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ERIC Number: EJ1299894
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Apr
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0309-8249
EISSN: N/A
"Learned Ignorance": Opposing the Scientificising Hegemony through Santos, Pope and Hamilton
Jessop, Ralph
Journal of Philosophy of Education, v55 n2 p409-421 Apr 2021
A major strand of opposition to the West's/Global North's scientificising hegemony has recently been retrieved through Santos' reinterpretation of Cusanus' 15th-century doctrine of learned ignorance. Though Cusanus has been marginalised, his doctrine imbues a profound epistemic humility conducive to our present need to reconfigure education. Contributing to this retrieval, I define "learned ignorance" as an epistemic principle of humility, adherence to which conduces towards reconditioning learning and teaching as non-finalised, processual activities within a genuinely intercultural pluriverse of knowledges. Agreeing with Santos' marginalisation thesis and his advocacy of recovering similarly silenced voices from within Western discourse, I argue that learned ignorance in some works of English literature and philosophy has also been marginalised. One of the most famous lines from Pope--'A little Learningis a dang'rous Thing'--has been widely misunderstood through failing to recognise the poem's learned ignorance elements. My reinterpretation of Pope suggests a possibly more extensive literary form of opposition to the scientificisation of knowledge. I also examine another marginalised, educationally significant retrieval of learned ignorance by Hamilton. His learned ignorance standpoint fundamentally opposes the scientificisation and instrumentalisation of knowledge and learning. The discussion identifies the counterhegemonic status of this epistemic principle of humility and intimates its paradigm-shifting opportunities through some brief closing suggestions concerning how learned ignorance enriches Freire's emphases on the importance of 'love, humility and faith' as essential to the 'horizontal relationship' between teacher and student of an educational dialogue founded on trust.
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A