge. Socrates' philosophy emphasized the importance of questioning assumptions and examining one's own beliefs, which can be seen as a form of epistemological inquiry. This axis would delve into different theories of knowledge, such as empiricism, which holds that knowledge comes from experience, and rationalism, which holds that knowledge comes from reason and intuition. It would also explore how Socrates' approach to epistemology can inform contemporary debates about the nature of knowledge and how it is acquired. For example, how do we know what we know, and what are the implications of our epistemological assumptions for our understanding of the world?  

Intellectual humility is a concept that emphasizes the importance of recognizing the limitations of one's knowledge and being open to new information and perspectives. In the context of Socrates' philosophy, intellectual humility is central to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. Socrates believed that true wisdom comes from recognizing one's own ignorance and striving to learn more, rather than assuming that one already knows everything. This requires a willingness to admit when one is wrong and to be open to new ideas, even if they challenge one's existing beliefs.

Intellectual humility is important because it helps individuals to avoid dogmatism and confirmation bias, which can limit their ability to learn and grow. By being willing to acknowledge their own limitations and the possibility that they may be wrong, individuals can more effectively evaluate evidence and arguments, and make more informed decisions. This can be especially important in fields such as science, where new discoveries and insights are constantly emerging, and in politics and social issues, where there may be multiple perspectives and interpretations of complex problems.

Socrates' dialectic method is a process of inquiry that involves asking a series of questions to arrive at a deeper understanding of a concept or idea. The process begins with a hypothesis or belief that is put forward by one person, and is then subjected to scrutiny and questioning by another. Through a process of back-and-forth dialogue, the two parties work together to refine their understanding of the concept or idea.

The dialectic method is a powerful tool for promoting the pursuit of knowledge and for challenging assumptions. It encourages individuals to think critically and to examine their beliefs and assumptions in a systematic and rigorous way. By engaging in dialectical inquiry, individuals are able to arrive at a deeper understanding of complex issues and to develop more nuanced and sophisticated perspectives.

The dialectic method has been used in a variety of fields, including philosophy, education, and law. In philosophy, it is often used to explore abstract concepts and to arrive at a clearer understanding of complex philosophical problems. In education, it is used to promote active learning and to encourage students to think critically about the subjects they are studying. In law, it is used to test the validity of legal arguments and to help lawyers to identify weaknesses in their opponent's case.

Socrates' philosophy emphasized the importance of pursuing knowledge and recognizing one's own ignorance. In the context of ethics, this can be seen as a commitment to making informed and justified beliefs. The ethics of belief is concerned with the justification and responsibility of belief, and how we can ensure that our beliefs are well-founded and not harmful to others.

Socrates' approach to ethics involved questioning assumptions and examining one's own beliefs and values. By doing so, individuals can strive to ensure that their beliefs are well-founded and ethically responsible. The Socratic method of questioning can also be used to challenge others' beliefs and to promote critical thinking and intellectual humility.

In contemporary discussions of the ethics of belief, Socrates' emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge and intellectual humility can be seen as relevant and valuable. By encouraging individuals to question their own beliefs and to strive for greater understanding, his philosophy can help to promote responsible belief formation and ethical decision-making.

"Ignorance and Learning" in the topic of Knowledge and Ignorance focuses on Socrates' belief that recognizing one's own ignorance is the first step towards acquiring knowledge. Socrates believed that individuals should never assume that they have all the answers, and that true wisdom comes from recognizing the limits of our knowledge and striving to learn more.

In this axis, the relationship between ignorance and learning is explored, and how Socrates' philosophy can be used to encourage lifelong learning and intellectual curiosity. By embracing intellectual humility and a commitment to questioning assumptions and beliefs, individuals can continuously expand their knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

This axis also highlights the importance of critical thinking and the ability to evaluate information and ideas. Socrates' dialectic method involved questioning assumptions and challenging beliefs in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of a concept or idea. This approach can be applied to many areas of life, including education, politics, and personal relationships, to promote more thoughtful and informed decision-making.

Overall, this axis emphasizes the value of ignorance in the pursuit of knowledge, and how a willingness to admit what we don't know can lead to greater learning and personal growth.

Plato: 'Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.'

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil. This powerful quote by Plato encapsulates the inherent relationship between knowledge and morality. In its straightforward interpretation, the quote suggests that ignorance is the fundamental cause of all wrongdoing and immorality. When individuals lack knowledge or understanding, they are more likely to engage in harmful actions or contribute to societal ills. This concept highlights the importance of education and the pursuit of knowledge in fostering a more just and virtuous world.However, to delve deeper into this topic, let's introduce the philosophical concept of moral ambiguity. This notion challenges the black-and-white view that ignorance leads unequivocally to evil. Moral ambiguity signifies the existence of actions or situations that are neither purely good nor purely evil but lie on a moral continuum. It recognizes the complexity of human nature and the intricate web of factors that contribute to our choices.While Plato's quote emphasizes the negative consequences of ignorance, there are instances where ignorance may not necessarily lead to evil. Consider a child who unintentionally breaks a valuable antique, unaware of its significance. The child's action may cause damage, but without malicious intent, it would be unjust to label it as inherently evil. The key distinction here lies in the absence of knowledge and intention.Conversely, there are situations where knowledge and understanding can be used to perpetuate evil. A well-educated individual may possess the skills and knowledge necessary to manipulate and deceive others, leading to acts of cruelty or injustice. In this scenario, we witness how knowledge can be wielded as a tool of evil, challenging the idea that ignorance is solely responsible for wrongdoing.While ignorance can certainly contribute to fostering an environment conducive to evil, it is important to acknowledge the multidimensionality of morality and the multifaceted nature of human actions. The extent to which ignorance plays a role in perpetuating evil depends on various factors, including intent, context, and the individual's capacity for self-reflection.To truly address the root causes of evil, we must strive for a society that values not only the pursuit of knowledge but also the cultivation of empathy, compassion, and critical thinking. By fostering an educational system that encourages moral development alongside intellectual growth, we can equip individuals with the tools necessary to navigate the complex ethical landscape.While Plato's quote serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of knowledge in combatting evil, it is crucial to explore the nuances and intricacies surrounding this topic. By embracing the concept of moral ambiguity, we can enhance our understanding of the complex relationship between knowledge, ignorance, and morality.In conclusion, Plato's quote, "Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil," encapsulates the fundamental role that lack of knowledge plays in perpetuating wrongdoing. However, it is important to recognize that moral ambiguity exists and challenges the notion that ignorance alone leads unequivocally to evil. By fostering a society that values both knowledge and moral development, we can strive for a world that is not only informed but also compassionate and just.

Plato: 'Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.'

Plato: 'there are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.'.

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Opinions: Knowledge or ignorance

Published 12:00 pm Friday, February 19, 2016

By Oxford Eagle Contributors

P eople often begin statements with “I think”— even though they may not have even thought of the issue until the moment before their mouths pop open.

Since, however, what follows originates in their brains, they claim ownership of the idea. Thinking, in short, does not slow down some folks from speaking poppycock.

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Consider the other way many statements begin: “In my opinion.” Likely the speaker feels that has a more authoritative ring about it. If he happens to be a Supreme Court justice and is speaking of a case on the docket, his opinion carries far more weight than does his saying “I think Coke tastes better than Pepsi.”

Hearing assertions that something is the opinion of someone should set off an alarm in our heads. What we think of the opinion is in direct proportion to what we think of its announcer.

A dunce with an opinion will impress us far less than a learned person saying the same thing. Be not in a hurry to accept the opinions of anyone as absolute truth or good judgment. People still exist who believe the Earth is flat. And some folks maintain that all the images about men on the Moon were faked in a giant studio in California.

Huge differences exist between a parental opinion that Jethro Pithfroggle should date their daughter and a judge in a court of law’s opinion of issues in a case, one in which he has balanced the words of the law and the actions of the accused. But even so, judges reviewing the same facts in a case may well make diverse judgments.

As most issues in court devolve to a Yes or No, the opinions of the various judges usually fall into one or the other judgment, based on the understanding (opinion) of each judge as to the words of the law and the actions of the person before the bar.

At least we can hope that judges do their homework and don’t reach their conclusions over a six-pack of cold beer watching a football game. If the latter be the case, then their opinions are no more valid than every yelling fan in the stands.

A search for observations about the meaning and value of opinions yields some fascinating comments. Here are two from favorite writers of mine.

Hippocrates commented: “Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.” Surely he refers to folks who offer opinions willy nilly on just about everything they encounter without clothing any of it in the threads of careful thought. Plato observed that “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” I think he’s suggesting that an opinion (hopefully predicated on assessment of information at hand) reveals progress toward knowledge and a distancing from pure ignorance.

But that’s just my opinion!

