The question

What is at stake in this chapter is my desire to understand and systematise the conditions for the spread and acceptance as well as the rejection of knowledge. The notion of knowledge is here taken in its broad and classical Platonian sense as justified true belief, still a workable definition. This implies a rejection of the relativist idea that conflicting truth holdings of the same phenomenon could coexist as different ‘knowledges’. Witchcraft cannot have both existed and not existed. It was as false an idea in the seventeenth century, when most people believed that it was real, as it is in retrospect today – or will remain from any vantage point in the future. Thus, knowledge is not just ‘whatever is taken to be knowledge in a given milieu or culture’.

The societal as well as the scientific significance of the question is obvious. Resistance to knowledge is as ever present in humankind as its restless quest for knowledge. To overcome such resistance is as pivotal for all science that intends to have an impact on society as it is for the destiny of humankind itself. Rejected or ignored knowledge, whatever its importance and quality, is of little use, and people making decisions on false grounds are potentially behaving contrary to their own interests and sometimes also contrary to the interests of humankind as a whole.

Is it possible to discern dissimilar or even contrasting intrinsic traits of knowledge that generally either invite its adoption or trigger its repulsion per se (i.e. irrespective of its specific cultural or historical context)? Self-evidently, counterintuitive knowledge is more difficult to assimilate than knowledge which suits people's preconceptions or ideological leanings. This is well known and may be covered by the psychological mechanism conventionally called ‘confirmation bias’. But could other such traits of knowledge be identified that affect its varying reception or impact? In addition, what is the significance in this respect of certain pivotal situations, such as certain societal atmospheres, certain human experiences or attitudes?