Over the years, I have occasionally taught a seminar for first-year students titled Secrets and Lies. During our discussions about the ethics of seeking, withholding, and revealing information, I became drawn to the epistemological issues, the ways in which we trade in knowing and not knowing within an epistemic community. Early thoughts about the multifaceted nature of ignorance coalesced in “Intimations of Ignorance,” a talk given to Gettysburg’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 2009. Later that year, I devoted a Senior Seminar to an exploration of the topic. I had intended to discuss ignorance in the book that became Learning to Flourish (2012), but soon realized it was too large, complex, and rich for anything but a peripheral inclusion. Ignorance required a front-and-center discussion. It took until 2015, and a sabbatical granted by Gettysburg College (for which I am thankful), before a first draft was completed.
Many of my intellectual debts are of course reflected in the bibliography, but some of the most significant are not. My home department, an exemplary epistemic community, has continually offered encouragement: I am grateful to my colleagues—Steve Gimbel, Gary Mullen, Lisa Portmess, Kerry Walters, Vernon Cisney, Paul Carrick, and Gary Ciocco—for their engagement with my preoccupation and for their thoughtful responses. At Lancaster University (UK), where I was a visiting scholar in 2012, I had numerous helpful conversations with faculty members and doctoral students. All were first rate, but I owe special thanks to Neil Manson for a memorable lunchtime discussion of “epistemic restraint.” I benefited from interchanges with many at both institutions who attended my research colloquia. There are also people with whom I had a quite brief conversation that proved significant—though they would not have known it then. I recalled with new resonance nearly forgotten interchanges about ignorance with mentors Israel Scheffler and John Rawls; though both are now gone, they have my gratitude. I thank Catherine Elgin and Amelie Rorty for their quick enthusiasm for my project; Timothy Williamson for his immediate, astute response to an out-of-the-blue email query; and Jennifer Logue and Tyson Lewis for sidebar discussions inspired by their conference papers. The anonymous reviewers engaged by the MIT Press improved this book—even when they differed. One later agreed to divulge his identity to give me access to his many perceptive annotations to the text: Michael McFall, I thank you. MIT’s editorial staff is excellent, especially Chris Eyer and Judith Feldmann, and the book simply would not have appeared without the steady support of Senior Acquisitions Editor Philip Laughlin.
It is my wonderfully good fortune to have, every day and always, the loving support of my wife, Sunni. I have regularly called upon her indulgence as a listener; her fine, editorial sense of the reader’s needs; and her tolerance of precarious piles of books. Grazie, luce del sole della mia vita.
An acknowledgment: the epigraph for part 2 is from “The Outcry,” a poem by Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi, as translated by Atef Ashaer, and is reprinted here with permission of Taylor & Francis. It appears on page 396 of Ashaer’s article, “Poetry and the Arab Spring,” in the Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring: Rethinking Democratization, edited by Larbi Sadiki (New York: Routledge, 2014), 392–407.
Four decisions shaped the writing of this book. I chose: (1) to attempt a comprehensive study that would examine many facets of ignorance; (2) to integrate perspectives drawn from contemporary studies in many disciplines; (3) to structure the discussion using four spatial metaphors for ignorance—place, boundary, limit, and horizon; and (4) to write a rather nontechnical, occasionally broad-brush text. (Even so, I am likely to try the patience of some readers.) The public importance and interdisciplinary nature of ignorance have led me to reach for a readership beyond epistemologists, beyond philosophers—beyond, but not without, I hope, for the issues and conclusions are also of philosophical relevance.
This book is about ignorance, but it is sure to exemplify it as well. If I knew the where or how, I would have made it better. But ignorance is both a charge and an excuse. To the former, I can only offer the latter—and the hope that it exemplifies understanding, as well.
Daniel R. DeNicola
Gettysburg, 2017