T.J. Ray, a retired professor of English at the University of Mississippi, can be reached at [email protected].

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Ignorance - Free Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Ignorance denotes a lack of knowledge, awareness, or understanding. Essays on ignorance might explore its psychological, social, or philosophical dimensions, its impact on individual and collective decision-making, or the societal mechanisms that perpetuate ignorance. Discussions might also delve into the concept of willful ignorance, the relationship between ignorance and prejudice, or the methods and importance of combating ignorance through education and information dissemination. Analyzing ignorance provides an insightful exploration of the barriers to understanding and the potential pathways to fostering a more informed and aware society. We’ve gathered an extensive assortment of free essay samples on the topic of Ignorance you can find in Papersowl database. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Animal Farm and Ignorance

George Orwell's Animal Farm is a classic cautionary tale that exposes Soviet Russia for being a totalitarian nightmare through the use of satire. In Animal Farm, the animals of Manor Farm rise against their oppressive master Mr. Jones only to have another even more oppressive master, Napoleon the pig. Throughout the book, the animals become miserable and lose more and more rights as the pigs become corrupt. The animals on Animal Farm allow this to happen as they are constantly […]

Ignorance and Lack of Knowledge

Ignorance and lack of knowledge can lead to other forms of slavery in today's society. Teaching how to think, not what to think will lead to a healthier, more productive society. Better critical thinking prevents social outcasts and helps us to grow in culture. Frederick Douglass learned how important education would be to a society, and shares his story in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass searches for a pathway from slavery, through education, to […]

Implicit Vs Explicit Attitudes

Implicit and explicit attitudes are the levels of our attitudes that set our opinions, ideas and attitudes towards other people, objects and situations in our everyday life. Implicit attitudes are the attitudes formed in the unconscious. These attitudes exist without us knowing and are involuntarily formed. Explicit attitudes are the ones we can easily report on, they are formed at a conscious level and we are greatly aware of them. An example is when you meet someone new and instantly […]

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Thesis: Racial and Implicit Bias Plays

Outline Thesis: Racial and Implicit Bias plays a significant part in how individuals are sentenced in our Justice system. Introduction Argument: Racial bias has been an ongoing issue for years, occurring in many different parts of the world. Racial bias not only occurs with people of color, but people of religion or even people of different economic backgrounds. Despite the modern transition that society has taken, society has still struggles with overcoming or creating a solution to resolve this crisis of […]

American History : Racism, Discrimination, and Prejudice

Throughout America’s history, racial profiling has continued to plague this country. Racial profiling refers to any actions initiated based on the erroneous presumption that individuals from a particular group are more likely to engage in illegal activity than people from other groups (Pg. 3.6). Many have questioned whether actions against specific minorities have changed over time, or whether just the issues of discriminatory practices differ. But the central problem stays the same. Given America’s long history of racism, discrimination, and […]

Prejudices and Forms of Racism

Ideas about the typical features of other nations depend on the forms and variety of contacts with them. In this case, the results of those interactions may be not only biases but also prejudices. The latter are formed based on inflexible stereotypes, which are unfounded negative attitudes towards people (Lustig and Koester 152). Prejudices interfere with communication since their carriers demonstrate open hostility and even aggression towards the object of prejudice, which is defined as discrimination (Lustig and Koester 153). […]

Serial Killers Ted Bundy

The Life 'I'm the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet' (14 Chilling, n.d.). “We serial killers are your sons. We are your husbands. We are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow” (14 Chilling, n.d.). Ted Bundy told Ann Rule, “Society wants to believe it can identify evil people, or bad or harmful people, but it's not practical. There are no stereotypes” (Ted Bundy, n.d.). “There lots of other kids playing in streets […]

The Perils of Ignorance: Society’s Battle with Misinformation

In today's rapidly evolving world, misinformation has become a pervasive force, clouding our judgment and distorting our understanding of reality. At the heart of this issue lies ignorance, a formidable adversary that thrives on uncertainty and preys on the uninformed. From conspiracy theories to pseudoscience, the consequences of ignorance are far-reaching, sowing seeds of doubt and discord within the fabric of society. One of the primary drivers of ignorance is the lack of critical thinking skills. In an age where […]

The Conundrum of Ignorance: how Blind Spots Mold our Understanding

In the quest for knowledge, the shadows of ignorance loom large, casting doubt on our perceptions and shaping the contours of our comprehension. It's a paradoxical dance where what we don't know guides our journey more than what we do. This enigmatic interplay between ignorance, enlightenment, and interpretation forms the bedrock of our cognitive landscape. Ignorance, far from being a mere absence of information, serves as a fertile ground for exploration and revelation. It's the fog that envelops our minds, […]

The Perils and Paradoxes of Ignorance: a Scholarly Examination

Ignorance, though often perceived as a mere absence of knowledge, represents a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with profound implications for individuals, societies, and the world at large. As a scholarly critic, tasked with dissecting the intricacies of ignorance, it becomes imperative to explore its various dimensions, from its origins and manifestations to its consequences and potential remedies. At its core, ignorance can be understood as a lack of awareness or understanding, stemming from various sources such as misinformation, cognitive biases, […]

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Education and Ignorance: Between the Noun of Knowledge and the Verb of Thinking

• Open access
• Published: 29 March 2020
• Volume 39 , pages 577–590, ( 2020 )

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• Tomasz Szkudlarek 1 &
• Piotr Zamojski 1  

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In this paper we look at the relations between knowledge and thinking through the lens of ignorance. In relation to knowledge, ignorance becomes its “constitutive outside,” and as such it may be politically organised in order to delimit the borders of the right to knowledge [the “ignorance economy,” see Roberts and Armitage (Prometheus 26 (4): 335–354, 2008)]. In this light, the notion of a knowledge-based society should be understood as a society structured along the lines of knowledge distribution: the rights of possession of and access to knowledge demand that ignorance is planned and executed as the condition of their establishment. In relation to thinking, ignorance appears differently. According to Rancière, the teacher's ignorance conditions the student's appearance as Anthropos, a being who can be asked: what do you think about it? Hence, we are dealing with the ambiguity of ignorance which seems to be both the criterion of social exclusion, and the condition of emancipation. Following this thread with reference to Heidegger's discourse on thinking, we would like to explore the possibility of comprehending knowledge and education beyond the relations of ownership and demands of productivity. Following Rancière, we may say that thinking—as displacing the notion of ignorance—stands in the position of “politics” and questions the ways knowledge societies are structured as “police orders” along the lines of knowledge possession and exclusion.

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Preliminary Remarks

The connection between ignorance and education, traditionally construed in the framework of the Enlightenment crusade against ignorance, has been invigorated in recent years by numerous references to Jacques Rancière's provocative book where teacher’s ignorance is seen as a condition of emancipatory education, and where inequalities between students’ intellectual capacities should be ignored rather than turned into a target of pedagogical intervention. According to Rancière ( 1991 ), the teacher's ignorance conditions the student's appearance as Anthropos , a being who can be asked: what do you think about it? We will refer to this Rancièrean position later in the paper. However, there is one more context in which ignorance has been discussed and which we want to emphasize. Originally, it appeared in the debates on knowledge economy that highly influenced the tone of educational debates and the blueprints of education policies in recent decades. In that particular iteration, knowledge is seen as capital, and restrictions in the access to knowledge, which one may call the production of ignorance, like patent policies or the enforcement of intellectual property rights, are seen as the condition of securing the (economic) value of knowing.

The shifts and possible collisions between the various modes of ignorance relate to the rearrangement of the dominant understanding of education. The Modern imaginary, where ignorance was supposed to be overcome by the pursuit for knowledge through universal education and lead to social emancipation, has been displaced by the discourse of knowledge economy and its emphasis on skills necessary in the production of knowledge that contributes simultaneously to a distribution of ignorance. These interrelated shifts are in the background of our interest in using the lens of ignorance in the investigation into the relations between knowledge and thinking and how these affect our educational and political imaginaries.

Knowledge and thinking are at the core of what we know as education. As we will speak of them extensively further in the paper, it should suffice now to give a practical example to illustrate their somewhat problematic relations in today’s education driven by the market logic, where high-stakes testing has become the ultimate instrument of assessing its validity. In conversation with our students we have heard that some of them were given a peculiar piece of advice concerning their strategy of answering test questions in secondary school finals: if you do not know the answer to a particular question, do not think and proceed to questions you can answer right away; later will you have time to come back to those problematic ones. However anecdotal it is, this piece of advice points to a serious question of the status of thinking in education that seeks accountability and, therefore, must privilege the countable.

