Isabel Ferreiro
“You ask certain questions—that is to say, you admit the possibility that you are unaware of them. That tiny pore of ignorance that you leave in the polished surface of your spirit will save you. Through it, a higher knowledge will seep in. Believe me: there is nothing more fruitful than self-aware ignorance. From Plato to the present day, the sharpest thinkers have found nothing better than the title the great Cusano gave to one of his books: De docta ignorantia” —Ortega wrote to a young Argentine studying philosophy in 1924.
From the very first day of this blog, we have seen that saving ourselves means saving our circumstance just as they are. And it so happens that the human condition inevitably entails not knowing. Admitting that I do not know is, therefore, what will save me.
One might say, “Man knows many things; he always holds no few truths and convictions. But it is precisely these that reveal his ignorance”. For what he knows places man, more than anything else, before what he does not know; it shows him the limitations of his knowledge: “He realizes that even those truths he already possesses, by the mere fact of being isolated, unconnected, and unarticulated with one another, are not fully truths. We are certain that 2 + 2 = 4, but we are not certain what numbers are, nor what that certainty regarding the sum of 2 and 2 consists of, nor what its limits and meaning are.” So “thinking one concept necessarily leads us to think another”; and another, and another. —Besides, the fact that 2 and 2 equal 4 helps us add up the grocery bill and little else, but that’s a topic for another day.
“Science circumscribes a miserable luminous patch amid the infinite obscurity of the unknown”. And, curiously, it is from this longing for light that our fascination with science arises —even if only over a miserable patch— even though those devoted to scientism often pride themselves on agnosticism: on speaking only of what they see and touch. And, to add to the paradox, by narrowing the field so much in order to have some light, only blind faith can be capable of ignoring the rest.
And the cost of blind faith is not realizing that I’m ignoring the rest, but believing that what I cannot see does not exist. And if I don’t see that I’m ignoring it, “a higher knowledge” cannot slip in.
Subjecting reality to certain parameters in order to arrive at something “indisputable”, even if only in theory and doesn’t amount to much in practice —where everything slips away—, gives us the feeling of knowing, of having insight. That’s why the sharp-witted Mafalda says: “One day I’m going to move to Theory, because in Theory everything is fine”.
One might say, then, that science’s achievements and advances for humanity are immense. And yes, although we would also have to examine them one by one, along with their consequences, to gain clarity on just how much progress we’re talking about.
It is certainly not a matter of denying the value of science, but rather of understanding its limits and scope. And the truth is that anything that results from narrowing one’s perspective cannot be truly important, despite what is commonly believed. In principle, living 300 years while chronically dependent on medication does not mean “living longer”, because living is not about preserving oneself, but about striving for fulfillment. “Prolonging life by reducing it to its bare minimum” is barely life at all.
Man once lived 5 years; later five hundred; just as they once traveled by donkey, now by plane, and tomorrow by rocket to see the moon; but this adds nothing to their consciousness, for they still fail to ask themselves, “What for?” Broadening our perspective —becoming more luminous— involves coming to terms with “the infinite darkness of the unknown,” not boarding a spaceship.
Man, says Ortega, has no nature but only history. Consequently, his view is filtered through limited beliefs or interpretations, insofar as they arise from a particular perspective—from a specific time and circumstance—and are therefore susceptible to being revised or called into question; as, in fact, history does—“at a cow’s slow pace”—displacing some and making way for others.
Thus, knowledge—including scientific knowledge—varies according to the era: according to circumstance. But we tend to forget what has been forgotten, and we take what is partial and provisional as though it were definitive truth.
However, while reality is in constant flux and we therefore cannot take anything as definitively certain, we do need to make use of the available solutions within our reach. For it is clear that a life without any support would not be possible; “the problem would begin upon waking with the natural morning appetite: ‘What should I have for breakfast?’” “And so, hour after hour throughout the day,” we would have to figure out every step, were it not for the immense repertoire of solutions that society provides us at every moment.
Man, then, both knows and does not know. Once again, Ortega leads us to the complexity of integrating both aspects. Thus, man—who does not arbitrarily amputate reality—finds himself in “what we might call the ‘state of insufficient truth.’” So, given this simultaneous knowing and not knowing—or limited knowing—how can one live coherently? Well, at first glance, it seems there is no choice but to accept it: to believe and disbelieve simultaneously, or at least to hold our beliefs more lightly in what one believes, knowing that what one believes or knows is not absolute, for “no human acquisition is firm.” And in doing so, to keep that pore open so that a higher knowledge may filter through.
Hence, the only true ideas are those of the castaways, and “whoever does not truly feel lost is inexorably lost; that is to say, they are never found,” completely lost in their apparent and more than limited sense of security.
To live consistently, in accordance with the circumstance, means to live with certainty within uncertainty. So as soon as I know something, I question it, to allow for a new version. This would be to live both humbly and confidently. Confidently because I will act and make decisions, in light of the circumstance, of what I know, of what I believe; and at the same time humbly because I acknowledge that I am missing pieces of the picture, that I have blind spots.
In this way, I remain online: porous, receptive, and ready to see something different at every moment, willing to have everything redefined over and over again, in harmony with the constant movement of life, in a state of perpetual renewal. Simply because “a truth, if it is not complete, is not something one can remain in”.
Texts cited: Introduction to the Current Problems of Philosophy (1916); “Renan”, in People, Works, Things (1916); “Letter to a Young Argentine Studying Philosophy” (1924), in The Spectator IV; The revolt of the Masses (1930); Principles of Metaphysics According to Vital Reason [1933–1934 Course]; Self-Absorption and Alteration (1939); Historical Reason [1940 Course]; Epilogue to Philosophy (1943).
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