Philosophical Works of the Late James Frederick Ferrier/Institutes of Metaphysic (1875)/Section 2/Proposition 1
SECTION II.
THE AGNOIOLOGY, OR THEORY OF IGNORANCE
PROPOSITION I.
WHAT IGNORANCE IS.
DEMONSTRATION.
The deprivation of anything whose possession is consistent with the nature of the Being which wants it, is a defect. But ignorance is a deprivation of something which is consistent with the nature of intelligence: it is a deprivation of knowledge. Therefore ignorance is an intellectual defect, imperfection, privation, or shortcoming.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
Why this proposition is introduced.1. The demonstration, and even the enunciation, of so obvious a truism may appear superfluous. It is introduced, however, in order that the doctrine of ignorance may be cleared from the very beginning, and to obviate any complaint to which the subsequent propositions might be exposed on the ground that their data of proof had been left doubtful or unexpressed.
Novelty of the agnoiology.2. There have been many inquiries into the nature of knowledge: there has been no inquiry into the nature of ignorance. This section of the science has positively no forerunner; it is an entire novelty in philosophy—a circumstance which is mentioned merely to account for the fewness and brevity of the accompanying annotations. The agnoiology makes its way through a comparatively unencumbered field. There is something to pull down and something to build up; but the work both of demolition and of construction is much simpler than it was in the epistemology.
The agnoiology is indispensible3. This research, however, is indispensable. It is impossible to pass to the third section of the science except through the portals of this inquiry. For, suppose we were at once to carry forward the result of the epistemology into the ontology, and in answer to the question, What truly and absolutely is? were to reply, Objects plus a subject, the ego with some thing or thought present to it—this, and this alone, is what truly and absolutely is,—we should be instantly stopped by the rejoinder that this synthesis is, at best, merely the known absolute, merely the substantial in cognition. It does not follow, the objector would say, that this synthesis alone is true and absolute Being—that it is the only true substantial in existence. He would argue that what truly and absolutely exists may be something very different from this—may be matter per se or mind per se, or something else of which we can form no sort of conception, and to which we can attach no predicate;—in short, that it may be, and is, that of which we are profoundly ignorant.
The plea of our ignorance a bar to ontology4. This plea has hitherto operated as an insurmountable barrier to the advance of metaphysics into the region of ontology. The fact of our extreme ignorance being undeniable, and the science of absolute existence being apparently inaccessible except on the postulation of a universal and unlimited knowledge, the difficulty of reconciling these two apparent incompatibilities seems to have disconcerted every system hitherto propounded. Any reasoned ontological conclusion establishing what alone absolutely exists, is obviously impossible in a system which admits our ignorance without entering into any critical inquiry as to its nature; while, on the other hand, the ontology of a system which denies our ignorance, or passes it over sub silentio, must either rest upon a false ground, or upon no ground at all—on a false ground if our ignorance is denied—on no ground at all if it is not taken into account. In one or other of these predicaments all previous systems appear to be placed in reference to the problem of absolute existence; and hence a reasoned and systematic ontology has remained until this day a desideratum in speculative science, because a reasoned and systematic agnoiology has never yet been projected.
This obstacle can be removed only by an inquiry into the nature of ignorance.5. The only way in which a deliverance from this dilemma can be effected is, by admitting our ignorance to the full, and then by instituting a searching inquiry into its nature and character. Conceding, then, that the conclusion of the epistemology cannot at present, with any logical propriety, be given out as valid for the ontology, the system proceeds to this investigation, and dealing not with the abstract, but only, or chiefly, with the concrete, it goes on to consider and to point out what we are, and can be, and what we are not, and cannot be, ignorant of. It is conceived that the research, thus conducted, will result in an effectual clearance of the ground for the establishment of a demonstrated ontology.
First counter-proposition.6. First Counter-proposition.— There is no first counter-proposition. We shall come, indeed, by and by, to certain psychological doctrines which are defensible only on the ground that ignorance is no imperfection, and therefore a counter-proposition expressing this denial might, perhaps, have been introduced. But, inasmuch as this proposition has never been distinctly denied either by psychology or by ordinary thinking, no counter-proposition is placed in opposition to it. Its place, however, is marked, in order that the counter-propositions to which we are coming may be numbered, for convenience' sake, in accordance with their corresponding propositions.