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Ignoramus. Philosophical Aphorisms and Agnoiologisms
Emil du Bois-Reymond introduced the Latin phrase Ignoramus et ignorabimus (“we do not know, and we will not know”) in his book The Seven Enigmas of the Universe. There, he argued that when human reason encounters the logical limits of thought, the fundamental problems governing the functioning of the universe prove to be insoluble. This… →
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Unthinkable World
This paper explores the universe through the lens of the philosophy of ignorance. It offers a social and cultural introspection grounded in the history of philosophy and science, drawing on the contributions of some of humanity’s greatest thinkers. Unlike other animals, human beings are acutely aware of their profound ignorance regarding the meaning of their… →
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The Ultimate Piece of the Universe
The Ultimate Piece of the Universe explores the underlying metaphysics of modern physics by weaving together literary imagination and scientific inquiry—bringing Jorge Luis Borges into dialogue with Albert Einstein, and Walt Whitman with Richard Dawkins. This unending quest for the universe’s missing piece leads us along a path where Stephen Hawking and his colleagues probe… →
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Phenomenological Agnoiology: A theory of ignorance
The term agnoiology, conceived as a General Theory of Ignorance, was coined by James Frederick Ferrier in Institutes of Metaphysic: The Theory of Knowing and Being (1854), a work to which we also owe the term epistemology. In what is commonly described as postmodernity, ignorance has once again become a central concern. It is therefore… →
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The Theory of difference: The eternal return of differences
The secret of life is that it has no single secret, but an infinity of them—each irreducibly different. The conjecture of an eternal return of differences draws on contemporary scientific visions of the cosmos, which reveal a universe in which everything is connected to everything else through an inextricable indeterminacy governed by “chance.” Chance, in… →
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Ignorance and metaphysics at the limits of Quantum Physics and infinitesimal calculus
Ignorance is not confined to religion or metaphysics; it is a pervasive feature of science itself, frequently likened to a bottomless pit. At the very core of Leibniz’s infinitesimal calculus lies a profound ignorance concerning the ultimate limits of reality—an encounter with a concept that is at once nonexistent and yet indispensable to our understanding… →
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The Meaning of Sense
It is necessary to ask whether the very notion of “sense” possesses any intrinsic meaning at all. As Emil Cioran once observed: “To wake up startled, wondering whether the word ‘sense’ has any meaning, and then to be astonished that one cannot fall back asleep.” →
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The ‘common sense’ and the meaning of ‘meaning’
Until now, we have persistently asked about the meaning of history and the role played by religious beliefs and ideologies in shaping it, within a world marked by constant change and evolution. With postmodernity, however, new intellectual and emotional frameworks for understanding the world, society, and even the meaning of life itself have emerged. Today… →
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The epistemology of Artificial Intelligence: An interview with six chatbots Artificial ignorance
This article examines the epistemological framework that emerges from an analysis of responses to a questionnaire administered to six publicly available AI chatbots, focusing on how these systems generate, justify, and structure knowledge in their interactions with users. →