Another distinction that we speak about arrived in the process of writing this paper. Very quickly have we encountered a problem with some inconsistencies of language. The first part of our paper addresses the notion of knowledge, and here we speak of structures and borders, of knowledge seen as a product which has a market value, of politics (in the traditional sense of the word) and economy as the powers which define education in terms of investment. We speak of knowing that becomes reified, commodified, that is dreamt of as a “thing” that can be managed and exchanged for other things. In the second part we speak of thinking which, in fact, starts with things. But these things are thought of as interesting as long as they trigger processes: they make us think and such thinking dissolves the solid; it positions us in-between what there is; it reminds us of the very process of being as flowing through beings. Interestingly, the language of these two parts adjusts itself not to where they start, but to that towards which they aim: it “follows” them. In the first part it follows from processes (like learning) to objects, structures, exclusions and borders. In the second part, it departs from objects towards things and thinking, which brings us close to the very flux of being. The language of the first part of the paper is thus organised around nouns, while in the second part it oscillates around verbs.

A difficulty with theorizing education, we think, is that it cannot be narrated in one language. It has to speak both of structures and of processes, it has to shift between the solid and the liquid. In this respect, as we shall conclude, it operates close to what Rancière describes as the tension, or oscillation between “police” and “politics,” between what Laclau and Mouffe called “politics” and “the political,” and between what Heidegger called “the ontic” and “the ontological”. Remote as these distinctions originally may be, they all speak to the productive tension between that which “is” (like Heidegger’s beings, or the ontic) and the very process of their becoming: the Being of beings, or the ontological in Heidegger’s language. What really matters, and what always slips through our articulations and cannot be made clear, is the very relation between the two, “the third” in between. It is tempting to think that this is where education is positioned as the mediating possibility: in this particular case, between the noun of knowledge and the verb of thinking.

Knowledge—Ignorance

The way we think nowadays of the relations between knowledge, politics and education has been strongly influenced by the work of Michel Foucault. Even though Foucault did not speak of education other than as of one of the many sites and practices (like instruction, examination, etc.) where disciplinary power grows to the status of the defining logic of the modern state, the position of education, broadly understood, in his theoretical constructions is far stronger. As Keith Hoskin ( 1990 ) once noted, “the operation of power—knowledge needs a third term: … can that term be other than an educational term?” (p. 52). Footnote 1

The current variety of the knowledge—politics connection is also strongly mediated by education. It has been informed by the discourse of the knowledge society and its preceding concepts, like the knowledge-based economy or the information society, and these notions refer to education with an unceasing frequency. The vision of the knowledge society is not clear, however. It connects vague concepts and metaphors that form an ideological structure which implies, roughly speaking, that the knowledge economy builds (or needs) a knowledge society composed of life-long learning individuals and organisations, that people’s knowledge and skills are valuable assets in such societies, and that the best way of providing for economic growth and social welfare is investing in their learning. In some manifestations of this discourse, human capital investment, as guided by the logic of competition, is balanced by investments in social capital; therefore, it is not only individuals, but also their communities, families and cultures that need investment, that learn, and that therefore “count”. In general, the links between knowledge, politics and economy are inevitably mediated by education, usually re-labelled (with important negative consequences, see Biesta 2006 ) as learning.

This discourse, including its educational component, is clearly dominated by economic rationality to the extent of “genre colonization” (Leitch and Roper 1998 ). However, it has its socially conscious, more spiritual and utopian dimension. This dimension has been expressed in the discourse of social capital, in future-oriented sociological predictions (for instance in Daniel Bell’s forecast that postindustrialism will promote policies oriented towards public good rather than towards cost reductions and economic rationality, Bell 1976 , as cited in Jessop 2008 ) and in such globally circulated documents as the famous UNESCO report written under the guidance of Jacques Delors ( 1996 ). The authors of this report speak about education as “the necessary utopia” believed capable of resolving tensions between the global and the local, the universal and the individual, between tradition and modernity, long-term and short-term considerations, competition and equality of opportunities, between the expansion of knowledge and the limited capacities of its being absorbed by individuals, and—last but not least—between the material and the spiritual (Delors et al. 1996 ). Fully aware of the pressure of economy and of the practical expectations educational audiences have of schools, the authors stress the social, the existential and the ethical as the remedies for the risks and damages brought by the rapid increase in knowledge production, globalization and economic uncertainty. And yet, in spite of its holistic and humanistic attitude, their report—on the rhetorical level, transmitted already by the reference to “treasure” in title of the book—subscribes to the economic rationality which it claims to transcend. This connection is made explicit in a parable the authors use to explicate the nature of “treasure” in learning. Using La Fontaine’s fable on a ploughman who buried treasure in his field to prevent his children from selling the land, they conclude that nowadays it is learning rather than laborious cultivation of land that counts. This transformation of treasure strictly reflects the transformations of capital in modern societies. Investment in land and labour were the factors of production in the classic economy. Delors’s economy is a knowledge economy that depends on the “collective ability to leverage what …. citizens know” (Neef 2009 , p. 5). Delors and his colleagues hope that learning/knowledge will lead from focusing on economic growth to human development (title of Chapter 3 of the report), as well as to a world society and democratic participation. However, economic rationality has costs.

The policies that are involved in this economically informed ideology include competing ideas of investing in people and their knowledges, on the one hand, and cost reductions on the other. As Western economies compete globally with cheaper states with lower wages and less abundant welfare provisions, in neoliberal policies it was cost efficiency rather than growing investment that in fact became the chief aim of reforms in the public sector, which still—in spite of the long-lasting efforts to “rationalize” it along the lines of “new public management”—caters to a vast segment of educational provisions. The dominant, globally promoted solution to this conflict is private investment to supplement deficiencies in public expenditures. For instance, the rapidly growing demand for higher education qualifications was met in many countries with liberalization of state regulations that facilitated the establishment of private, tuition-based higher education institutions. In Poland, for instance, about 300 such institutions were founded in the 1990s, and their demand for academic faculty was resolved by allowing university teachers in public universities to engage in “double full time” employment. Between 1990 and 2005, the number of tertiary education students increased five times, with a comparatively minimal increase in numbers of academic teachers—a 64% increase between 1990 and 2010 (Stankiewicz 2018 , pp. 180–181).

Apart from inconsistencies in the daily practices of the knowledge economy, like mixing the rhetoric of investment in human learning with permanent cost-reduction policies, there is a fundamental difficulty with how we understand the guiding notions of this ideological position: the concepts of the knowledge society, the knowledge economy, knowledge workers, and even the very concept of knowledge are far from clear, not only in theoretical investigations, but also in policy documents. For example, the call for proposals in the EU’s 6th Framework Programme Footnote 2 lists such research areas as “Improving the generation, distribution and use of knowledge and its impact on economic and social development”, “Options and choices for the development of a knowledge-based society” and “The variety of paths towards a knowledge society”. Further, in the section on specific objectives, we are encouraged to “examine the public and private good characteristics of knowledge and to better understand its functions in the European economy and society.” (FP 6 Specific Programme…, 2004 –2006, p. 7). In other words, we need to research and promote the development of a knowledge-based society, but we have no clear idea of what a knowledge society is.

The figure of the knowledge society appears to be, in this account, a rhetorical figure. In terms of Ernesto Laclau’s ( 2005 , 2014 ) theory, it is an empty signifier. In Laclau, the role of such signifiers is to provide ground for political identities in conditions of social heterogeneity, or the fundamental lack of defining logics which could guide attempts at the reconciliation of conflicting social demands. Because society cannot be construed by logical means (Laclau is critical of the Hegelian tradition, and of Marx in particular here; there is no historical logic or structural determination that would define the course of social changes), political identities must be construed rhetorically. Such notions as “nation”,”democracy””social justice” or “knowledge society” cannot be precisely defined, and it is precisely because of this impossibility that they can operate as integrating factors, uniting scattered and conflictual demands into hegemonic policies.

What this juxtaposition of the promotion of knowledge society with Laclau’s theory suggests is that knowledge, learning and education are apparently used as empty and hegemonic signifiers nowadays: they rhetorically create the foundations of one of the nowadays competing political totalities. The discourse of the knowledge society helps to give meaning to such processes as the loss of jobs in industry or the precarization of employment among large cohorts of higher education graduates (Standing 2011 ). It hides behind its elevated rhetoric the divisions and exclusions which build “really existing” knowledge societies. Every social structure is built of differences, and the construction of the knowledge society depends not only on the lines of knowledge production, innovation and learning, but also on the lines of knowledge exclusions. Knowledge can only be defined in relation to the lack of knowledge, to ignorance as its “constitutive outside” in Laclau’s terms, as that which defines its limits, and, thus, marks its territories. Critical theories have long spoken of the destruction, appropriation and exploitation of indigenous knowledges and of the exclusions from knowing, as well as of the narrowing domain of knowledge commons, which nowadays have to be purposefully reconstructed and kept alive as fringe, avant-garde projects of cultural alternatives. The humanistic dimension of this discourse—here represented by Jacques Delors’s report—obliterates such exclusions and subsumes the structure of knowledge inequalities, produced as such in the course of turning knowledge into capital, into the all-inclusive utopia of global learning for global citizenship.

