Editorial Reviews:

A wonderfully engaging and thoughtful treatment of a topic that one simply ought not to be ignorant of.

~Duncan Pritchard, Professor of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh; author of Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing

What do we need to know? What are our epistemic obligations as philosophers and as citizens? In this important book, Dan DeNicola charts varieties of ignorance—culpable ignorance, circumstantial ignorance, politically engineered ignorance, etc.—and explores their sources, consequences, and ethical import. This clearly, responsibly written multidisciplinary work should be mandatory reading for epistemologists and reflective citizens concerned about the range of our epistemic obligations—our moral duties of ‘due diligence.’

~Amelie Rorty, Visiting Professor, Tufts University; Lecturer, Harvard Medical School

It is an enjoyable read and points to a variety of historical and emerging areas of research in multiple domains... the text is accessible and addresses many very interesting and important topics in an interesting and often compelling way.

~Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

​

Do we even want to understand ignorance in these times? Does the ability to understand ignorance still matter when we are positively inundated with it from every direction? These are sincere questions that reasonable people may well have found themselves asking during the first Trump presidency when philosophy professor Daniel DeNicola’s systematic treatise on ignorance, Understanding Ignorance, was first published. Now that Americans are getting ready to do it all again with the returning Trump administration while watching the concurrent rise of xenophobic authoritarianism across the globe, it’s understandable to feel burned out on ignorance: tired of hearing it expressed, tired of seeing it in action, tired of trying to stem its seemingly irrepressible tide.

​

- Nate Schmidt, View Full Review

​

[A] breath of fresh air.... [A] lively, wide-ranging, yet systematic study of the inter-relationships between knowledge and ignorance and the agents involved with both.

~Choice