Ignoramus et ignorabimus

[mklabgr]

Ignoramus et ignorabimus is a Latin phrase meaning “we do not know and we will not know.” It was popularized by German physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond in his 1872 lecture The Limits of Science. He argued that science has fundamental boundaries: some questions may be permanently beyond human understanding, particularly the ultimate nature of matter and energy, the origin of motion, and the nature of conscious sensation. He later presented these issues as part of his famous “seven world riddles,” distinguishing problems that science could investigate from those he considered fundamentally unknowable. 

The claim provoked a major philosophical and scientific debate. David Hilbert rejected this pessimistic view, famously declaring that “in mathematics there is no ignorabimus” and expressing confidence that human reasoning could eventually solve mathematical problems. However, Gödel's incompleteness theorems in 1931 demonstrated that sufficiently powerful formal mathematical systems necessarily contain statements that cannot be proved or disproved within those systems, giving a new and more nuanced meaning to the idea of limits to knowledge. The debate therefore became a central question in the philosophy of science: are there intrinsic limits to what humanity can know, or are today's unknowns merely problems awaiting better methods and deeper understanding? 

ARTICLE