| Title: | Knowledge avoidance – consistency, taxonomy, and etiology |
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| Authors: | ID Grušovnik, Tomaž (Author) |
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| Files: |  https://hrcak.srce.hr/en/clanak/480257
 RAZ_Grusovnik_Tomaz_2025.pdf (615,51 KB)
MD5: D077FE1D54C668120FA810EDCD0A26F2
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| Language: | English |
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| Work type: | Unknown |
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| Typology: | 1.01 - Original Scientific Article |
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| Organization: | PEF - Faculty of Education
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| Abstract: | Often, our reluctance to accept new ideas is the obstacle to advancing knowledge. This reluctance also plays an important role in unethical behavior. Yet, despite being widely recognized as a major factor in moral misconduct across the ethical spectrum, knowledge avoidance is plagued by a lack of clarity about the precise nature and characteristics of the epistemic phenomena it encompasses. First, these phenomena appear to be contradictory, since avoidance usually requires knowledge of what is to be avoided, and thus avoidance of knowledge seems impossible. Second, knowledge avoidance seems to be an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of different doxastic states. And third, the reasons and motivations for knowledge avoidance seem to encompass biological factors as well as ontological and psychological aspects. Drawing on both traditional and contemporary philosophical literature, the present paper aims to shed light on all these faces of knowledge avoidance by exploring problems related to its consistency, taxonomy, and etiology. The essay concludes with an examination of the moral dimensions of these phenomena. It explores the problem of responsibility and culpability, and even the potential benefits of knowledge avoidance. |
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| Keywords: | knowledge avoidance, willful ignorance, denialism, biased belief formation, culpability |
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| Publication date: | 11.06.2025 |
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| Year of publishing: | 2025 |
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| Number of pages: | Str. [115]-138 |
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| Numbering: | Vol. 40, No. |
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| PID: | 20.500.12556/RUP-21361  |
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| UDC: | 17.034 |
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| ISSN on article: | 1848-2317 |
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| DOI: | 10.21464/sp40107 |
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| COBISS.SI-ID: | 239412227 |
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| Publication date in RUP: | 16.06.2025 |
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| Views: | 743 |
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| Downloads: | 19 |
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| Metadata: |    |
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