BEING AND IGNORANCE

PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES OF IGNORANCE(II)

In the initial volume of this series of philosophical investigations into ignorance, an analysis was conducted of the interrelationship between ignorance and consciousness. In this subsequent volume, the focus shifts to an examination of ignorance within the context of historical developments in ontological and cosmological systems.
One might inquire whether it is feasible to conceptualize "objective" being in a manner that transcends the subject-object dichotomy, and instead contemplates the potential for "ignorance" to be expressed not in terms of consciousness, but rather in the behavior of being itself.
It can be argued that an analogy can be drawn between the process of knowledge established between a subject and an object, and even more abstract notions that encompass this process, such as the concepts of "relation" or "reflection."
This is the meaning of the second part of this text, "Being and Ignorance," in which I address the conjecture that the most obvious characteristic of that metaphysical reality to which we refer with the word "Being" would be ignorance. This second reflection, therefore, becomes a theory about what "not even God knows," about the antinomies and paralogisms analyzed by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason.
Knowledge may be defined as a "form of relation" between two entities (subject and object). One might even suggest that the object is "reflected" in the consciousness of the subject, thereby establishing a reciprocal relation between the two extremes. From this perspective, the capacity of any material entity to reflect itself, in accordance with principles such as action and reaction, can be regarded as a form of knowledge or recognition of another material element. According to this viewpoint, the knowledge of an individual (animal or human) about an object can be conceived of as a highly sophisticated capacity for "reflection" (more complex than the purely physical) of matter itself, organised into a subject.

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