Ignorabimus
The ignorabimus, short for the Latin tag ignoramus et ignorabimus meaning 'we do not know and will not know', stood for a pessimistic (in one sense) position on the limits on scientific knowledge, in the thought of the nineteenth century. It was given currency by Emil du Bois-Reymond, a German physiologist, in his Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens of 1872. It generated continuing debate.
It still had resonance at the time of a celebrated radio broadcast, in 1930, by David Hilbert, declaring that the ignorabimus could be banished from mathematics, at least; a hope that was to be dashed by the work of Kurt Gödel only shortly later.
The sociologist Wolf Lepenies has discussed the ignorabimus in the context that du Bois-Reymond was not really pulling back so far, in his claims for science and its reach:
- it is in fact an incredibly self-confident support for scientific hubris masked as modesty (Between Literature and Science: the Rise of Sociology, p.272).
This is in discussion of Friedrich Wolters, one of the Stefan George circle (and indeed therefore in the direction that Hilbert was aiming). Lepenies comments that Wolters misunderstood, therefore, the actual degree of pessimism being expressed about science; but well understood the implication that scientists themselves could be trusted with self-criticism.
See also strong agnosticism.
External link
- The Ignorabimusstreit (German language)
- David Hilbert's 1930 radio address and English translation.