True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant.

Taken at face value, Unamuno’s line frames “true science” not as a storehouse of certainties but as a disciplined attitude: the willingness to doubt and to recognize one’s ignorance. The paradox—science “teaches…to be ignorant”—points to intellectual humility as a core scientific virtue. For Unamuno, who often probed the tensions between reason, faith, and the human hunger for meaning, the remark can be read as a warning against dogmatism masquerading as knowledge. Scientific inquiry advances by questioning assumptions, treating conclusions as provisional, and keeping open the possibility of error; acknowledging ignorance is thus not failure but the starting condition for discovery.