As I’m reading through university IP policies, I’ve begun to notice how those drafting the policies are grappling with the unknown. There are a number of unknowns–many policies don’t evidence that the drafters know IP, and others work hard to reduce the complications of dealing with patent and copyright by conflating the two as “intellectual property” and those who do the work as “creators” or “originators”–anything but authors and inventors. These sorts of things do odd things to policy, by introducing new definitions distinct to the policy, and often with uncertain implications. In other words, by trying to “cover” things, policies may actually create new unknowns that exist only because the policy exists. Policy is itself a social creature, a real character on stage, not one that wears white, or a sash, and therefore is to be considered invisible, or the true relationships among things and people, made visible through the magical authority of policy drafters.
There are a variety of strategies to cover the unknown. The one that comes to mind for me is that of Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who opens his On the Division of Nature by dividing the world into the known and the unknown, and then starting with the unknown. This is so clever that the work was condemned by the Powers That Were, surely something that should endorse the work to us today. Continue reading →
