The Madness of Knowledge: On Wisdom, Ignorance and Fantasies of Knowing

Many human beings have considered the powers and the limits of human knowledge, but few have wondered about the power that the idea of knowledge has over us. Steven Connor’s The Madness of Knowledge is the first book to investigate this emotional inner life of knowledge—the lusts, fantasies, dreams, and fears that the idea of knowing provokes. There are in—depth discussions of the imperious will to know, of Freud’s epistemophilia (or love of knowledge), and the curiously insistent links bet...