Topic
Forbidden knowledge
About: Forbidden knowledge is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 47 publications have been published within this topic receiving 849 citations.
Papers
More filters
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: Forbidden Knowledge as discussed by the authors explores the tragic arc of Western literatue and culture, exploring the notion of forbidden knowledge from the sexual innocence of Adam and Eve to the sexual excesses of the Marquis de Sade and beyond.
Abstract: Examining the meaning of moral responsibility in literature and in our everyday lives, Shattuck also suggests that we live in a violated world that dismisses taboos and fails to heed the wisdom of that which is sacred. Forbidden Knowledge is a scintillating work that does nothing less than trace the tragic arc of Western literatue and culture, exploring the notion of forbidden knowledge from the sexual innocence of Adam and Eve to the sexual excesses of the Marquis de Sade and beyond.
99 citations
82 citations
TL;DR: The rehabilitation of curiosity was a crucial element in the objectification of scientific knowledge and led to a gradual shift of focus away from the moral qualities of investigators and the propriety of particular objects of knowledge to specific procedures and methods.
Abstract: From the patristic period to the beginning of the seventeenth century curiosity was regarded as an intellectual vice. Curious individuals were considered to be proud and "puffed up," and the objects of their investigations were deemed illicit, dispute engendering, unknowable, or useless. Seventeenth-century projects for the advancement of learning had to distance themselves from curiosity and its dubious fruits or, alternatively, enhance the moral status of the curious sensibility. Francis Bacon's proposals for the instauration of knowledge were an integral part of a process by which curiosity underwent a remarkable transformation from vice to virtue over the course of the seventeenth century. The changing fortunes of this human propensity highlight the morally charged nature of early modem debates over the status of natural philosophy and the particular virtues required of its practitioners. The rehabilitation of curiosity was a crucial element in the objectification of scientific knowledge and led to a gradual shift of focus away from the moral qualities of investigators and the propriety of particular objects of knowledge to specific procedures and methods.
82 citations
TL;DR: Forbidden knowledge has been defined as a set of formal controls on what ought not be known as discussed by the authors, defined as knowledge considered to be too sensitive, dangerous, or taboo to produce.
Abstract: Sociologists, philosophers, and historians of science tend to focus their attention on the production of knowledge. More recently, scholars have begun to investigate more fully the structures and processes that impede the production of knowledge. This article draws on interviews conducted with 41 academic researchers to present a phenomenological examination of “forbidden knowledge”—a phrase that refers to knowledge considered too sensitive, dangerous, or taboo to produce. Forbidden knowledge has traditionally been understood as a set of formal controls on what ought not be known. We argue that the social processes that create forbidden knowledge are embedded in the everyday practices of working scientists. The narrative legacies of past controversies in science are of particular importance, as they serve as a tool that working scientists use to justify, construct, and hide their acceptance of forbidden knowledge. As a result, the precise contents of forbidden knowledge are fluid, fuzzy, essentially contested, specialty specific, locally created, and enforced.
72 citations