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Two Influential Theories of Ignorance and Philosophy's Interests in Ignoring Them

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Sandra Harding
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Abstract

Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud provided powerful accounts of systematic interested ignorance. Fifty years ago, Anglo-American philosophies of science stigmatized Marx's and Freud's analyses as models of irrationality. They remain disvalued today, at a time when virtually all other humanities and social science disciplines have returned to extract valuable insights from them. Here the argument is that there are reasons distinctive to philosophy why such theories were especially disvalued then and why they remain so today. However, there are even better reasons today for philosophy to break from this history and find more fruitful ways to engage with systematic interested ignorance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 21 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance , Summer 2006 , pp. 20 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by Hypatia, Inc.

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