Third party funded individual grant
Start date : 02.11.2022
End date : 04.11.2022
Website: https://limitsofknowledge.eu
The symposium examines ignorance as a strategic ploy linked to research ethics, specifically, the notion that knowledge should not be pursued at all cost. We explore what and how literary and cultural perspectives on the limits of knowledge and knowledge-production can contribute to public and scientific debates about the ethics of research. Patterns of these debates are recurring and – as narratives, metaphors, rhetorical figures – lend themselves to textual analysis. Furthermore, literary and cultural works explore those limits and thus participate in producing such narratives. They are not just mirroring but shaping public debate about scientific knowledge by negotiating the ethical limits imposed on – and transgressed by – scholarly research. We suggest that examining literary and cultural narratives alongside narratives in the realms of public and scientific debate may help to read and understand both, as well as prove productive for further developing an ethics of knowledge.