Cabinet 65: Knowledge

The desire to know everything is old.

The sophist Hippias claimed to be able to lecture on any subject, but with modernity, this ancient desire took new forms. The Renaissance invented the encyclopedia. The modern state began to dream of knowing what every citizen does and says. Cabinet issue 65, with a special section on "Knowledge," includes Simon Critchley on Philip K. Dick's vision that a fish pendant had revealed all of knowledge to him; June Halloway on the paranoid knowledge of the modern state; and Cecilia Sjöholm on the relationship between naming and knowing. Elsewhere in the issue: Justin Patch on the history of music used in American presidential campaigns since the early days of the nation; Leif Weatherby on Soviet attempts to construct ternary, rather than binary, logic mechanisms in order to produce so-called Hegelian computing; and Luke Healey on Roland Barthes, professional wrestling and the nuances of "kayfabe," or admitted fakery.