To put it succinctly, the construction of knowledge in contemporary knowledge societies implies the operation and the construction of ignorance. It relates to the transformation of knowledge production and distribution from common knowing and curiosity-driven creativity, the results of which are shared in “knowledge commons,” to profit-driven and procedurally-controlled industrial knowledge production in enclosed domains, followed by protected ownership rights. If knowledge is to “count”, that is, if it should function as an advantage in market competition, it must not be accessible to anyone for free.

The capitalization of academic knowledge affects academic institutions in numerous ways, but its most general impact can be described as undercutting the classic idea of the unity between research and education. In a research project run in four European universities (Dahlgren et al. 2007 ), several aspects of such separation were identified. One illustration is a case reported by one of the students in a university in Poland. A part-time academic teacher, a psychologist also working in a private consultancy company, interrupted her presentation during class to announce that she could not give the students more details because that would constitute selling her knowledge too cheaply. Instead, she invited them to her private company, which provoked indignation on the part of the students. The interview providing this information was conducted in 2002, when such cases were scarce. In 2015, the same university changed the employment rules for its research staff, and all contracts were supplemented with clauses that prohibit employees from publishing research results and from including them in course content until an internal office decides whether they might be commercially valuable.

One of the hypothetical interpretations of such cases in the aforementioned research is that we are witnessing a shift in what can be called “institutional pacts” linking universities with their social milieus (European Commission 2005 ). The emerging pact would be split into two different traits, mediated by two separate “products” of academic work. Both relate to the construction of what Etzkovitz and Leydesdorff ( 1997 ) called a “triple helix” of relations between the world of academe and its political and business milieus. The first pact would link the university to industry on the corporate side, and it is mediated by knowledge production. The second pact would link the university to industry on the labour side, and this one is mediated by skills production .

This separation seems to be supported by more and more evidence nowadays, and its theoretical conceptualization can be found in Marxist and post-Marxist approaches to the knowledge economy. The classic account on the emergence of capitalist economy assumes that there were two necessary conditions to be met: the production of capital, and the production of the working class (Marx 1999 [1887]). The latter was based on the enclosure of common land and the eviction of “commoners,” so that they had no legal means of survival other than wage employment. The worker is, in this perspective, a person who has nothing but his/her hands to sell. It is often claimed that the current transformation of knowledge into capital involves a similar movement (e.g. Phillips 2005 ; Zeller 2008 ; Jessop 2007 ). The massification of higher education is aimed at the production of knowledge workers, and as such they do not have to be equipped with advanced knowledge, nor are they expected to have it by their employers. If today's economy is driven by knowledge production , its possession cannot be expected of its workers. What is needed instead is that they have the skills necessary for such production (Szkudlarek 2010 ).

In this respect, the knowledge economy and its correlate knowledge society emerge within a logic similar to that which guided the emergence of earlier forms of capital. Jessop ( 2007 ) describes the commodification of knowledge, including the resistance to its devastating effects, as following the same stages as those that could be identified in the process of turning land, labour, and money into factors of production and capital in earlier phases of capitalism. The current tendencies to, on the one hand, subordinate knowledge to measurable “impact factors”, to integrate it into the flow of monetary capital (knowledge-technology transfer policies), to expand the intellectual property rights regulations, etc., and, on the other hand, the emergence of the “knowledge commons” movement, especially in its more mainstream varieties, like open access publications, present exactly the same logic as that pertaining to the commodification of earlier forms of assets. Both these movements are part of the same political logic of knowledge capitalism and they clearly repeat earlier developments of the system.

In this context, the split between skills education and knowledge education in academic institutions should be read in a radical sense, as a condition of the construction of knowledge capitalism. Its development implies the production, distribution, and management of ignorance as the border of knowledge enclosures. As Joanne Roberts and John Armitage write ( 2008 ),

the knowledge economy is precisely rooted in the production, distribution, and consumption of ignorance and lack of information. What we are suggesting, then, is that the so-called knowledge economy is one wherein the production and use of knowledge also implies the creation and exploitation of ignorance. For not only knowledge but also ignorance now plays a main role in the formation of advanced global capitalism. (p. 345)

To put it differently, when knowledge, instead of being a common good that overcomes ignorance and enables emancipation and rationalisation of social relations, becomes a commodity that one can produce, sell, or purchase, it cannot be shared freely. It starts to be clear that some people have to stay ignorant about certain matters; that knowledge economy, and with it economically controlled education, is about distribution of who knows and who doesn’t know what, rather than about popular enlightenment. Education in Modernist sense, i.e. as acquisition of knowledge and the construction of emancipated peoples is being displaced by the knowledge economy’s emphasis on skills and the production of knowledge workers that are ignorant about that knowledge which makes market advantage possible. In other words, the functioning of a knowledge society and a knowledge economy requires making particular persons ignorant about things that concern them, in order to do business or implement a policy (cf. Proctor and Schiebinger 2008 ).

The Leap into Thinking

Ignorance, as the constitutive outside of the discourse of the knowledge economy and the knowledge society, is thus incorporated and managed by its very logic. It is included as excluded (cf. Agamben 1998 ). But does this mean, however, that the discourse of the knowledge economy and the knowledge society does not have an exterior that delimits its presence? On the contrary. What should draw our attention is the absolute absence of thinking within its limits. As not matching the structure of that discourse, thinking is removed from sight. This happens by conceiving knowledge and ignorance in terms of an opposition.

Being opposed, knowledge and ignorance refer to the difference between power to control and being excluded. In this instance, knowledge is an advantage, a desired feature of the subject, being decisive in determining its social, political and economic potency. Hence it is understood as something one possesses and manages: capital. Having knowledge means being aware of things and being able to control them, that is being able to perform the power that knowledge gives (cf. Bacon [ 1620 ] 2000 ). Being related to power, knowledge is an advantage that marks the superiority of its owner, both over the subject of knowledge, and over the ignorant.

However, lack of knowledge, as a state of not being aware of things and of not being able to control them, not only signifies those who are themselves under the control of others. Being ignorant means also being put in the position of being ignored, being not taken into account, being placed out of sight. In this instance, education is conceived in terms of enlightenment, as the move from ignorance towards knowledge, from inferiority towards superiority: the move of emancipation.

Of course this will never happen: nature itself makes sure of it; there will always be delay, always inequality. But one can thus continually exercise the principle of reducing it… (Rancière 1991 , p. 119).

Indeed, as expressed above, according to Jacques Rancière, setting in motion a practice based on the assumption of inequality leads not to the emancipation of anyone, but to the verification of inequality itself. Since having knowledge is an advantage, a property of a person (in both senses) that makes him/her superior to those deprived of it, education, as the move from ignorance towards knowledge, defines the relation between the master and the student in terms of subordination, as the relation between those who have knowledge and those who do not have it (yet). But such a relation, Rancière ( 1991 ) argues, is not emancipative, but reproductive: it reproduces the inequality which it assumes, by making education “an indefinite process of coming closer. Never will the student catch up with the master, nor the people with its enlightened elite” (p. 120).

Education can emancipate, but this requires a different assumption shaping the pedagogical relation: that we are all of equal intelligence. Only if we assume equal intelligence a priori, can it become true in educational practice. However, the equality of intelligence is verified through the performance of the equality of ignorance:

…whoever wishes to emancipate someone must interrogate him in the manner of men and not in the manner of scholars, in order to be instructed, not to instruct. And that can only be performed by someone who effectively knows no more than the student, who has never made the voyage before him – the ignorant master. (Rancière 1991 , pp. 29–30).

So it is the equality of ignorance that conditions the verification of the equality of intelligence (cf. p. 31), as it is the ignorance of the master that conditions the student’s appearance as Anthropos , the being who can be asked: “what do you think about it?” (p. 36). In such a way, the intelligence of the student reveals itself to itself, nurturing the experience of being able to (cf. Masschelein and Simons 2013 ).

But is this ignorance simply opposed to knowledge as not-knowing? On the contrary, the ignorant student knows her language, her trade, her tool, and their uses (Rancière, 1991 , p. 36, cf. p. 28)—what she lacks is the awareness of her intellectual capabilities. The ignorant master knows how to interrogate her students and judge their attention (pp. 29–31), but she does not possess the knowledge about the subject of the lesson. The equality of ignorance does not, therefore, mean an intellectual emptiness of not knowing anything, but it concerns something from the world that is to be examined; it concerns the subject of thought.

