Respectfully disagree with both of you.
Ignorance is a negative, it's the lack of knowledge, which approaches infinity in nearly all human subjects.
Stupidity is the straightforward lack of ability to think and reason and mentate. It is the thing that horses and dogs have, which flatworms lack from natural incapacity.
In people, well, it's grounds for institutionalization or eleemosynary care by significant others.
No arguments here--given that we are finite creatures living in a universe that is, if not infinite, certainly transfinite (that is, finite but, like, real, real big!)the amount of what we not only don't but can't know is close enough to infinite as makes no practical difference!
Stupidity is the straightforward lack of ability to think and reason and mentate. It is the thing that horses and dogs have, which flatworms lack from natural incapacity.
The second sentence here is a little unclear to me; is the thing which horses and dogs have stupidity or the ability to reason and think and mentate? I have encountered horses and dogs that have at least a fundamental ability to solve problems, which suggests some element of reasoning in their mental make-up. If they have it but don't bother to use the abilities they have, this would make them, in my view, stupid. Flatworms, lacking these abilities, could not be called stupid any more than a snail could be blamed for not being able to gallop or hunt. Boethius (author of The Consolation of Philosophy, a rather short but very smart little book written in the sixth century AD) says that the signature quality of humans that makes us human (since nearly every physical ability we have is equaled or surpassed by other animals) is the ability to reason and make moral choices, and that we are human only insofar as we use this ability. Humans can be stupid in a way that other animals cannot be, and certainly cannot be blamed for being.
In people, well, it's grounds for institutionalization or eleemosynary care by significant others.
Agreed, particularly if there is a constitutional inability to think or behave in human ways such as Boethius outlines. But when a person has the ability but steadfastly or lazily refuses to use it because there is something he wants more than the truth, or just cannot be bothered to make the effort, then it is (as I see it) a sin, a morally blameworthy act. And if it is blameworthy, it is correctable by the person himself,