Åsa Wikforss: What Is Knowledge Resistance? - Lecture 9

The talk examines the concept of knowledge resistance from a philosophical point of view. Knowledge resistance involves ignorance, but not all ignorance involves knowledge resistance. While ordinary ignorance can be overcome by supplying information, evidence, it is distinctive of knowledge resistant ignorance that supplying information does not help since the evidence is resisted. At a first approximation, then, knowledge resistance involves resisting available evidence. However, this characterization needs to be unpacked to be of any use. How is the notion of resistance to be understood and which are the psychological mechanisms involved? To what extent does knowledge resistance involve irrationality? And what does it mean for evidence to be available? This podcast has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870883. The information and opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Commission.