Epistemological and logical analysis of the notion of ignorance

• Grant number: 18/25501-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: May 01, 2019
• End date: April 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Logic
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Esteban Coniglio
• Grantee: Ekaterina Kubyshkina
• Host Institution: Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência (CLE). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project focuses on the epistemic notion of ignorance, a surprisingly neglected concept in contemporary logical and philosophical debate. From an epistemological perspective, there exist merely two approaches to the notion of ignorance: the Standard View and the New View. The former defines ignorance simply as `not knowing', while the latter defines it as the `absence of true belief'. However, both views lack a precise formal representation. From a logical perspective, the Logical View provides a logical characterization of ignorance understood as `not knowing whether'. However, this view lacks a perspicuous epistemological analysis. The first goal of the project is to fulfil these two lacunas by providing both a logical analysis of the Standard and the New View and an epistemological analysis of the Logical View. Methodologically, the project hinges on the hypothesis that ignorance can be analysed independently from knowledge. On this basis, we develop an original position dubbed the Ignorance-First View, wherein ignorance is a primitive and indefinable notion that can be used in the analysis of other epistemological concepts. The second goal of the project is to provide a logical and epistemological characterization of the Ignorance-First View and compare it with with the Standard, the New and the Logical View. The third and final goal of the project is to apply the results of our analysis to closely related areas of logic, namely (non-)consistency and (non-) contingency logics, dynamic epistemic logics, and proof theory. The overall outcome of our research will be a fully-fledged epistemological and logical framework for the notion of ignorance which, in turn, will allow a deeper understanding of the nature of this concept. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

GILBERT, DAVID; KUBYSHKINA, EKATERINA; PETROLO, MATTIA; VENTURI, GIORGIO. Logics of Ignorance and Being Wrong. LOGIC JOURNAL OF THE IGPL, v. N/A, p. 16-pg., 2021-07-19. (16/25891-3, 18/25501-6)

KUBYSHKINA, EKATERINA; PETROLO, MATTIA. A logic for factive ignorance. SYNTHESE, v. 198, n. 6, OCT 2019. (16/25891-3, 18/25501-6)