Answer today, question in a month : the concept of negative knowledge and the place of questions in academic education

The author puts forward his own conceptualization of knowledge based on two independent pairs of concepts: positive vs. negative knowledge and knowledge vs. anti-knowledge. The suggested categories are mainly associated with declarative knowledge as that is the type of knowledge that dominates in academic education. There appears also a suggestion that the Copernicus-Gresham law refers to allocation of knowledge. The author assumes that the negative knowledge is expressed through ‘unanswered questions’, negated statements, paradoxes and statements that contain a considerable margin of uncertainty. In an attempt to name the place and role of questions in education, the author reaches the conclusion that on a macro scale the answers given precede in chronological order possible questions, even before the latter appear in student minds. In a certain way what is involved here is: (1) reversing of the chronological order on which the concept of problem teaching is based and (2) natural cognitive process in which questions that appear and cognitive dissonance that is experienced initiate, maintain and orientate further stages of the process.