Abstract

For the social sciences, non-knowledge has only recently become a subject of systematic reflection and conceptual work (see Gross 2010; Wehling 2006). Sociologists got interested in the issue when controversies over risk and ecological crises indicated particular limits of scientific knowledge. Consequently, an early debate on non-knowledge developed with close reference to the categories of risk and uncertainty (Collingridge 1980; Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993; Smithson 1985; Wynne 1992).