Genealogical Study of Ignorance in the Anglo-American Tradition
Abstract
Ignorance has tremendous impact on political stability, distribution of rights, and
theorization of social justice, yet it remains undertheorized. Focusing on the Anglo-
American political scene, I ask how contemporary ignorance differs from past renditions with respect to the parameters of what it can be used for in different political orders, the particular ways of challenging its operation, and the problems around it. To expand the understanding of ignorance, I apply the genealogical method Michel Foucault employed to expose that knowledge is a historical practice or a continuous struggle of imposing power that (re)produces itself. I argue that ignorance is not a pejorative condition, but a historical practice—practice of ignorance regardless of intention and not just narrowly the opposite of not knowing—affecting political order, and various strategies for contesting how it works become viable and impossible with changes in ignorance’s framework. Combining
analysis of historical and visual materials with textual analysis of the conception of
ignorance in the writings of King James I, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, and John Rawls, I find three significant historical shifts in ignorance’s framework: (1) the shift from ignorance’s unequal distribution that revolves around the royal prerogative to the equalization of the distribution under the rule of law; (2) the secularization of ignorance that disassociates it from sin; and (3) the shift from metaphysical framing of ignorance to economic framing with time or lack thereof at the core. The investigation contributes to the scholarship on each of the thinkers in focus by establishing the role that understanding of ignorance plays in their political theories. Just as importantly, the genealogical route enables me to lay out the contemporary alternative approaches to the operation of ignorance and call for more vigorous contestation of its operation for instance with respect
to how practices of ignorance play into institutional treatment of various parties or how governments practice ignorance towards actors’ financial activities.