The Usefulness of Ignorance

Ignorance is an important driver in science, but researchers rarely write and speak about what they do not know. The “Lunch Lectures” at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), happening on nine different Thursdays, will address the topic of “Ignorance – Unknowingness, Unawareness and the Unknown” during the 2018 summer semester from the perspective of various academic disciplines and research cultures.  

On May 3, 2018, Prof. Dr. Matthias Groß from the Institute of Sociology at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig will begin the event series with his lecture, “Back to the Unknown: How Ignorance Can Be Useful.” Researchers are under constant pressure to make new discoveries and history. Groß proposes that the discussion of ignorance can be helpful – for example, to challenge the demand placed on science to constantly produce exact and precise answers and truths. The “Lunch Lectures” take place every Thursday from 12:15pm to 1pm in the Lecture Hall 1009, Collegiate Building I, Platz der Alten Synagoge, 79098 Freiburg. The free lectures, which will be held in English, are open to the general public.

The Lunch Lectures provide a space for reflection about knowledge, science and technology. They give students and all those interested an insight into the disciplines and research skills of the international and local scientists who are currently working as fellows at FRIAS.

Program information about the Lunch Lectures

Video-Podcasts from previous Lunch Lectures on the topic of “Ignorance”