'Vhat'Ve
Can't

A Guide

J. Budzisze wski

WHAT WE CAN’T NOT KNOW

J. BUDZISZEWSKI

WHAT WE CAN’T
NOT KNOW
A Guide
Revised and Expanded Edition

IGNATIUS PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO

First edition published by
Spence Publishing Company, Dallas, Texas
©2003 by J. Budziszewski
All rights reserved

Cover illustration: Comstock/Fotosearch.com
Cover design by Sam Torode
©2004 Spence Publishing Company
Used by permission
Published in 2011 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
©2003, 2011 J. Budziszewski
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-58617-481-1
Library of Congress Control Number 2010927673
Printed in the United States of America

To my grandparents
Julian and Janina Budziszewski, long departed, not forgotten

The mind of man is the product of live Law; it thinks by law, it dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law, therefore, can it alone work to any result.
—George MacDonald

CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
A New Phase of an Old Tradition ix PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Whom This Book Is For xix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxiii INTRODUCTION
The Moral Common Ground
3
I
THE LOST WORLD
Things We Can’t Not Know
1
2 What It Is That We Can’t Not Know
3 Could We Get By Knowing Less?
II
EXPLAINING THE LOST WORLD
4 The First and Second Witnesses
5 The Third and Fourth Witnesses
6 Some Objections vii 19
29
54

83
93
116

viii

WHAT WE CAN’T NOT KNOW

III
HOW THE LOST WORLD WAS LOST
7 Denial
8 Eclipse

149
173

IV
RECOVERING THE LOST WORLD
9 The Public Relations of Moral Wrong
10 The Public Relations of Moral Right
11 Possible Futures

199
214
230

APPENDIX 1 appendix 2 appendix 3 appendix 4
Notes
Index

APPENDICES
Decalogue as a Summary of the Natural
The
Law
The Noahide Commandments as a Summary of the Natural Law
Isaiah, David, and Paul on the