The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of KnowledgeBill Vitek University Press of Kentucky, 1 may 2008 - 368 páginas Human dependence on technology has increased exponentially over the past several centuries, and so too has the notion that we can fix environmental problems with scientific applications. The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge proposes an alternative to this hubristic, shortsighted, and dangerous worldview. The contributors argue that uncritical faith in scientific knowledge has created many of the problems now threatening the planet and that our wholesale reliance on scientific progress is both untenable and myopic. Bill Vitek, Wes Jackson, and a diverse group of thinkers, including Wendell Berry, Anna Peterson, and Robert Root-Bernstein, offer profound arguments for the advantages of an ignorance-based worldview. Their essays explore this philosophy from numerous perspectives, including its origins, its essence, and how its implementation can preserve vital natural resources for posterity. All conclude that we must simply accept the proposition that our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge and always will. Rejecting the belief that science and technology are benignly at the service of society, the authors argue that recognizing ignorance might be the only path to reliable knowledge. They also uncover an interesting paradox: knowledge and insight accumulate fastest in the minds of those who hold an ignorance-based worldview, for by examining the alternatives to a technology-based culture, they expand their imaginations. Demonstrating that knowledge-based worldviews are more dangerous than useful, The Virtues of Ignorance looks closely at the relationship between the land and the future generations who will depend on it. The authors argue that we can never improve upon nature but that we can, by putting this new perspective to work in our professional and personal lives, live sustainably on Earth. |
Índice
1 | |
21 | |
The Way of Ignorance | 37 |
IgnoranceAn Inner Perspective | 51 |
Human Ignorance and the Limited Use of History | 59 |
Ignorance and KnowHow | 67 |
Optimizing Uncertainty | 81 |
Toward an Ecological Conversation | 101 |
The Path of Enlightened Ignorance | 189 |
Joyful Ignorance and the Civic Mind | 213 |
I Dont Know | 233 |
Lessons Learned from Ignorance | 251 |
Economics and the Promotion of IgnoranceSquared | 273 |
Educating for Ignorance | 293 |
Climate Change and the Limits of Knowledge | 307 |
Can We See with Fresh Eyes? | 323 |
Ignorance and Ethics | 119 |
Imposed Ignorance and Humble IgnoranceTwo Worldviews | 135 |
Battle for the Soul of Ignorance | 151 |
Choosing Ignorance within a Learning Universe | 165 |
Contributors | 335 |
341 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todo
The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of ... Bill Vitek,Wes Jackson Vista previa restringida - 2008 |
The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of ... Bill Vitek,Wes Jackson No hay ninguna vista previa disponible - 2010 |
The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of ... Wes Jackson No hay ninguna vista previa disponible - 2008 |
Términos y frases comunes
abstractions action agriculture Aldo Leopold Anabaptist animals Aristotle assumptions Bacon become behavior believe biodiversity biology boundaries carbon certainty civic claims climate change complex concepts context creative culture ecological economic economists ecosys ecosystems energy enlightened ignorance environment environmental Ernst Mayr essay ethics evolutionary example experience fact fuels fundamental future global H. S. M. Coxeter human humility igno ignorance-based worldview ignorance-squared increases individual interactions Isocrates kind knowl knowledge land limits living Matfield Green Mayr Medical Ignorance mind modern moral natural world neoclassical neoclassical economics never organic ourselves perspective philosophic physical Plato problem production questions recognize response reverence revolution rhetoric Robert Root-Bernstein Root-Bernstein Sand County Almanac scientific scientists sense social Socrates soil species sustainability teach theory things thought tion tradition understanding University Press Wendell Berry Whitehead Witte worldly York