Erik Jensen
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Philosophy, Graduate Student
- University of Western Ontario, Philosophy, Graduate Studentadd
- Classics, Ancient Greek Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Intellectual History, and 13 moreAristotle, Virtue Ethics, Ancient Epistemology, German Idealism, Ancient social & political philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, American Intellectual History, American Philosophy, British Intellectual History, Plato, Aristotle's Metaphysics, Medieval and Renaissance History, and Early Renaissance British Historyedit
- My AOS is ancient philosophy, especially ancient epistemology and ethics. My AOCs include the history of western philosophy, contemporary epistemology and philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and logic.edit
Research Interests:
It is no exaggeration to say that John Dewey is the most historically important American philosopher and educational theorist, as well as an important figure in the history of psychology. His central concept of human nature as actively... more
It is no exaggeration to say that John Dewey is the most historically important American philosopher and educational theorist, as well as an important figure in the history of psychology. His central concept of human nature as actively engaged, biological and ecological, teleologically structured, socio-culturally constituted, and deeply technological is of broad and lasting importance. The goal of the Cambridge Companions to Philosophy series is to “serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists” as well as “to ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
One way to articulate the promise of interdisciplinary research is in terms of the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Disciplinary research yields deep knowledge of a circumscribed range of issues, but remains ignorant of those... more
One way to articulate the promise of interdisciplinary research is in terms of the relationship between knowledge and ignorance. Disciplinary research yields deep knowledge of a circumscribed range of issues, but remains ignorant of those issues that stretch outside its purview. Because complex problems such as climate change do not respect disciplinary boundaries, disciplinary research responses to such problems are limited and partial. Interdisciplinary research responses, by contrast, integrate disciplinary perspectives by combining knowledge about different issues and as a result reduce ignorance about more aspects of the problem. In this paper, we develop this idea and argue that while interdisciplinary research can help remediate damaging ignorance about complex problems, it also creates conditions in which other damaging forms of ignorance can arise. We illustrate this point in detail with three case studies before discussing three implications of our analysis for identifying and managing deleterious ignorance in the context of interdisciplinary research.