Ignoramus et ignorabimus

Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896), promulgator of the maxim ignoramus et ignorabimus.

The Latin maxim ignoramus et ignorabimus, meaning "we do not know and will not know", stood for a position on the limits of scientific knowledge, in the thought of the nineteenth century. It was given credibility by Emil du Bois-Reymond, a German physiologist, in his Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens ("On the limits of our understanding of nature") of 1872.

Hilbert's reaction 1
Seven World Riddles 2
Sociological responses 3
See also 4
Notes 5

Hilbert's reaction

On the 8th of September 1930, the mathematician David Hilbert pronounced his disagreement in a celebrated address to the Society of German Scientists and Physicians, in Königsberg:^[1]

“

We must not believe those, who today, with philosophical bearing and deliberative tone, prophesy the fall of culture and accept the ignorabimus. For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be: Wir müssen wissen — wir werden wissen! ('We must know — we will know!')

”

Previously, at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900 in Paris he said: "In mathematics there is no ignorabimus."^[2]

Hilbert worked with other formalists to establish concrete foundations for mathematics in the early 20th century. However, Gödel's incompleteness theorems showed in 1931 that no finite system of axioms, if complex enough to express our usual arithmetic, could ever fulfill the goals of Hilbert's program, demonstrating many of Hilbert's aims impossible, and specifying limits on most axiomatic systems.

David Hilbert replied, Wir müssen wissen — wir werden wissen! (We must know — we will know!)

Seven World Riddles

Emil du Bois-Reymond used ignoramus et ignorabimus in discussing what he called seven "world riddles", in a famous 1880 speech before the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

He outlined seven "world riddles", of which three, he declared, neither science nor philosophy could ever explain, because they are "transcendent". Of the riddles, he considered the following transcendental and declared of them ignoramus et ignorabimus:^[3] "1. the ultimate nature of matter and force, 2. the origin of motion, ... 5. the origin of simple sensations, a quite transcendent question."

Sociological responses

The sociologist Wolf Lepenies has discussed the ignorabimus with a view that du Bois-Reymond was not really retreating in his claims for science and its reach:^[4]

— it is in fact an incredibly self-confident support for scientific hubris masked as modesty —

This is in a discussion of

Notes

^ Hilbert, David, audio address, transcription and English translation.
^
^ William E. Leverette Jr., E. L. Youmans' Crusade for Scientific Autonomy and Respectability, American Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Spring, 1965), pg. 21.
^

Philosophy of science

Concepts	Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction A priori and a posteriori Causality Commensurability Consilience Construct Creative synthesis Demarcation problem Empirical evidence Explanatory power Fact Falsifiability Feminist method Ignoramus et ignorabimus Inductive reasoning Intertheoretic reduction Inquiry Nature Objectivity Observation Paradigm Problem of induction Scientific law Scientific method Scientific revolution Scientific theory Testability Theory choice Theory-ladenness Underdetermination Unity of science

Metatheory of science	Coherentism Confirmation holism Constructive empiricism Constructive realism Constructivist epistemology Contextualism Conventionalism {Deductive-nomological model Hypothetico-deductive model Inductionism} Epistemological anarchism Fallibilism Foundationalism Instrumentalism Pragmatism Model-dependent realism Naturalism Physicalism Positivism-Reductionism-Determinism Rationalism / Empiricism Received view / Semantic view of theories Scientific realism / Anti-realism Scientific essentialism Scientific formalism Scientific skepticism Scientism Structuralism Uniformitarianism Vitalism

Philosophy of	Physics thermal and statistical Motion Chemistry Biology Environment Geography Social science Technology Engineering Artificial intelligence Computer science Information Mind Psychology Perception Space and time

Related topics	Alchemy Criticism of science Epistemology Faith and rationality History and philosophy of science History of science History of evolutionary thought Logic Metaphysics Pseudoscience Relationship between religion and science Rhetoric of science Sociology of scientific knowledge Sociology of scientific ignorance

Philosophers of science by era

Ancient	Plato Aristotle Stoicism Epicurians

Medieval	Averroes Avicenna Roger Bacon William of Ockham Hugh of Saint Victor Dominicus Gundissalinus Robert Kilwardby

Early modern	Francis Bacon Thomas Hobbes René Descartes Galileo Galilei Pierre Gassendi Isaac Newton David Hume

Late modern	Immanuel Kant Friedrich Schelling Auguste Comte William Whewell Wilhelm Windelband John Stuart Mill Herbert Spencer Pierre Duhem Henri Poincaré Wilhelm Wundt

Contemporary	Albert Einstein Bertrand Russell Alfred North Whitehead Rudolf Carnap W.V.O. Quine Bas van Fraassen Carl Gustav Hempel Charles Sanders Peirce Daniel Dennett Hans Reichenbach Ian Hacking Imre Lakatos Jürgen Habermas Karl Pearson Karl Popper Larry Laudan Michael Polanyi Otto Neurath Paul Feyerabend Thomas Kuhn

Ignoramus et ignorabimus