Michael Smithson, The Australian National University
My interest in the unknown began when I was a mathematics
student, and morphed into a life-long obsession while I was
pursuing a PhD in sociology. These slides present a portal to my
work in this domain. If you follow their links, you’ll see how these
and other, apparently disparate, disciplines are intertwined when
it comes to the unknown.
This portal works by providing a series of connected assertions
containing links. Clicking on a link takes you to another page that
“unpacks” the word, phrase, or assertion covered by the link.
These additional pages also have links, taking you to articles,
books, extracts from books, or blog posts. They, in turn, take you
to still more sources, ideas, and works.
I hope that you can navigate and dwell in this domain at your
pleasure.
The topic of unknowns has no natural "home" in a single
discipline. Instead, it sprawls across a large range of disciplines
and domains.
Nonetheless, a productive starting-point for an overview of
unknowns is recognizing that unknowns are socially constructed.
In the past two decades, work has emerged on how unknowns
are socially constructed and why.
Unknowns are not all one thing. Several distinctions are
important, as are various metaphors.
There also is evidence that people think and act as if there are
different kinds of unknowns, and regard them as having different
consequences. Different unknowns also may carry different
moral statuses.
In Western culture (and others) there is a marked tendency to
regard unknowns negatively, as things to be rid of. This bias can
be mistaken and needlessly limiting.
Unknowns do not always have negative consequences for their
bearers. In fact, people can benefit from unknowns. They have
justifiable uses for them. Sometimes an ignoramus can even
outdo a know-it-all.
The topic of unknowns also is a crucial aspect of debates about
rationality. According to some, a hallmark of rationality is knowing
what you don't know.
Unknowns underpin important forms of social capital, so at the
socio-cultural level they can have benefits as well.
Therefore, coping, deciding and managing with unknowns does
not boil down to getting rid of them. Other more viable
approaches are available and being developed.
Thanks for taking a look! If you’re interested in the rest of my
academic work, you can find that here.
Well, that’s my work on unknowns over the past four decades, all
summed up in a couple of slides.
Michael Smithson, Research School of Psychology,
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
W: https://psychology.anu.edu.au/people/visiting/emeritus-professor-
mike-smithson#acton-tabs-link--tabs-0-middle-1
Email: Michael.Smithson@anu.edu.au
