Пределы научного познания: Ignoramus et Ignorabimus

Maxim about limits of scientific knowledge

The Latin maxim ignoramus et ignorabimus, meaning "we do not know and will not know", represents the idea that scientific knowledge is limited. It was popularized by Emil du Bois Reymond, a German physiologist, in his 1872 address italic=no ("The Limits of Science").

Emil du Bois Reymond first used the words "Ignoramus" and "Ignorabimus" at the close of his keynote address to the 1872 Congress of German Scientists and Physicians. As he saw it, science was bounded by two limits: the ultimate nature of matter and the enigma of consciousness. Eight years later, in a speech before the Prussian Academy of Sciences, he expanded his list of conundrums to seven "world riddles" or "shortcomings" of science. Three of these he declared to be "transcendent", or permanently unknowable: "1. the ultimate nature of matter and energy, 2. the origin of motion, 5. the origin of simple sensations."

David Hilbert, a widely respected German mathematician, suggested that such a conceptualization of human knowledge was too pessimistic, and that by considering questions unsolvable we limit our understanding. In 1900, during an address to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, Hilbert suggested that answers to problems of mathematics are possible with human effort. He declared, "in mathematics there is no ignorabimus", and he worked with other formalists to establish foundations for mathematics during the early 20th century. On 8 September 1930, Hilbert elaborated his opinion in a celebrated address to the Society of German Scientists and Physicians, in Königsberg: As this excludes the possibility of an absolute proof of consistency, there must always remain an ineliminable degree of insecurity about the foundations of mathematics: we will never be capable of knowing, once and for all, with a certainty unimpeachable even by the most stout skepticism, that there is no contradiction in our basic theories. (Note that this does not mean that such skepticism is rational; it only means that it cannot be refuted with absolute rigour.)