Haha you're quite right he is a shady person! He was secretary of defense to Bush Jr in the early 2000s. And he is being most unethical - he is trying to say that the army knew that Iraq had nuclear weapons, but that it was not yet proven, it was still an unknown, but one they 'knew' about (history proved that to be wrong).

While I agree with what you write, one of the most important things about knowledge is constructed. We're coming to a point where our reductionist ways of constructing knowledge are working against us. This includes the partitioning of how knowledge is built into neat disciplines with little cross-fertilisation. We lack the ability to bring different types of knowledge and build a more holistic picture of what we're dealing with (scientific propositions with ethical commitments, or economic knowledge with social understanding - in each case, the instrumental tendency of the former tends to prevail over the 'softer' knowledge of the latter). The way today's crises are so interwoven attests to how we've been missing the bigger picture, both individually and as a global society.

Luckily this is know becoming a known thing (haha) and interdisciplinary thought and practice is become more standard.

Just saw I hadn't followed you yet, done! :)