Ignorance—Thinking

Hence, Rancière not only indicates the link between intelligence, ignorance, and thinking, but he also points to thinking (using intelligence) as the realm in which the opposition between knowledge and ignorance falls apart, the realm in which what is understood as knowledge and ignorance is being displaced.

We believe that this displacement can be grasped with reference to the notion of inter-esse , and that it eventually points beyond the issue of emancipation toward the matters of concern or attention to the world. In order to make that clear, we will now turn to Martin Heidegger’s lectures on thinking ( 1968 ). According to him we think because “some things make an appeal to us to give them thought, to turn to them in thought: to think them” (p. 6).

So it starts with a thing. Naturally a thing is not an object. It is not made for use in our everyday trade and traffic (cf. Heidegger 1962 , p. 439), it is not functionally involved in [ Bewandtnis ] other objects (p.115), is not ready-to-hand [ Zuhandenheit ] (p. 98). An object [ der Gegenstand ]—something which stands over against (Heidegger 1977b , p. 162)—is an effect of re-presentation [ Vor-stellen ], which is being set upon [ stellen ] for ordering [ bestellen ] as standing-reserve [ Bestand ] (Heidegger 1973 , p. 87, 97; 2000 , p. 72, 83; 1977a , p. 17). An object is a resource not to think about, but to be calculated in our enterprises (cf. 1977b ).

By contrast, the thing refers to “anything that in any way bears upon men, concerns them, and that accordingly is a matter for discourse” (Heidegger 1971 , p. 174). So if objects are managed , things are posing questions . The thing gathers meanings of human concern; it focuses people’s attention not as a resource ( standing-reserve ), but as a self-standing and intrinsic part of their world.

Therefore the thing is thought-provoking ; it gives us to think (Heidegger 1968 , p. 4, 6); it is the beginning of thinking. In order to think one has to move from surrounding objects of daily disposal towards a thing calling on us to think (p. 115).

Heidegger writes:

“Thinking is thinking when it answers to what is most thought-provoking” (p. 28).

Originally this sentence says:

“Das Denken denkt , wenn es dem Bedenklichsten entspricht” (Heidegger 1952/ 2002 , p. 30). Footnote 3

This could be rendered literally as:

“Thinking thinks when it responds and corresponds to what is the most important to think about.”

First of all, we must acknowledge Heidegger’s leitmotif, ontological difference, turning us from being [ das Seiende ] towards Being [ sein ]. Thinking, in his argument, is not conceived of as a noun [ das Denken ], but as a verb [ denken ]. It is something that happens, proceeds, moves, and so it cannot be grasped with the help of intellectual tools delivered by a Western metaphysics that perceives what stands-still and is a result of something else, what is stable, closed, and can be calculated, ordered and managed – an object (cf. Heidegger 1973 , 2000 ). Thinking is not an object to possess. It is not an outcome that could be owned. It is not someone’s desired feature, a piece of capital increasing one’s possibilities in life. Thinking is a path, a way of being, one of which one can be deprived.

Let us repeat:

Thinking, therefore, is a response to a call of the thing to turn towards it in thought. Thinking is a response to something in the world that is thought-provoking, that gives us to think (Heidegger 1968 , p. 4). It is a relation to a thing that inclines us towards itself, touches and concerns us, as that which is the most serious [ das Bedenklichste ], what is most to be thought about. Therefore, thinking is a gift from the world that requires a kind of attention that is sensitive not to the attractiveness and functionality of objects, but to the seriousness and importance of the thing. Thinking requires being interested in the world; that is, it requires to be inter-esse : “to be among and in the midst of things, or to be at the center of a thing and to stay with it” (Heidegger 1968 , p. 5).

To be interested does not mean to control, to manage objects (revealed in the ordering mode as standing-reserve), but to listen, to be attentive, to be near, to be in the neighbourhood (Heidegger 1968 , p. 12, 17; 1971 , p. 166, 177). Heidegger calls this attention as being drawn .

At first sight, such a way of being could be opposed to ignorance. Inter-esse signifies letting appear, being turned to, paying attention to, and not ignoring (the world or a thing). However, in such a case ignorance does not simply mean being unaware of things (as it was when ignorance was opposed to knowledge), but it also means not paying attention—which seems to be also the case of knowledge concerning objects in the realm of Enframing [ Ge-stell ].A technological mode of revealing the concealed, in which all that presents itself appears as an object (“objectness,” as Heidegger calls it; Heidegger 1977b , p. 163) is not inter-ess e. It orders the re-presentations of things as a standing-reserve of Ge-stell . Therefore, such knowledge is not interested in things, is not paying attention, that is, it ignores everything that does not fit its frame. Paradoxically, it could thus be called ignorant.

Does this mean that thinking is opposed to ignorance? On the contrary: ignorance makes the movement of thought ongoing. However, this movement requires ignorance to stem from inter-esse , that is, it requires ignorance to provoke the knowing being into being drawn by the thing of its interest.

In other words: thinking requires a play between knowledge and ignorance, which makes us both aware and attentive, but simultaneously not sure and without power to control. In Heidegger’s ( 1968 ) terms, it is about the withdrawal of the thought-provoking thing:

What withdraws from us, draws us along by its very withdrawal, whether or not we become aware of it immediately, or at all. Once we are drawn into the withdrawal, we are drawing toward. What draws, attracts us by its withdrawal. (p. 9)

We are attracted to a thing because of the play between what we know and what we do not know. We are paying attention to a thing because of what we do not know, and because of what we are aware of. Both, knowledge and ignorance, drive the movement of thought. However, we are talking here about knowledge that is aware of its limits (of its own ignorance), and about ignorance that is interested, is paying attention, is being drawn. Ignorance that does not ignore.

The withdrawal of what is thought-provoking means that being drawn never reaches its fulfilment. Therefore, thinking is infinite, radically open and, in a way, unproductive (cf. Masschelein 1996 ). So it does not end with a result that embodies its nature, purpose, or sense. Thinking is not encompassed by its product—in fact, it has not got any product at all. Being drawn into what withdraws as thought-provoking, that is as the most serious thing to think about, does not have its “natural” end. Naturally, one who thinks can stop the movement of his/her thoughts and turn away from the thing of his/her interest. However, stopping does not mean resulting in or producing. Therefore Heidegger ( 1968 ) notes:

Thinking does not bring knowledge as do the sciences.

Thinking does not produce usable practical wisdom.

Thinking solves no cosmic riddles.

Thinking does not endow us directly with the power to act. (p. 159)

But does not thinking bring something to our world? Is being unproductive something more than just being empty, being meaningless? What is the sense of thinking?

Let us turn to Hannah Arendt ( 2003 ) here, who reminds us of one of the similes Socrates applied to himself: a gadfly (p. 173). Thinking is a wind , she repeats, following him (and Heidegger), that unfreezes solidified convictions. “Thinking is equally dangerous to all creeds and, by itself, does not bring forth any new creed” (p. 178).

It is therefore destructive in nature; it dismantles the prescribed order of things, disintegrates our knowing; and so it is a painful experience, like a bite of a gadfly to those rooted in, or attached to the current form of status quo . Thinking is dangerous, disruptive; it is an excess that exceeds what is expected, acknowledged, acquired. And although it does not bring forth any new creed , it opens up a space for the new to appear. Hence, apart from its disruptive side thinking is an affirmation of potentiality and refers to an educational imaginary of study practices (Lewis 2015 ; Vlieghe 2013 ). Footnote 4

Following Rancière, we may say that thinking, as displacing the notion of ignorance, stands in the position of “politics” not only by questioning the ways knowledge societies are structured along knowledge possession and exclusion, but also by making room in the “police order” for the new to come.

In Jacques Rancière’s political theory, the social world is constituted by two aesthetics. The first one is a categorising, or mapping structure, which distributes social beings along the lines of visibility, audibility, or, in a general sense, availability to the senses. Some things are visible, some other are not. Some humans are visible and audible, some other ones are not. Their visibility is possible in certain places and certain times and impossible in other ones. Subjects can be seen and heard when they appear in the right time and the right place, and it is just some subjects who can be seen/heard in particular places. Such an aesthetic, such rules of the division of the sensible (in Rancière’s language), Rancière calls “police” ( 1999 , 2010 ).

The second aesthetic is that of disruption of the first one. It resorts to demonstration, to the appearance of the “wrong” people in the “wrong” places, to claiming space and time for the presence of those who were not expected to be there or to speak. It disrupts the police order and creates conditions for its reconfiguration. This aesthetic is called “politics” by Rancière.

