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'Non-knowledge' is a classical sociological term introduced into sociology most prominently by Georg Simmel. Dismissing classical sociological concepts as 'zombie categories', Ulrich Beck turned to non-knowledge relatively late in his career. This article argues provocatively that many of Beck's observations on issues ranging from the uninsurability of modern risks to the notion of risk itself would have greatly profited from being complemented or even substituted by a theory of not knowing. Viewed in this light, Beck's notion of risk no longer applies to the world he describes and thus has become one of his own zombie categories. The article then takes up some of Beck's unfinished attempts at conceptualizing the unknown and develops them further so that they might prove useful for security studies and related fields today. To illustrate this approach, the article uses examples of non-knowledge on matters ranging from potential terrorist attacks to issues of human health and security.

Bruno Latour once argued that science laboratories actively modify the wider society by displacing crucial actors outside the laboratory into the "field." This article turns this idea on its head by using the case of geothermal energy utilization to demonstrate that in many cases it is the experimental setup outside the laboratory that is there first, with the activities normally associated with a laboratory setting only being decided upon and implemented post hoc. As soon as the actors involved perceive unknowns and uncertainties, these are relocated to various kinds of closed laboratories to be dealt with in a more controlled environment. This is done, for instance, by inviting stakeholders to laboratory-like settings or by analyzing the geochemical composition of fluids in laboratories. Thus, the risk-laden production of new knowledge by means of real-world experimentation amounts to a practice of relocating the context of discovery in society to laboratories of justification sometimes defined as such post hoc. Experimental processes in society can then be conceptualized as "real" experiments and laboratory activities as merely temporarily subordinated components of the larger experiment.

AbstractIn addition to the four canonical gospels of theBible'sNewTestament, some so‐called apocryphal gospels have also been discovered to exist. Although the process by which the four gospels byMatthew,Mark,Luke, andJohn were determined to be the core gospels was completed by the late second centuryAD, it is generally held that the exclusion of other gospels was an incremental process that was finalized more than a century later. This article explores the inclusion and exclusion of texts in theNewTestament canon by reference to the sociological notion of ignorance, or "nonknowledge." It is argued that the strategic use of nonknowledge can be shown to have achieved an "unknowing" of things that had previously been known among the early Christian community. Underpinning this argument is the suggestion that at least part of the success ofChristianity during the first 100 to 200 yearsADwas due to many Christian women not only occupying a special position in their communities but also being seen as having been favored with knowledge aboutGod. Such women were subsequently marginalized and knowledge about their role suppressed. The article concludes by noting that the formal exercise of control over what ought (not) to be known is part of the normal process of establishing stability and order in a bounded institution. This in turn promises to deliver insights for the sociological analysis of historical cases in many other areas.

Although it is implicitly acknowledged that many aspects of contemporary geothermal energy utilization are shrouded in ignorance, this is rarely appreciated or in any way well communicated. Using Jules Verne's science fiction novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth as a means to highlight the inevitable normality of knowledge gaps and uncertainty, certain aspects are discussed that can be applied to communication strategies regarding the unknown in current geothermal energy utilization. This may be important given that risk assessments can often not be communicated meaningfully to citizens and decision makers.

Recent debates about the knowledge society have furthered awareness of the limits of knowing and, in turn, have fuelled sociological debates about the persistence and intensification of ignorance. In view of the ubiquity of the notion of ignorance, this paper focuses on Georg Simmel's insightful observations about Nichtwissen (nonknowledge) as the reverse side of knowledge. The paper seeks to relate the notion of nonknowledge to Simmel's conceptualization of objective and subjective culture. In Simmel's view, modern society produces cultural objects in order to satisfy individuals' inherent drive to become social beings. Ever more nonknowledge can be understood as an outcome of the growing difficulties in absorbing the achievement of objective culture into subjective culture. To illustrate the crucial importance of such a view of the unknown for today's debates on the knowledge society, the paper uses illustrative examples ranging from the strategic acknowledgement of nonknowledge in personal relationships to public encounters and the right not to know one's own genetic identity.

Abstract:
Redclift (2011) provided a timely and perhaps deliberately provocative overview of sociological writings on climate change and the disciplinary problems of a post carbon world for environmental sociology. This comment emphasizes that he never actually clarifies what exactly are those problems that sociology faces in its attempt to open up a space for itself in the field of climate research. This omission also leads to unnecessary claims regarding the state of social science research on climate change as well as unspecified calls for more interdisciplinarity in sociological analysis of contemporary societies' carbon dependence.