"the assumption that such unified and absolute rendering of knowledge is a realistic goal. Any system of knowledge that claims to have reached completeness is clearly blind to how knowledge is acquired — a point I elaborate in The Island of Knowledge. As the 17th-century French philosopher Bernard de Fontenelle noted, all philosophy is the product of two things only: curiosity and shortsightedness. The acquisition of knowledge is by its very nature a branching phenomenon: As we know more, we realize there is more to know. (Marcelo Gleiser)

Term coined by Isaiah Berlin (?)