The two modes of ignorance we have referred to in this paper are rooted in these two aesthetics. Ignorance, thus, appears “in the mode of exclusion,” as the constitutive outside to the knowledge economy, and, as such, it is absorbed to that economic realm as an object to be managed in a way which secures the commodification of knowledge. Ignorance also appears “in the mode of emancipation” in a Rancièrean sense, as linked with thinking and, therefore, involved in an interplay with knowledge that moves the Anthropos towards the thing and its call to give it a thought. As we have suggested in the introduction to this paper, the first of these modes finds its expression in the aesthetic dominated by nouns: it speaks of ignorance as opposed to knowledge, which itself is seen as plural and property—bound objects to be managed. In this aesthetic—the “police” aesthetic of a knowledge society—the reification and commodification of knowledge and the rearticulation of knowledge as capital find a “natural” setting. By the same token, the production and distribution of ignorance become a means of social exclusion, as the ignorant is placed in the position of being ignored. The same mode is one of the key aesthetics of contemporary educational practice, where knowledge is also parcelled into separate chunks, which can be represented, listed, classified, transmitted, absorbed, digested, and excreted in the form of ticks on test sheets, and where ignorance can be battled, marginalised, eradicated, and simultaneously produced, distributed, and ranked.

The second mode appears to be more complex in this respect. As we have suggested, its aesthetic oscillates around verbs , and it speaks not about an opposition, but about a play between knowledge and ignorance, therefore displacing their meanings from the “police” aesthetic of properties, placements, positions, and structures, towards movements, events, and ruptures of “politics.” Knowledge and ignorance are in play; they are intertwined as someone’s being aware and paying attention, as knowing ignorance, not ignoring and being ignored, but staying among the things of interest ( inter-esse ), being attentive to, concerned for, drawn into what withdraws. Being in someone’s turn toward a thing which is calling for attention, ignorance and knowledge drive the movement of thought that disrupts the stand-still of the structure of the status quo , and—as such—makes the thing/the world open for renewal. Therefore, in the aesthetics of “politics,” the play of the ignorance that does not ignore and the knowledge that is aware of its ignorance, opens up a space for the experience of being able to happen. In this case, education might be understood as time and space for an unproductive being drawn by what withdraws as the most serious and thought-provoking, by the thing of one’s interest. It requires being attentive, sensitive to what appears in the neighbourhood of our Being as calling to give it a thought. Such education is driven by the question: what calls us to thinking?

In this section we are using excerpts from a previously published chapter (Szkudlarek 2016 ), where the relation between knowledge society and ignorance is discussed more extensively and systematically.

Framework Programmes have been the main agenda for financing large, collaborative, internationally-based research projects within the EU and associated countries.

Fully acknowledging the skills of F. D. Wieck and J. Glenn Grey, who translated Heidegger’s Was heißt denken? , we have decided, nonetheless, to recall the original of this phrase because we wish to refer to those meanings that, in the case of this particular sentence, require a literal rendering.

Following Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy, Tyson Lewis ( 2015 ) gives an account of studying in terms of an interminable exploration of some-thing, that preserves a particular ignorance (stupidity), and doesn’t lead to any fulfilment (is not productive), but enables pure potentiality, i.e. (im)potentiality. For more elaborated theorisation of the connection between Heidegger’s concept of a thing and Agamben/Lewis’s concept of study see: Vlieghe and Zamojski ( 2019 ).

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Szkudlarek, T., Zamojski, P. Education and Ignorance: Between the Noun of Knowledge and the Verb of Thinking. Stud Philos Educ 39 , 577–590 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-020-09718-9

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PLATO ON THE POWER OF IGNORANCE

• Published: August 2012
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In Book V of Plato’s Republic , Plato has Socrates distinguish between three distinct cognitive powers ( dunameis ): knowledge ( epistēmē ), opinion ( doxa ), and ignorance ( agnosia ). Powers, Socrates goes on to explain, are distinguished in virtue of what they are related to and what they accomplish ( eph hōi te esti kai hō apergazetai --477d1). In this section of the dialogue, the second of these two differentiae is not invoked again; instead, all of the distinctions Socrates makes here are made in terms of the different objects to which the powers are related. Knowledge, we are told, is related to what is (to on); ignorance is related to what is not (to mē on); opinion is related to what both is and is not.Scholars have attended almost entirely to the distinction between knowledge and opinion, and for good reason: It is clear that this distinction is the primary one that Plato wishes to explicate here, as it is in terms of this distinction that the important difference between the philosopher rulers and ordinary rulers will be drawn. The distinctions between knowledge and ignorance and opinion and ignorance are only very briefly mentioned, and ignorance itself remains almost wholly unexplained. This chapter discusses the role of ignorance in Plato’s epistemology. This chapter's analysis is novel in four ways: First, other scholars have attended almost exclusively to the roles assigned to knowledge and opinion in this passage, and have neglected to explain whether — and if so, how — their analyses could explicate what Plato has Socrates say about ignorance. Secondly, the chapter argues that we should not understand the ‘related to’ part of Plato’s analysis as an intensional one: cognitive powers are not ‘of’ or ‘about’ the objects to which they are related, as scholars have generally supposed. The relationship of the powers to objects, rather, is a nomological one. Thirdly, I argue that what is produced by the cognitive powers are what we would call conceptualizations (or conceptions) of the entities to which they are said to be related ( epi ). Finally, the chapter argues that the case of ignorance makes clear that the ‘is’ in Plato’s analysis of the relata of each cognitive power must be understood neither veridically (where ‘is’ means ‘is true’), nor existentially (where ‘is’ means ‘exists’), but predicatively (where ‘is’ means ‘is F,’ where F is the name of a Platonic Form).

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The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance

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Ignorance is a neglected issue in philosophy. This is surprising for, contrary to what one might expect, it is not clear what ignorance is. Some philosophers say or assume that it is a lack of knowledge, whereas others claim or presuppose that it is an absence of true belief. What is one ignorant of when one is ignorant? What kinds of ignorance are there? This neglect is also remarkable because ignorance plays a crucial role in all sorts of controversial societal issues. Ignorance is often thought to be a moral and legal excuse; it is a core concept in medical ethics and debates about privacy, and it features in religious traditions and debates about belief in God. This book does not only study an epistemic phenomenon that is interesting in itself, but also provides important tools that can be fruitfully used in debates within and beyond philosophy.

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The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance pp i-ii

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The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance - Title page pp iii-iii

Copyright page pp iv-iv, dedication pp v-vi, contents pp vii-viii, introduction pp 1-11.

• By Rik Peels , Martijn Blaauw

1 - The Nature of Ignorance: Two Views pp 12-32

• By Pierre Le Morvan , Rik Peels

2 - The Varieties of Ignorance pp 33-56

• By Nikolaj Nottelmann

3 - Ignorance and Incompetence: Linguistic Considerations pp 57-80

• By Berit Brogaard

4 - Explicating Ignorance and Doubt: A Possible Worlds Approach pp 81-95

• By Erik J. Olsson , Carlo Proietti

5 - Ignorance and Epistemic Contextualism1 pp 96-113

• By Michael Blome-Tillmann

6 - Anti-Intellectualism and Ignorance pp 114-131

• By Jessica Brown

7 - Ignorance and Epistemic Value pp 132-143

• By Duncan Pritchard

8 - Ignorance and the Religious Life pp 144-159

• By Justin McBrayer

9 - Epistemic Injustice and the Preservation of Ignorance pp 160-177

• By Miranda Fricker

10 - Ignorance and Racial Insensitivity pp 178-201

• By José Medina

References pp 202-214

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Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy

James M. Ambury and Andy German (eds.), Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy , Cambridge University Press, 2019, 274pp., $105.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781107184466.

Reviewed by Christopher Moore, Penn State University

The problem of self-knowledge is a reasonable candidate for the core problem of philosophy. It serves as a good nexus for epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics and for approaches from all corners of the discipline. It keeps the inquiry somewhat below the heavens. And it makes sense of Socrates as an exemplary figure, one who strives, with analytic acuity, to undermine conceits and doctrinal self-confidence. The as-yet-unresolved difficulties constituting the problem of self-knowledge fall into at least two overlapping historical groups. There are those programmatic in contemporary epistemology, connected to warrant for first-person knowledge of occurrent mental states. These include matters of evidence, justification, and specification of the knowable mental states: the general question is, given the differences between apprehending facts in the outer and the mental worlds, how can both kinds of fact-apprehension count as knowledge?

The other difficulties are those best known from ancient Greek philosophy, connected to the kind of thing the self must be to stand both as a subject and object of knowledge. These include whatever limits on reflexivity there may be; the nature of selfhood and its relation to psuchê , desires, reason, and individuality; and the degree to which “knowing oneself” really amounts to coming to be able to know (anything) and coming to be a self (rather than jumble of instincts, impressions, and reactions). The general question here is, given the range of things one could strive to know — e.g., human norms, the will of the gods, cosmic patterns — what makes striving to know oneself both possible and beneficial? Plato’s dialogues reflect a lifetime of his and Socrates’ explicit and productive attention to these latter problems of self-knowledge. But if self-knowledge were a core problem in (ancient) philosophy, we might expect more scholarship directed at it — and not just bromides about the gnôthi sauton and the therapeutic effects of the so-called elenchus.

