Ignorantia non est argumentum
Ignorantia non est argumentum ( lat. Ignorance is no argument ) is a statement of the philosopher Spinoza in dispute with theologians who the determining cause of all phenomena and processes in the will of saw and these spearheaded as a single argument to explain the cause of all causes, as they knew no other cause.
This sentence was attributed to Spinoza by Friedrich Engels in the so-called Anti-Dühring ( Mr. Eugen Dühring's revolution in science ; Chapter IX). There it says:
To which we can only answer with Spinoza: Ignorantia non est argumentum, ignorance is no evidence.
Engels thus countered the obscurantist argument that one should believe on the basis of ignorance, and stated that ignorance is not an argument for God.
Karl Marx also alludes to this sentence, directed against vulgar economics , in Das Kapital , Volume I.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me20/me20_032.htm
- ↑ MEW 23: 325