2021Behavioral and Brain SciencesRequires access

Ignorance matters

Amanda Royka, Julian Jara‐Ettinger

Open publisher page 16 citations

Abstract

The ability to reason about ignorance is an important and often overlooked representational capacity. Phillips and colleagues assume that knowledge representations are inevitably accompanied by ignorance representations. We argue that this is not necessarily the case, as agents who can reason about knowledge often fail on ignorance tasks, suggesting that ignorance should be studied as a separate representational capacity.

About this research paper

What this paper is about

The ability to reason about ignorance is an important and often overlooked representational capacity. Phillips and colleagues assume that knowledge representations are inevitably accompanied by ignorance representations. We argue that this is not necessarily the case, as agents who can reason about knowledge often fail on ignorance tasks, suggesting that ignorance should be studied as a separate representational capacity.

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OpenAlex reports 16 citations for this work. Citation counts describe recorded attention and do not establish research quality.

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Available abstract

The ability to reason about ignorance is an important and often overlooked representational capacity. Phillips and colleagues assume that knowledge representations are inevitably accompanied by ignorance representations. We argue that this is not necessarily the case, as agents who can reason about knowledge often fail on ignorance tasks, suggesting that ignorance should be studied as a separate representational capacity.

Key concepts: Ignorance, Epistemology, Psychology, Philosophy

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