This feeling of a lack motivates the volume edited by James M. Ambury and Andy German. One of the book’s strengths is that it shows issues of self-knowledge to suffuse Plato’s works, emphasizing Alcibiades , Apology , Charmides , Phaedrus , Republic , Symposium , Theaetetus , and Theages , and giving some attention to Laws , Meno , Parmenides , Philebus , and Sophist . The editors also have the salutary goal of including chapters “from very different interpretative principles.” A weakness of the book, however, is that this breadth and openness serves no specifically articulated program of investigation and, as we will see, mostly foregoes dialectical engagement with others in and out of Plato studies concerned about self-knowledge. Too often papers end up being isolated, if edifying, readings of specific dialogues on the theme of knowledge of oneself. I turn to those chapters, with the upshot for self-knowledge, below. First, the title and introduction.

This book’s title, Knowledge and Ignorance of Self in Platonic Philosophy , is neither entirely idiomatic nor entirely apt (the editors really only speak of “self-knowledge” and a bit about “self-ignorance”); but no matter - maybe it’s better for search results. “Platonic” serves rather than “Plato’s” to indicate studies of the dialogues of doubted authenticity and of Proclus, a ("neo")Platonist. I do query the final word, “Philosophy”: why not “Dialogues”? Most chapters explicate dialogues rather than articulate, against or in conversation with other philosophers, for example Heraclitus or Aristotle or Kant, a “Platonic” “philosophy,” as a distinctive program or result of inquiry. There are exceptions, to be sure, and the editors are free to believe that Plato has views that can be recovered. Despite their claim, however, I don’t think the book really aims to “highlight the relevance of Plato’s thought to contemporary debates on selfhood, self-reflection, and subjectivity.”

The introduction is part of the problem. It opens with some high paragraphs about “a certain loss of confidence in modernity’s philosophical conception of . . . ‘selfhood’ as such” and the motivation to return to Plato’s thinking about “our capacity for becoming . . . an object of our own interior reflection . . . without our . . . now-questionable concept of subjectivity.” It soon leaves that (unpromising) theme for a list of some topics in relation to which Plato seems to think about self-knowledge, including the pursuit of desire, psychic structure, the nature of thinking, and the educability of the soul.

But is there really value in thinking specifically about Plato on self-knowledge? I see two related ways to show it. Ambury and German could have shown that Plato’s works clarify, rejigger, even resolve ongoing philosophical problems of, say, self-determination, the discovery of human nature, or the evaluation of one’s commitments. For example: Sartre’s idea that thinking of oneself as a source of action as one thought too many; Moran’s analysis of self-knowledge as determined through investigation rather than discovered through introspection. Or the editors could have shown that existing scholarship on Plato has developed important questions internal to Plato’s work that can be satisfactorily dealt with only by thinking about self-knowledge.

Neither route gets followed here. The introduction almost wholly avoids scholarly engagement: it cites only five works, almost in passing and none by name, as proving a burgeoning industry in the topic. On the first page, the editors write: “Doubtless there has been a sea change in the three decades since Julia Annas’ diagnosis that Plato’s interest in self-knowledge ‘faded’ as he graduated to a more mathematical conception of ἐπιστήμη and its objects.” They mean Annas’ 1985 “Self-Knowledge in Early Plato.” It no longer represents the state of the art; but it is a great chapter in an edited collection, and deserves its frequent citation, for the very reason that it advances a determinate multi-part thesis with which one can engage: what counts as “self-knowledge” (she famously defines it, with Bradley, as knowing “one’s stations and duties”), what role it plays in the arguments of Plato’s dialogues, how it can be identified with justice, and the way other concepts end up playing its role, for good reasons, in certain of Plato’s dialogues. Even though I, for one, would take issue with each part, the paper brilliantly articulates an anxiety I have concerning the limits on the usefulness of the concept of “self-knowledge” in Plato. Disappointingly, Annas’ paper never arises again in this book.

On page 7, Ambury and German cite the other four works. No content is ascribed to Edward Ballard’s Socratic Ignorance: An Essay on Platonic Self-Knowledge (1965), dismissed simply as “outdated” despite having a “masterful command of the topic.” Nor is content ascribed to Charles Griswold’s Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus (1986) or Andrea Tschemplik’s Knowledge and Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus (2008), both dismissed for concerning only single dialogues: but for the unitarian, so what? Similarly, no content is ascribed to my own Socrates and Self-Knowledge (2015), dismissed as concentrating “exclusively” on Socrates (in Charmides , Alcibiades , Phaedrus , and Philebus ), though given the centrality of Socrates to each of this volume’s thirteen chapters, and the way, arguably, Plato develops his views through the conversations of Socrates, I don’t see the problem. Thus the introduction does not provide a dialectical justification for studying Plato on self-knowledge, and does not bring a reader up-to-speed on, or remind a fellow laborer about, the still-urgent topics in the field.

I belabor the editors’ underuse of scholarship because it is symptomatic for the volume. Four chapters have effectively no explicit engagement with others (Lloyd P. Gerson, Drew A. Hyland, Jeremy Bell, Eric Sanday); two others have minimal engagement (Thomas Tuozzo, Sara Ahbel-Rappe); the rest point to parallel discussions by other scholars without engaging concertedly with them. Does this mavericity betray the Socratic-Platonic vision of self-knowledge as adhering to a regimen of reciprocal examination, a recognition of our epistemic feebleness and the godsend in finding others who might teach us something? (There is no index entry for “self-knowledge, and conversation.”)

Onto the chapters now, which follow no editorially specified order.

1. Gerson, “Self-Knowledge and the Good.”  Self-knowledge is the recognition of (= knowledge of and identification with) one’s ideal self, which is one’s reason or intellect, as opposed to some merely apparent self, for example the subject of one’s occurrent desires. Knowing oneself involves making judgments about one’s desires, assessing whether they aim at the actual rather than merely apparent good. Thus self-knowledge, a real achievement, also requires knowledge of the form of the good. “Self-knowledge is the mediating idea between the metaphysics of the Good and the way of life that is philosophy.” Whatever metaphysical commitments coming to know oneself actually requires, this paper enunciates — efficiently, provocatively, and persuasively — the core commitment of Platonic self-knowledge: the self is a normative self, constituted by its rational commitments to the good and the true. Many of the subsequent chapters adopt this view, even if silently or indirectly. Unlike some of the following chapters, however, this one demonstrates that one can talk of Platonic self-knowledge without talk of psuchê (“soul”), which seems often to become a lexical redundancy.

2. Tuozzo, “Two Faces of Platonic Self-Knowledge: Alcibiades I and Charmides .”  Though the Alcibiades focuses on knowledge of self and, by contrast, the Charmides focuses on knowledge of itself , these dialogues end up with compatible and mutually illuminating views of self-knowledge. Tuozzo gives insightful and convincing readings of each dialogue to show this. (A Gersonian shortcut not here taken: if the self is a knowing self, then a person’s knowledge of herself as knower is both a knowledge of oneself and a knowledge of knowledge.) Consistency between two dialogues matters little on its own terms; Tuozzo goes on to claim that both dialogues concern a knowledge that “is strictly speaking good for a human being.” This is an important claim; it seeks an answer to the question posed by Socrates in the Charmides and Alcibiades in the Alcibiades : what value is there in the reflexive or hierarchical state of knowing knowledge? Is it not empty because redundant? This is a question many of the subsequent chapters address, even if (again) silently or indirectly. An answer in the context of these two dialogues should have something to do with sôphrosunê , the virtue of “discipline” that serves as the Charmides ’ focal concept and Alcibiades ’ argumentative pivot, in both dialogues equated, at least tentatively, with self-knowledge.

3. Hyland, “Socratic Self-Knowledge and the Limits of Epistêmê .”  Self-knowledge is not a mode of epistêmê (“knowledge”); it must be some other epistemic state. This is argued on the basis of the Charmides , with Hyland claiming that the view that self-knowledge as an epistêmê of epistemai (etc.) is shown to be impossible but that “Socratic self-knowledge” — knowing what one knows and does not know — is not. The dialogue does show something unsatisfactory about Critias’ analysis of self-knowledge as a second-order epistêmê on the model of the various fields of knowledge, such as medicine and geometry. But it seems to me that the Socratic inflection, which is merely personalized and treated in terms of the verb eidenai , fares no better in the argument, even if Socrates shows its possibility through his actions. There are other mistaken or misleading statements in this through-reading of the dialogue. It refers to virtually no scholarship other than Hyland’s 1981 book on the Charmides — itself inspirational for the time, uniquely putting the dialogue at the center of philosophical reflection, but one not benefited from the nearly four decades of rigorous and textually sensitive attention to the dialogue since its publication. Hyland does not even acknowledge the existence of Tuozzo’s work in the preceding chapter or his field-changing 2011 study of the dialogue.

