Distinguishing Non-Knowledge

Abstract

Abstact: In the following essay, reference is made to the ambivalent position of non-knowledge between ensuring the production of scientific knowledge and risky decision-making. It will also be shown that this ambivalence is the result of system-internal operations and not of external facts, on which incomplete constructivism essentially depends. Finally, it is shown that the concept of risk marks the interface where modern society oscillates between experience (cognition) and action (risk) and that even this state is due to its own operations and not to an overall insight into some better option. Basically, the argument of this article demonstrates fundamental modes of framing uncertainty in modern society. Resume: L'auteur se penche sur la place ambivalente du non-savoir entre la production de connaissances scientifiques et la prise de decision a risque. Il montre que cette ambivalence est le resultat d'operations propres au systeme et non pas de facteurs externes -- d'un constructivisme inacheve . Il conclut que la notion de risque caracterise cette interface ou la societe moderne oscille entre l'experience (cognition) et l'action (risque); et que cette situation est le produit de fonctionnements internes plutot que d'une perception ou d'une representation d'ensemble d'options meilleures. En bref, le present article releve des modes d'apprehension de l'incertitude dans la societe d'aujourd'hui. 1. Knowledge and Consensus In the tradition of the sociology of knowledge, non-knowledge (equivalent: lack of knowledge, ignorance) is largely viewed as a kind of deviation from true knowledge, e.g. in the shape of interest-driven ideology. Behind this is the honourable assumption that social interaction is based on consensus, on shared knowledge (see critically Smithson 1985). Attempts to revise this naive position of a single true knowledge have remained half-hearted to the extent that they have retained the essential distinction between construction and reality, and thus the distinction between construed reality and non-construed reality. This distinction always leads to a devaluation of non-knowledge, since -- notwithstanding all kinds of qualification by the sociology of knowledge -- the quality of a comprehensible, knowable reality sui generis is pervasive. If then, neither true knowledge nor consensus can any longer be viewed as the foundation of social interaction, then non-knowledge cannot simply be implicitly devalued. It should rather be explicitly named and described.(1) This is possible if non-knowledge is (literally) regarded as the other side of knowledge, and thus as the other hall of a distinction. Non-knowledge can then be distinguished (from knowledge) and be -- independently -- labelled. Knowledge (or cognition) is fixed as a case of the application of observation operations, just as is the case in the perspective of action.(2) This suggests the operative relevance of non-knowledge not only for cognitive operations, but for the entirety of communicative operations, and thus also for social action: unity may be seen in risk, but precisely this assumes the difference between specific and unspecific non-knowledge. In specific non-knowledge (e.g. unknown ways of transmissibility of the BSE-agent related to knowledge on BSE-symptoms), we are dealing with a science which is operating along already known solutions which create new non-knowledge and thus cannot rid itself of the shadow of uncertainties. Unspecific non-knowledge (e.g. unknown ways of transmissibility of the BSE-agent related to perception of high risk or catastrophe) is the presupposition of actions or decisions, which exploit ignorance (March/Olsen 1995, 199ff). Ignorance is used for increased preparedness to take preventive action in the face of risk-aversion like import bans against British beef. Risk as a more or less calculated decision is a result of perceiving specific non-knowledge as a resource for risky action and less so for cognition. …