[Week XI] ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

“In expanding the field of knowledge, we but increase the horizon of ignorance (Henry Miller)“

A constant or rather an exponential growth of technology substantially increases the field of knowledge. The term global village itself shows how the current technology enables information revolves quickly around the world, as if America is just a neighbouring village of Indonesia. The essay will examine the effect of the swift expansion of field of knowledge to the horizon of ignorance and discuss the possible sources of the ignorance.

There are many values that classify knowledge, including the focus of study and the knowledge quality itself. It is very dependant on how far one can justify the knowledge or how critical the knowledge has been analyzed. Positively thinking, an expansion of the field of knowledge indicates the advancement of the world. However, to counterclaim, the expansion of the field of knowledge, especially the rapid rate of the growth considerably affects the quality of the knowledge, in such that the current society often find it hard to decide which knowledge should be believed. The ‘information overflow’ elevates negative issues such as the production of abundant false information, thus affect the reliability of the knowledge obtained. However, the horizon of ignorance is intangible and bears different categorizations which include the unintentional ignorance and the acknowledged ignorance.

The case of subliminal or unintentional ignorance can be illustrated through a figure of an expert. An expert, by the word itself, indicates that the person specializes in one small range of domain, yet he or she is capable of knowing the information within the domain deeply. However, an expert in most cases is completely oblivious to the knowledge outside one’s domain range. The unintended ignorance, correlated to the example of an expert, is a type of ignorance which apparently does not increase the level of ignorance of a person as he or she is completely unaware of the knowledge initially. Being unacknowledged of a certain fact in the first place can often comes from a number of factors, both internal and external. An internal factor includes the necessity of acknowledging the information, while the external factor, for instance, can take in a form of the working environment where one works. The requisition of certain knowledge varies from one to another, thus one often obtains knowledge which the subject prefers or needs. This eventually leads one into the state of being unintentionally ignorant. A person, being subjected to many limitations, especially time, often uses his or her reasoning and senses to deduce and decide which knowledge the subject should or should not be focused on. This eventually leads one into the state of being unintentionally ignorant. It does not increase the level of ignorance even though he or she is using senses and reasoning to ignore the unnecessary facts because basically, the subject, being constrained by many limitations, is simply trying to choose the best information perceived to expand his or her field of knowledge. The working environment or the surrounding where one lives is another big factor that directs one to the state of being unintentionally ignorant.

As compared to the subliminal ignorance, the acknowledged ignorance can be deciphered as a type of ignorance which results in the increase of the horizon of ignorance. Defining from the word acknowledged itself; one who is in the state of acknowledged ignorance has already known the truth, however, he or she does not give any reaction into the information obtained, no matter how biased or blurred the information is. The acknowledged ignorance is most likely to increase due to the rapid expansion of knowledge in the world. A person who has already have the knowledge that a certain issue is too biased or farfetched, often put small effort in giving more analysis of the knowledge obtained, and thus as a result, expanding knowledge, in the above case, increases the horizon of ignorance. The use of deductive logic is essential in many cases; however, overly-deducted information eventually degrades the reliability of the information. Knowledge, on the other hand, is the justified true belief, thus believing in an overly-deducted theory without involving enough justifications is actually another form of acknowledged ignorance.

In conclusion, expanding the field of knowledge often leads to the increase of horizon of ignorance when it is done without deeper attention on the knowledge obtained. It does increase the horizon of knowledge until the extent where one actually has acknowledged that the information is too vague, yet he or she does not dig deeper to analyze and justify the information further. The four ways of knowing, especially the sensual perception and reasoning are very essential in obtaining knowledge as far as reliability or the truth of knowledge is concerned.