4. Ahbel-Rappe, “Socratic Wisdom and Platonic Knowledge in the Dialogues of Plato.”  Self-knowledge is both high wisdom and empty: it is not the knowledge of any object of knowledge — i.e., any mental content — but rather of knowing itself, the “container” or judge of those contents. Comments about the Charmides and a successful description of the latter parts of the Theaetetus advance the two parts of this claim. It is not an easy argument to follow, lacking dialectical engagement with any surrounding chapters. But thematic continuity exists: with Hyland, the knowledge constituting Socrates’ wisdom or self-knowledge differs from the usual sorts of knowledge; with Tuozzo, it is somehow reflexive but not too reflexive; with Gerson, it is an essential feature of one’s conception of oneself as knower.

5. James M. Ambury, “Between Ascent and Descent: Self-Knowledge and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.”  Each level of the divided line in Republic Book 6 corresponds to a type of self-knowledge. “Eikastic”: I see my shadow as me . “Aporetic”: I see my shadow as a shadow of me, but I do not know what I am. “Dianoetic”: I see myself as once having been confused about myself, and am pleased about my newfound self-understanding. “Intellective”: I know myself in my knowing, a subject and not mere object of knowledge. This chapter also explains why philosophers have to “return to the cave”: full self-knowledge recognizes that one is not purely an intellective being, and so one cannot live solely with intellectual objects. I did not feel particularly assisted in seeing how the four-fold taxonomy maps onto practical life. Would, too, that there had been engagement with the only other recent paper on self-knowledge in the Republic , Mary Margaret McCabe’s “From the Cradle to the Cave: What Happened to Self-Knowledge in the Republic?” ( Platonic Conversations , 2015).

6. Brian Marrin, “Self-Knowledge and the Use of the Self in the Platonic Theages. ”  Self-knowledge amounts, finally, to knowing what to do with oneself, what final end to pursue. Marrin argues from a thought-experiment about the tyrant who can do anything , unobstacled, but whose freedom makes salient his ignorance about its use, and from the drama of the Theages , which includes Socrates’ famous knowledge of ta erôtika as “his capacity for uncovering for his interlocutors the true nature of their desires.” We have returned yet again to self-knowledge as the clarification of and identification with one’s fundamental desires: the recovery of a (normative) self.

7. Sara Brill, “Between Biography and Biology: Bios and Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus .”  We are to know ourselves not just as selves or souls but as end-directed lives , where knowing one’s “life” or “manner of life” includes knowing one’s political context and attitude toward truth. For all its complications, this chapter goes beyond its predecessors in dwelling on self-knowledge’s possible connection with our temporal extension, practical identity, and (thus) teleological narrative dimension. While not responding to the debate about “impersonal” vs. “idiosyncratic” selves ultimately to be known, it rightly asks us to think about the kinds of people we are who attribute to ourselves a “self”: people who live through time in patterned and more or less organized fashions.

8. Bell, “A Toil-Loving Soul.”  The good and self-knowing life is active and awake, principally in thinking about the virtues and oneself. A sententious and sometimes tendentious chapter (I doubt Plato’s predecessors so lauded sleep), it at least resonates with Brill’s paper, cheering lives lived actively. Yet I could not tell whether Bell believes self-knowledge achievable , even if through continuous activity.

9. Andy German, “Mathematical Self-Ignorance and Sophistry: Theodorus and Protagoras.”  Mathematics does not on its own improve one’s understanding of virtue. Paradoxically, in its prizing of clarity, it can seduce one into failing to see its inadequacy. This is a not unfamiliar lesson of the Theaetetus . We return, again, to the necessary normativity of self-knowledge: we must know what is good .

10. Marina McCoy, “Why is Knowledge of Ignorance Good?”  When aporia leads to recognition of one’s limitations, it can encourage the pursuit of knowledge, and it can lead to greater generosity with others. Yet, McCoy claims, pointing to the Meno , recognizing one’s ignorance does not always motivate inquiry. Obscured by much summary of dialogues is a good question: when does it so motivate? McCoy emphasizes the “affective” dimension, though I wonder whether, in conversation with the volume’s other authors, she would accept the language of “discovery (or obfuscation) of one’s deeper desires.”

11. Sanday, “Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Symposium .”  Recognition of limits and the affective recur here: “Through eros, human beings exceed the limit that defines them, and at the same time they become aware of being subject to that limit and learn to attend to it properly.” Because of erôs , talk of beauty may be called for: “Self-knowledge, or virtue simply, would consist of a life of sustained and appreciative letting-presence of the beautiful.” This is an edifying and provocative idea, bringing “beauty” onto the self-knowledge scene, even if Sanday does not connect it up with the concerns of his volume-companions. Yet the connections ought to be drawn out, since he believes, with nearly all of them, that “the question of self-knowledge is whether we are choosing our lives in light of ultimate reasons or causes, and thereby, living seriously.”

12. Danielle A. Layne, “Double Ignorance and the Perversion of Self-Knowledge.”  “Double ignorance,” by contrast with “recognized ignorance,” is failing to know what you fail to know, and this is a grave political danger. More intriguingly, the failure of love (of oneself and others) causes (and is caused by?) the failure of knowledge (of oneself and others).

13. Harold Tarrant, “ Philebus , Laws , and Self-Ignorance”  Plato’s concerns about self-knowledge changed across his career. The Philebus focuses only on self-ignorance; in the late dialogues generally “there is no real interest . . . in self-knowledge as a key to any of the virtues.” Earlier dialogues treat self-knowledge as “a deep awareness of the very core of our being or . . . the foundations for virtue.” Tarrant reasons at least from the Phaedrus , though the previous twelve chapters (etc.) give cause to qualify the contrast. Tarrant draws this distinction less to explicate any particular view than to show that the Alcibiades , as a “deeper truths” dialogue, would not be written late in Plato’s career (as Nicholas Denyer, in an influential commentary, has argued). He makes a similar claim about Alcibiades II .

Here I conclude. Despite all the editors’ talk of diverse approaches and the contributors’ ignorance of each other’s work, the chapters generally share important commitments: we should consider the self to be normative; distinguish the “object” of self-knowledge from that of other kinds of knowledge; treat humans as ideal epistemic agents and practical agents; foreground the concept of “one’s life”; and meditate on love and beauty.

A final and dour observation about the book’s production. The end matter has terribly many fundamental errors, indicating no editorial oversight. The main text should also have received (more) rigorous proofreading, with more than two dozen mistakes, often in the spelling of Greek words. The unprincipled toggling between Greek font and transliteration distracts.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Ignorance — A Study on the Truth Behind the Saying “Ignorance is Bliss”

A Study on The Truth Behind The Saying "Ignorance is Bliss"

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Published: Jan 4, 2019

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Works Cited

• Plato. (380 BCE). Republic (Book VII). (J. Harward, Trans.). Project Gutenberg. (Original work published in Greek)
• Palmer, D. (2011). Does the prisoner in Plato's Cave have a theory of forms? Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought, 28(1), 104-128.
• Descartes, R. (1641). Meditations on First Philosophy. (J. Cottingham, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published in French)
• Scruton, R. (2015). Plato's allegory of the cave. A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein, Routledge.
• Gill, M. L. (2017). The allegory of the cave. In R. E. Auxier & L. E. Hahn (Eds.), The philosophy of Thomas Reid (pp. 343-354). Routledge.
• Berman, D. (2019). Knowledge is power: The impact of information on society. Scientific American.
• Sartre, J. P. (1944). Existentialism is a humanism. (P. Mairet, Trans.). Methuen Publishing.
• Russell, B. (1912). The problems of philosophy. Williams and Norgate.
• McLeod, S. A. (2017). Skinner - Operant conditioning. Simply Psychology.
• Lao Tzu. (n.d.). Tao Te Ching. (J. Legge, Trans.). Sacred Texts. (Original work published in Chinese)

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Have you ever wanted to go exploring out in the wild all by yourself? If so you might want to change your mind. Based on Jon Krakauer’s novel, “Into the wild”, the author explores the life of a young man named Chris McCandless [...]

Swirlies, nugees, wet willies, wedgies. We’ve all heard of them and some of us have had the unfortunate luck of experiencing them. If you are like me, when I was a 12 year old in 6th grade it was common to see “locker vandalism” [...]

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